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Mac OS X 10.5 server gives us a glimpse into the not-so-distant future from Apple. Speaking of, have you heard about the new features of Mac OS X 10.5? Actually, neither have we - we haven’t heard a thing about Apple’s newest operating system, called ‘Leopard,” since the time of the World Wide Developer’s Conference in August of 2006. We’ll focus on some of the new features here - this server does more to satisfy business needs than the regular desktop operating system.

DESKTOP CAPABILITIES

Time Machine:

Apple already has Backup, but has gone one better with Time Machine. Initially it makes one complete backup of your system (on an external drive or network sharepoint) and then periodically backs up files that have changed. You can retrieve past versions of files or files you

Apple launched the iPhone on June 29, 2007. This introduction marked Apple’s entry into the wireless phone market, with a solution that is part telephone, part iPod, and part Internet communications device.

Although analysts might not agree on the market share that iPhone will command after its debut, they do agree that the buzz surrounding the product fuels consumer demand, and that these devices will eventually appear in the corporate environment. Business needs to be prepared when this happens, and now is the time - before iPhones start to appear at your business.

It is important that companies have stated policies for the use of new technologies at their business. Policies around remote access, client data, and data security should be clear and precise,and include any regulatory or legal requirements to which the company may be held. These policies should be communicated to staff regularly, and reviewed with new vendors who may come into contact with your information. If you don’t have existing corporate policies around new technology, it’s crucial that you define them before allowing new technologies in your network environment. Failure to do so may have serious consequence at your company.

With the iPhone in particular, it’s important to know a bit about the product before staff members start using it as a business tool. Firstly, understand that the iPhone is designed for consumers, not business-people. The design does not focus on productivity or security, and as a result, will have an effect on the security of the information that’s on it. There is no remote-wipe feature in the event of it being stolen, and it can’t be centrally de-activated or administered from your business location. Using the iPhone for corporate email communications can possibly impact the legal and regulatory guidelines for your company.

As the iPhone is not geared for productivity, its email functionality isn’t designed with a corporate email infrastructure in mind. At the current time, it doesn’t sync with Exchange, and there’s no enterprise email connectivity beyond POP3 and IMAP. The iPhone can view Word, Excel, and PDF docs, but cannot edit them.

Although it has the ability to sync contact and calendar data from Outlook, it must be physically connected to your computer in order to do so - there isn’t a contact or calendar data ‘push’ from Exchange or Outlook, as with the RIM Blackberry devices. Both Outlook Web Access and SharePoint can be used from the iPhone’s web interface. However, the extent of the functionality is currently unknown.

The iPhone will support web 2.0 applications if your company uses them. A number of web-based applications function on the iPhone unless they use Java or Flash for content. Additionally, if you’re using Apple’s Safari web browser, the iPhone can sync your bookmarks. Previews have not yet demonstrated a client for instant messaging such as Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger or Apple’s iChat. Still, the device does support SMS.

An important consideration is that AT&T is the sole service provider available for the iPhone, which has a reputation for bad coverage in some areas. Additionally, EDGE, AT&T’s standard Internet service, is slower than many other providers’ 3G networks. Future iPhone models will have the ability to use AT&T’s newer, faster data network, currently available in about a hundred and sixty cities.

Apple has a history of changing industry through innovation, and will continue within the handheld phone market. The features of the web browser, the touch-screen user interface, and integration of phone and data functionality is sure to raise the standards of all mobile phone manufacturing.

Clearly, Apple did not set out to create the best hand-held Exchange client in the world, or provide the best available features for integrating with a Windows network. However, they did aim to redefine just what a hand-head phone and Internet communicator can be - though aimed at consumers instead of business.

It’s quite likely that a few of your employees will purchase a personal iPhone, then ask you to help integrate it with the office network. You must understand the issues and make choices about how you’re willing to integrate this new technology with your network.

Tomorrow? Next week? Six months or next year? It’s eventually going to happen - your company will experience system data loss from an individual computer or server. The question is: are you prepared? American Data Recovery reports:

* In the US, companies lose more than twelve billion dollars a year due to data loss

* Seventy-eight percent of this loss is due to system or hardware failure

* Eleven percent is due to human error

* Sixty percent of businesses that lose their data will close within six months

Companies understand that they have to back-up their critical data, but they’re often unaware that bad configuration and maintenance, or procedures and policies that are incomplete can equate to massive costs in terms of both the time and expense required to recover lost data.

In a recent article, Johanna Ambrosio of IT http://World.com wrote, “I’d wager that most medium-size and smaller business do not do regular backups. All this is going to change in the next year or two. Given regulatory requirements, and the overall emphasis on security in our society as a whole, even the smallest businesses can no longer afford to ignore backup.”

When backing up and recovering data, here are four key points that businesses should consider:

1) What Should be Backed-Up?

Every company should start with the most important information. This usually includes such things as finance and accounting data, email correspondence, production and manufacturing, prospects and clients, human resources, plans for projects, drawings, artwork, and schematics. Data and documents stored on desktops or laptops are often neglected by many companies. You’ll need to determine what data your business needs to back-up by asking yourself, “If we had a disaster that destroyed everything, what information is critical to getting everything back up and running in the least amount of time?”

2) What Type of Data for Which Kind of Back-Up?

For backing up data and retrieving it from desktops and servers, there are many options. The type of back-up system you choose will depend on the type of data that you’re backing-up. If the information is static and changes rarely, such as schematics and artwork, archiving the info to DVD or CD could be the best solution. For other info that tends to change frequently, such as email, Word documents and spreadsheets, a better solution is tape backup. Incremental and full back-ups are possible with tape backups. This level of granularity lets data retrieval occur within a specific date range. Zip drives and other removable media are probably best left for desktop and laptop computers. The key here is that back-up be automatically scheduled - otherwise it simply won’t happen.

3) Restore the Back-Up and Verify/Test

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect in the backup process is verifying and testing, omitted due to the cost and time required. Below you will find some best practices for back-up solution processes:

* Weekly. Don’t just review the back-up logs. Go into a restore view to see the entire list of files to back-up to verify.

* Quarterly. Test your restoration efforts, starting with the most recent tape in the rotation. Examine at least three kinds of files, such as a Word file, an Excel speadsheet, and the admin mailbox. For each file you restore, select different dates.

* Annually. Ensure your back-up system is fool-proof by completing a full system restore to a blank hard drive or server.

4) How Can Recovery Disasters be Avoided?

Here are some pitfalls to avoid if you need to recover data after a disaster:

* Having no access to a compatible hard drive, tape drive, and cables if the server and tape drive are completely destroyed.

* Having no backup software, software keys or password to begin the data restoration.

* Using old, stretched tapes that aren’t writing data cleanly.

* Storing the tapes on-site at the business.

Any business back-up plan should be a part of a larger business continuity or disaster recovery plan.

Have you ever thought about the best ways to be negatively affected by a disaster, get hacked, or otherwise part with data stored on your computers? Here are some of the best ways to lose system security, in no particular order:

1) When an employee quits or is let go, leave his network log-ins and e-mail accounts enabled. You never know when he might want to check in on things.

2) Rely solely on technology. Firewalls, encryption and antivirus software are all you need to protect your information.

3) Completely outsource your information security initiatives. There’s no need for anyone inside your organization to worry about such matters.

4) Leave your operating systems and software applications with the default settings. System hardening is for the birds.

5) Don’t train your users on your security policies and what to look out for, such as unsolicited e-mail attachments and common hacker activities. Your users can’t be burdened with more training.

6) If you do happen to have a security policy, never refer to it, enforce it, update it or do what it says.

7) By all means, don’t take an inventory of your information systems or document your network.

Don’t pay attention to or even bother to understand what you’re trying to protect.

9) Don’t patch your software or update your virus signatures, and never, ever run vulnerability assessments to detect newly discovered software flaws and system misconfigurations. It’s just too time-consuming.

10) Respond to hacker attacks, viruses and other intrusions as they happen — don’t be proactive in dealing with them.

11) Ignore all known best practices and international information security standards from the International Standards Organization, Internet Engineering Task Force, SANS Institute and your local information security consultant, to name a few.

12) Leave your databases, especially those containing credit card or other confidential information, unencrypted. And be sure to store them on publicly accessible servers.

13) Run your business without disaster recovery and business continuity plans. After all, you can think clearly and make critical decisions under pressure, right?

14) Don’t monitor your systems. They’ll be fine running by themselves, and if anything major happens with the integrity or availability of your information, you’ll be notified automatically, won’t you?

15) Don’t back up your data, but if you must, don’t test your backups. Also, leave your backup media on-site — preferably sitting on top of an uninterruptible power supply.

16) Don’t create any security policies that document how you’re safeguarding your information to protect your organization and clients from information disasters and legal liabilities.

17) Apply the principle of greatest privilege. Give all users the greatest amount of access to your information systems. Everyone should have access to everything — it’s only fair, right?

18) Don’t subscribe to security bulletins and mailing lists, and don’t ever read information security trade magazines.

19) Don’t, under any circumstances, get upper management involved in information security initiatives. They’re business-focused and shouldn’t be bothered or even care about technology or the liabilities associated with their information, right?

20) Use passwords that consist of your pet’s name, your name, your mom’s maiden name, or your birthday. That way, you won’t forget them. Better yet, just use “password” for your passwords. Also, don’t forget to write them down and post them on your monitor or keyboard.

And, last but not least:

21) Leave your servers and network equipment in a room to which everyone, including outsiders off the street, has access.

By following these practices you can be sure that your computers will be an easy target for viruses, disgruntled employees, hackers, and others. You can show up to work each day with the pride of knowing that there’s an excellent chance that your business data will be missing when you arrive. It’s just a matter of time, and it’s all easily achieved.

Up until quite recently, a Macintosh user was able to remain mostly free from harmful worms and viruses on their computers. This is partially because of the fact that as Mac OS X is Unix-based, the operating system is relatively secure against such attacks. Another possible reason could have to do with the fact that Mac has had a smaller market share than its main competitor. However, this entire situation changed a bit on the 14th of February 2006, when a new virus was introduced that specifically targets Macintosh users.

A file, ‘latestpics.tgz,’ presents itself as a tar-shipped screen shot from Mac OS 10.5. This file first struck at a popular site for Mac-based rumors and info; visitors to the site quickly discovered that the file was a worm. Although this worm won’t cause any real damage to the Mac it strikes, it instead infects your list of buddies on iChat. This worm will affect Macintosh computers running OS X 10.4 or later on a Power PC machine (not Intel). Sophos and Symantec have started to respond to the problem, but there isn’t an easy workaround in place at the moment. An official security patch will probably be released by Apple, but in the meantime, users can add a folder with an action that will alert them if something has been added into the input management folder.

To activate, go to:

Library / InputManagers /

Then, right click (or control click) on the folder. Select *enable folder actions* if the folder is not yet enabled.

Right click or control click again on the same folder. Select *attach a folder action.* Then, select *add new item alert script* from the default folder, Folder Action Scripts.

When the task is completed, you will receive an alert the next time a file tries to place itself into the InputManagers folder.

REMEMBER: This is only a work-around, not a complete fix. If you have an antivirus program that does contain a real fix for the problem, you should use these sources to solve the problem rather than those listed above.

Here are some tips for gaining better security for your Macintosh:

1 - Run AV

2 - Require that your machine collect a password after waking from sleep or screen saver

Apple Menu > System Preferences > Security > Require Password

3 - Add an administration account in order to install software and complete other tasks. Have a non-admin account for regular use

Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts > Add Admin Account. Next, downgrade to *standard,* remember password, log out and in again

4 - Use secure passwords that use numbers, letters, and symbols. Turn off automatic-login

/ Applications / Utilities / Keychain Access - then click the *change keychain password dialogue.* Select password and enter the type and length in the assistant

5 - Enable the firewall and turn off unused sharing features

Apple Menu > System Preferences > Sharing Services. Uncheck those you don’t use.

Apple Menu > System Preferences

> Sharing > Firewall > Start!!

Following these tips can help keep your Mac more secure from viral attacks.

By performing periodic reviews in your email program, it is possible that you can help prevent false positives from infiltrating your spam filter. Those email addresses which are currently on your approved sender list won’t be flagged as spam when you begin to use Postini Email Protection. Although this is true, some unapproved senders are still able to send fake emails with phony sender addresses to get through the filter and put spam in your inboxes. You may be able to reduce the number of messages that get through the spam filters by checking your approved sender lists on a periodic basis - that is, from time to time, preferrably on a set maintainance schedule.

Here we offer some recommendations for Administrators of email mail servers. Following these steps can help administrators reduce the overall amount of spam which is received in their company accounts. In the end, spam contributes to a waste of time in a company, creating an environment where even valid emails are distrusted, breaking down the effectiveness of this important form of business communications. It’s also a major complaint among email users, so as an administrator, keeping company emails free of spam can really reflect well on your abilities and value as an Internet professional.

To change an organization in the approved senders list, first select the organization in the administration console. Then, in Org Management, click on the ‘Sender Lists’ to view the list of approved senders. Finally, select sender and click ‘remove’ to remove.

To view an individual user’s approved sender list, first find users in the administration console under ‘Users.’ Next, to view the user’s sender list, click ‘Sender Lists’ in the ‘User Overview’ page. Finally, select a sender and click ‘Remove’ to remove them from the list.

Now here are some recommendations for End Users, or other users who manage a single account or just a few. It involves going into the message center to add and subtract approved senders from your approved sender list. Most individual end users revere their email inbox as private space, and have a strong negative reaction to unsolicited email spam which is sent by fake senders. By following the tips below, you as an individual end user can reduce the amount of spam in your inbox, honing in on the signal and cutting out the noise, making email communications more effective to use. It involves saving senders in the sender list and deleting others. This will help reduce to senders to real people in your life who have real things to communicate about with you.

Using the Message Center, follow the steps below to better manage approved sender lists. Begin by logging in to the Message Center. Next, click ‘Junk Email Settings’ - top left corner. Then scroll down to ‘Sender Lists.’ Just add an email address or domain to add a sender and click ‘Save to List.’ The next step is to select a single sender and click ‘Delete from List’ to remove a sender. Finally, to add colleagues, friends and family to your approved sender list and their messages will get through.

Here are some tips for end users of Excel, both the 2003 and 2007 versions. In this article, you will learn how to print a portion of a spreadsheet, print column headings on each page, and change the default font - in both versions of the application.

Excel 2007 - Printing a Portion of a Spreadsheet.

First, select the cell range you would like to print. Then, under “Page Layout,” go to the print area icon; select “Set Print Area.” Next, print out the worksheet. Finally, select “Clear Print Area” and the entire worksheet will print next time (instead of just the selected area). There is also a section at the end of the article which describes the format painter.

Printing Column Headings on Each Page.

First, go to “Page Layout Menu” and click the “Print Titles” icon; then click the “Sheet” tab. Then, to print column headers on every page, enter the rows containing column labels under “Print titles” under “Rows to repeat.” When ready, click “Print.”

Changing the Default Font.

In Excel 2007, the default font and size is Calibri 11.

First, click “Microsoft Office” and then click “Excel Options.” When creating new workbooks in the “Popular” category, click the font you want to use in the “Use this font” box, then enter the font size you’d like to use in the “Font Size” box.

NOTE: you must restart Excel to use the new default selection, affecting only newly created workbooks.

Excel 2003 - Printing Part of a Spreadsheet.

To begin, select the cell range you’d like to print. For the next step, in the file menu, go to “Print Area.” Then click “Set Print Area.” After, print the worksheet. When saving, your print area is also saved.

Printing Column Headings on Each Page.

If you have spreadsheet data spanning several pages and want column headings on each, this will help:

First click “Page Setup” on file menu, then click the “Sheet” tab. Next, to print column labels on each page, enter the rows that contain column labels under “Print titles” in the “Rows to repeat at top box.” Finally, click “Print.”

Changing the Default Font

First, click “Options” on the “Tools” menu. Then click a font in the “Standard font” box on the “General” tab. Finally, click a font size in the “Size” box.

NOTE: You must restart Excel to begin using this new default font and font size. This new default will be effective for new workbooks you create

In the past, Macintosh users have been mostly spared from malicious worms and viruses. This is both because Mac OS X is fairly secure, as a UNIX application, and the fact that they have had smaller market share. On Valentine’s Day 2006 this changed a bit.

A ‘latestpics.tgz’ file which claims to be a tar-zipped screenshot package (from the Mac OS 10.5), was posted to a popular site of Mac Rumors. Visitors of this site discovered it was a worm rather quickly - it was fairly benign, in that it didn’t actually inflict damage on the machine, but rather infects your iChat list of buddies. This trojan only works on PowerPC-based Macs, not Intel machine. This only affects Macs of OS X 10.4 or after.

AV companies such as Sophos and Symantec have already responded, though there’s also a simple workaround to use. Apple will most likely have an official security patch for this problem by the time you read this. In the meanwhile, just add a folder action which will alert you if something has been added to your input manager folder - the worm will work on that piece of the operating system.

In order to activate the alert feature:

Go to –> Library/InputManagers/

Right click (or Ctrl click) on the folder. Select ‘enable folder actions’ if this is not already enabled.

Right click (or Ctrl click) on the folder another time. Select ‘attach a folder action.’ Select ‘add - new item alert script’ from the Folder Action Strips folder (default).

By doing this small task, you will be alerted if an item tries to insert itself like a trojan into your InputManagers folder.

NOTE: This is not a solution, but a workaround. If you have an antivirus program which has an actual fix, or if Apple provides a security update, we advise that you rely on these solutions instead of the above fix to solve the issue.

To secure your Mac, follow the tips below:

>> Run AV.

>> Make your computer ask for a password whenever waking from sleep or a screen saver.

Apple Menu > System Preferences > Security > Require password…

>> Use a non-administration account. Simply add an admin account for installing software and other tasks.

Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts > add admin account, then demote to standard. Log out and log in while remembering new password.

>> Use a good password which has numbers, letters and symbols in it. Disable auto-login.

/Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access, click on the key in the ‘change keychain password dialogue’ and select a password type & length in the assistant.

>> Disable unnecessary sharing; turn on firewall

Apple Menu, System Preferences, Sharing Services. Uncheck all those you don’t need.

Apple Menu, System Preferences, Sharing, Firewall, Start!

With these tips, you should be on your way to securing your Mac computer from this another other malicious virues, worms, and trojans. Remember, this is just a work-around; if there is another official fix from Apple, we recommend that you use this fix to help solve the problem.

Managing Data Centers

A typical data center or room full of servers should be built correctly and build to last for at least 7 to 10 years in order to be truly effective. These servers should have the capability of accommodating a minimum of ten GB (gigabits) of data. Still, with the growing demand on bandwidth, planning technology should prepare for a need of 100 GB to run efficiently. Another common concern is the need for cooling and power in the server room. For example, the IT staff at Google spends more on electricity for cooling their rooms every year than the cost of the servers within the data centers. Think about it.

Virtualization is another popular discussion topic. This term refers to hiding the characteristics of computing resources through encapsulation. This includes the process of making an individual physical resources appear to work like multiple logical resources. It can also include making many physical resources like storage devices or severs appear as a single resource. It’s important to understand how virualization can help: although it can reduce the physical amount of servers, it doesn’t mean that admin time to support them is also reduced. The costs of administration can truly hinder the entire process and the overall attempt to find a cost-saving strategy.

Services & Infrastructure

As with Data Center management, Infrastructure and Services’ virtualization has benefits which deserve a look. However, the experts will highlight the reality that it can also generate far more work, especially in large environments.

The solutions from appliances are returning as they create reliable, simple services which require little overhead, making them suited for an environment in which administrative support fetches a premium. A key point on this topic is that Asset Management Network Administrators must be aware while maintaining good records of each piece of equipment - not just the servers and workstations. It’s important to control this information for security and administrative purposes as well as lifecycle management and optimization.

Security

Many companies showed an interest in data security and compliance issues. The recommended advice seems to be ‘Defense in Depth.’ Perimeter defense systems which use Web Gateways and Unified Threat Management are available from a variety of companies and were discussed by several speakers. These systems monitored and blocked Web usage while defending against complex attacks using methods of prevention and detection. Network Access Control, or NAC, was a big hit at the conference. NAC disallows unauthorized access, either through wireless access points or the Ethernet. No security plan is complete without encryption. If a system is ever hacked and the info isn’t encrypted, the industry will show no tolerance for having practiced this unsafe strategy.

Collaboration & VoIP

While most everyone will agree that Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Collaboration technology are significant advantages to end users, the vendors and speakers both agree that there’s no real ‘one solution.’ The client’s needs need to match the features of the solution, no matter if it’s an IP PBX system, hosted solution, or a combination of the two. Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWF) was also demonstrated. Even though many office locations are wi-fi connected, there are some complexities and solution to make VoIP work on the these networks as well.

Mobility & Wireless

Many speakers and vendors discussed the access methods to gain corporate data from a mobile phone. Security methods including encryption, SSL, and others ensure that the data which flows between the wireless system and the headquarters is secure while in transit. In fact, nearly all companies are headed toward a more mobile workforce. This is not just the executive staff any longer, as there are more people telecommuters, field personnel and sales representatives who need to access information while away from the headquarters building in order to do their jobs well. The final point on Mobility and Wireless revolved around wireless access point placement architecture, particularly for campus locations. With the need for bandwidth and technological advances, there will be radical changes in the ways these networks are set up.