July 29th - System Administrator Appreciation Day

System Administrator Appreciation Day - 6th Annual - Friday - July 29th, 2005

It's true! Here's the official site: http://www.sysadminday.com/

Microsoft targets midsize businesses

Interesting twist on the success of Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 which is for companies with less than 50 users.

Microsoft targets midsize businesses

By John Fontana Network World, 07/11/05

Microsoft last week put together a bundle of servers designed to help midsize companies replace aging software with a more secure and manageable infrastructure.

The company is bundling Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition, Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 Workgroup Edition and three copies of Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition into a single product. The offering signals Microsoft's intent to tailor its software for midsize companies, a segment of the corporate market that rival IBM is attacking but Microsoft has yet to serve specifically.

The new bundle is aimed at companies with more than 50 users that are growing, have small IT staffs, need to support branch offices and typically have aging systems such as Windows NT and Exchange 5.5 that Microsoft no longer supports. The bundle also is designed to run across three servers to create a core infrastructure with room to expand.
Full article.

Sasser worm creator found quilty

It certainly doesn't seem like a large enough sentence!... from networkingsmallbusiness.com

Worm creator found guilty
By Peter Sayer Network World, 07/11/05

A German teenager who confessed to creating the Sasser computer worm last week was found guilty of three counts of computer sabotage and four counts of data manipulation, and given a suspended sentence of 21 months.

Sven Jaschan, 19, was sentenced at the district court in Verden, Germany, the court said. Jaschan will be released on three years' probation. If he commits another crime during the probation period, he will be jailed at a juvenile detention center to serve the 21-month sentence.

In addition, Jaschan must perform 30 hours of community service in a home for the elderly or a hospital. Jaschan confessed to writing the Sasser worm after he was arrested in May 2004.The computer worm crashed hundreds of thousands of computers around the world last year by exploiting a flaw in a Windows software component called the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service.

Jaschan could face civil lawsuits brought by companies whose IT systems were infected by the computer worm.

Sayer is a correspondent with the IDG News Service

Gotta have, free stuff

Interestingly enough from washingtonpost.com. Of course there are tons more key sites but here's a few:

• Firefox Web browser: A free alternative to Internet Explorer available from the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation. http://www.mozilla.org/Windows
• XP Firewall: A free firewall built into Microsoft's Windows XP operating system.
• SpyBot Search and Destroy: A free program to remove spyware and other online pests. http://www.spybot.info/
• Ad-Aware SE Personal: A free program to remove ad software and other maladies.
• Picasa 2: A free photo organizing and editing program. http://www.picasa.com/
• iTunes: Apple Computer's free music software for organizing, playing and purchasing digital songs. http://www.apple.com/itunes
• Windows Media Player 10: Free music player from Microsoft Corp.
• Adobe Reader 7: Free program for viewing documents created in the Acrobat format. http://www.adobe.com/reader
• Flash Player: Free program from Macromedia that enables viewing of various online multimedia files.
• Kayak.com: A free comparison-shopping travel Web site. http://www.kayak.com/
• Answers.com: A free Web site that displays entries from more than 1,000 reference books and encyclopedias. http://www.answers.com/
• Half.com: Used books, CDs and video games for sale at this site owned by eBay. http://www.half.com/
• PriceGrabber.com: Web site for comparing prices from different retailers. http://www.pricegrabber.com/

Boondocks, for fun.

Google wins arbitration for "Typosquatter" Site

From washingtonpost.com

Watch Out For 'Typosquatter' Sites

Surely you've had this experience before: You mistype an Internet address in your Web browser, only to end up at a porn site or some random Web page that tries to install software or hijack your browser's settings.

Well, score one for Google. On Friday, the search-engine giant won an arbitration settlement against a Russian man who had registered Web sites that capitalized on numerous misspellings of the company's trademark name. Full news story.

Net Pioneer wants New Internet

From Wired online:

By Mark Baard

One of the fathers of the internet wants to be a daddy again. David Clark, who led the development of the internet in the 1970s, is working with the National Science Foundation on a plan for a whole new infrastructure to replace today's global network.

Read entire article.

Warning: Your clever little Blog could get you Fired

Warning: Your clever little blog could get you fired
By Stephanie Armour / USA TODAY

Like a growing number of employees, Peter Whitney decided to launch a blog on the Internet to chronicle his life, his friends and his job at a division of Wells Fargo.
Then he began taking jabs at a few people he worked with.
His blog at http://gravityspike.blogspot.com did find an audience: his bosses. In August 2004, the 27-year-old was fired from his job handling mail and the front desk, he says, after managers learned of his Web log, or blog.
His story is more than a cautionary tale. Full article here.