Microsoft Word security risk

Users of Microsoft Word are being urged to be careful as malicious hackers target the word processing software. Three unpatched bugs in Word have been uncovered in the last few weeks and two are already being exploited by attackers.

The loopholes being exploited allow attackers to create booby-trapped documents that steal information or take over a PC when they are opened. Microsoft has yet to release patches to fix the bugs in the Word software.

Information about the latest problem in Word was posted only a couple of days after Microsoft released its latest security update. Over the last year malicious hackers have taken to releasing code soon after the regularly-scheduled monthly Microsoft security update to give them the biggest chance to abuse it before a patch appears. So far the latest Word exploit, which revolves around the way the information describing formatting is handled, is only a proof-of-concept flaw but Symantec and McAfee have confirmed that it will work. Abusing the flaw could allow attackers to take over a PC or run malicious code on a compromised machine.

The latest flaw joins two others that Microsoft has acknowledged are already being exploited in attacks which it describes as "limited and targeted". To avoid falling victim it said: "users should always exercise extreme caution when opening unsolicited attachments from both known and unknown sources".

Malicious Word documents exploiting one bug discovered in early December are known to have been spammed out to firms in Asia. Together the three vulnerabilities are found in Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, Office 2003, Word Viewer 2003, Word 2004 for Mac, and Word v. X for Mac and Works 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Microsoft pointed out that to fall victim to the attacks users must receive and then open a booby-trapped Word document.

On its security blog Microsoft said it was actively investigating the three problems and would release patches when work was complete.

Windows XP keyboard shortcuts

We all tend to get rather attached to the mouse and forget that there are often quicker ways of doing things using the keyboard. Here are ten useful shortcuts:

1. Ctrl Alt Del (affectionately known at the "three-fingered salute") is a crucial shortcut to know as it's very useful when your PC locks up. Pressing the combination once (simultaneously) opens the Windows Task Manager. From within the Task Manager, you can force an exit from a crashed program, see a list of processes or applications running on your machine, check performance parameters such as how hard your CPU is working, or track your network usage.

2. Ctrl-S saves the file you're working on. Have you ever lost hours of work because you didn't save regularly? Hit Ctrl-S (simultaneously) to save - hit it early and often! Also Ctrl-O universally opens the File/Open window.

3. Ctrl-C copies text, files, or icons that you've highlighted, Ctrl-V pastes them, Ctrl-X cuts whatever you've highlighted out of the document (or folder, photo, movie clip etc) and Ctrl-A highlights the entire file you're working on or everything in a folder or on your desktop.

4. Alt Tab lets you switch on the fly between all your open windows. Press the combination once to switch to your last open window or multiple times to switch to any other open window.
Holding down Alt Tab will bring up a system window that shows you what applications are running and which one you're switching to.

5. Have you ever wondered why almost every Windows program has the F in File underlined, not to mention the E in Edit, and so on so forth across the top of the Window? Hit Alt and that letter to open that particular menu; you can either use the arrow keys to move around within that window, or look out for more underlined letters to use more Alt key combinations.

6. The Windows key (with the Windows logo on) R opens the Run dialog. From here, you can launch a command-line window by typing cmd, but you can do a lot more. You can, for example, paste in a folder path, such as C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\Expenses, and Windows will open it automatically. You can also use the Run dialog to open Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, or Notepad. Just type winword to launch Word, type excel to launch Excel, and notepad to launch Notepad.

7. Windows-E launches Windows Explorer, defaulting to My Computer.

8. F2 renames a selected file or folder. (This is so much easier than right-clicking!)

9. F3 launches Search if you're on the desktop or in a folder.

10. Windows-M minimizes all open windows, and Windows-D shows your desktop. Although these results look identical, they're slightly different: Windows-M minimizes all windows that support the command, while Windows-D simply raises the desktop to the top. Shift Windows-M will bring up the minimized windows, and Windows-D to drop your desktop back down again.

Hopefully you will be able to use some or all of these to speed things up.

Safer laptop batteries to be produced

Following on from the recent article about new safety standards for laptop batteries, one manufacturer has has announced its intention to produce safer batteries.

Read the full story here

Windows Vista considerations

While Windows Vista is now available for big businesses, organisations vary widely in their plans for adopting the new operating system. Some have plans to aggressively move to Vista, while others are taking more of a wait-and-see approach. Here are some things you need to consider before taking the plunge.

1. Is your hardware up to scratch?
2. Which edition(s) of Vista do you need?
3. Understand Vista licensing
4. What about application compatibility?
5. Assess the network infrastructure
6. Who needs Vista (and who doesn't)?
7. Are your users prepared?
8. Are support personnel ready?
9. Is your data safe?
10. What will it really cost?

More details on these will follow over the coming days.

Firefox or Internet Explorer?

While we wait for the full launch of Windows Vista, the web browser competition has hotted up with the recent release of Internet Explorer 7 and of Firefox 2.0.

Personally I have always had a preference for Firefox until now, principally because of its tabbed browsing facility. However the new version also offers built in anti-phishing, improvements to the tabbed browsing, better RSS handling, and a spell checker to help with webforms or other text entry. A big bonus is the "session restore" which remembers exactly what you were doing last time Firefox ran, including open browser tabs and in progress downloads: this can be a huge help if you suffer a system crash. All new features are listed here.

Whereas you can choose to download Firefox, anyone with automatic updates turned on will automatically download IE7. If you need to do it manually is can be found here. New features include tabbed browsing (at last!) shrinking a web page to fit a printer page,, and RSS support. One issue I have found so far is that in trying to configure a BT Home Hub router, IE7 just won't let you - something to do with the way it opens new windows - so I simply had to use Firefox (and although BT told me that wouldn't work, it did).

There are not the only browsers about, although IE accounts for about 81% of the market and Firefox for almost 14%.

Useful website

Found a really useful website (not technology focussed) while renewing car tax online of all things!

Take a look at www.direct.gov.uk/ for a wealth of information.

Outlook trivia

As we come up to the "silly season" how about a few bits of Outlook trivia:

The Calendar ends on August 31, 4500.

From the "Why on earth do you need this many?" department:

The Places bar in Office 2003 can hold at least 150 places.
Each folder can have 128 views.
You can add 50 additional mailboxes to an Exchange profile.

Disabled users let down by websites

According to a new poll, nearly all websites fail disabled users - in this case just three out of 100 met the minimum criteria for disabled access.

The poll was commissioned by the United Nations and undertaken by Nomensa, a UK-based accessibility agency. Although 100 is not a valid statistical sample, the results, if extrapolated across the entire universe of websites, should be of particular concern here in the UK where there is a legal requirement to make websites 'disabled-friendly' in accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act Part III. This came into effect as long ago as October 1999 so it is not a new concept.

The Disabilities Rights Council defines 'disabled-friendly' as provisions that make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way businesses and organisations provide services so that disabled people are not discriminated against.

Food for thought.

Do you backup your Outlook?

A free and not very prominent add in available from the Microsoft website here allows you to backup your Outlook data separately from any other backups you may do.

You can set a reminder which pops up when you exit Outlook (ok, so that's a bit irksome as the odds are you exit Outlook just before you turn the PC off....) and you can specify which files, including archives, you back up and where to.

Try it - it costs nothing. It won't suit everybody but it will probably be a whole lot more reliable than what a lot of people are using......

Remember too that your Outlook file is not by default stored in My Documents so merely backing up My Documents doesn't cover Outlook.

Laptop battery problems - safety standard to be created

Ironically the first reports of battery problems recently with the Dell/Apple/Fujitsu/Toshiba machines first started appearing on blogs. Since the middle of this year there has been uncertainty surrounding which laptops are "good" in terms of batteries.

However this should be alleviated by the creation of updated safety standards for laptop batteries within the next 12 months. The Portable Computer Battery Working Group was set up in November 2006 following this year's problems with batteries, sometimes resulting in explosions or fires. The scale of this problem should not be underestimated as over 10 million batteries have been recalled.

Specifically the recent problems affect Sony's lithium-ion batteries which are used in millions of computers worldwide. Analysts have speculated that the problems could cost Sony £260m to replace faulty batteries.

These problems have led to some airlines temporarily (we hope) banning the use of certain laptops on their planes, and who can blame them?

Analysts IDC claim consumers may be persuaded to switch brands because of the reported problems: 15% of corporate buyers and consumers surveyed said the reported problems had caused them to alter their buying plans.

Useful PowerPoint plug-in

Take a look at www.powerpressed.com for a useful little plug-in which compresses PowerPoint presentations.

McAfee announces updates to enterprise security tools

McAfee yesterday (December 4th) announced Total Protection for Enterprise 2.0, the latest version of the company's security products for business users. The update adds phishing protection to the Advanced edition and offers improved antivirus, antispyware and network access control features, according to McAfee.

The updated antivirus and antispyware components of McAfee Total Protection use behavioural technology to detect threats, going beyond the traditional database of signatures, McAfee claim. The security software also has capabilities to find rootkits, which can be used by hackers to hide their malicious code on a PC, the company said.

Manage your inbox with rules

Rules are a very handy way to manage your inbox. For example you can move less important e-mails automatically from the inbox to another folder (particularly useful if you are away as when you get back you can review your inbox and see only the most important ones).

In Outlook 2003 either go to Rules and Alerts on the Tools menu and click to create a new rule - this will take you though a wizard. Alternatively, right click on the e-mail to which you want to apply the rule, and select Create Rule. In the Create Rule box, click on the appropriate box in the top and bottom half of the dialogue box that describes the action you want to make, eg, e-mails “From David Gregory” “Move to e-mail folder”, then click on the Select Folder button and click on the folder name. Then click OK. If you want to run the rule to tidy up your inbox, tick the “Run this rule now” box.

To stop or delete the rule, pick Rules and Alerts from the Tools menu and from there pick the E-mail Rules tab and untick the box beside the rule and click OK.

It's amazing what you can do with your inbox in this way.

How to avoid spam filters and get your message across

Assuming you are sending legitimate marketing emails that follow the The EU Privacy and Electronics Communication Directive guidelines, the following tips can help:

• Use a relevant subject and from line. If your email looks as if it is trying to mislead, it could be construed as spam. The most straightforward from line is your brand name. The subject line should provide an accurate teaser or description of the content within the email. You should also include your physical address.
• When appropriate, disclose that your email is an advertisement or business solicitation in the body of your email. Be open and honest.
• Include a very clear and functional unsubscribe link. This has to be automated or the unsubscribe requests must be manually processed within ten days. You must also provide simple instructions on how to remove yourself from future mailings. Remember, once a user unsubscribes, not to mail them again.
• Ensure your emails are technically well constructed, so that they can be readily identified as not being spam. The quality of spam emails is often poor.
• Do not use excessive spacing or capitalisation on your subject.
• Do not use invisible text within HTML emails. Make sure your text colours and sizes are distinct. Invisible text is often identified as a sign of spam.
• Be careful where you advertise and which advertisements you carry in your email. If you advertise with companies that send out spam, or if you carry advertisements for those who spam, your domains will be flagged as being related.
• Test emails before you send them. Set up a couple of free web mail accounts and send a test message to those before sending it out to subscribers, to see if they get blocked, or put into junk folders. You can also check your potential spam score, using the free tool at: www.lyris.com/resources/contentchecker/

File synchronising - what do you do?

How do you manage your data files across PCs? Do you email yourself the files you will need so you have them on your laptop? Then find you forgot one but you don't find out until you're on the road?

And what about any emails you deal with in Outlook on your laptop while you're out of the office.....how do you ensure that copies find their way onto your desktop PC?

Take a look at www.beinsync.com for a low cost effective solution for this. It doesn't involve your data sitting on a third party server somewhere.....it simply synchronises between up to five PCs per licence.

I'm currently trialling it (there is a free 31 day trial) and have to say so far it's great - anyone else used it?

Excellent website.......

Take a look at http://www.getsafeonline.org/ It's a great site.

Protect your identity

These days much is written about "identity theft" and this can take many forms. Not all related to technology, and some examples are:

• Setting up a merchant account in your company's name, then accepting lots of purchases using stolen credit cards and depositing the receipts in the criminals' bank account. By the time people complain and the credit card company comes to you for the charge backs, the thieves have disappeared.
• Rifling through rubbish bins to get employee names, bank account details and other sensitive information.
• Ordering goods from your ecommerce site with stolen credit cards or by telephone with bogus account details.
• Scams and phishing attacks designed to get access to the company's online banking details.
• Register a website domain similar to yours to capture some of your traffic. For a long time, a well-known London theatre's website had an evil twin. Add a .co.uk suffix to the address and you got the theatre, add .com and you got a hardcore porn site
• Hacking your website so it presents bogus or damaging information or hijacking it altogether to distribute porn (leaving you with the excess data charges)
• By filing bogus returns to Companies House it is possible to change your registered address and appoint new directors. This will let a fraudster perfect the illusion that he or she runs your business.
• Infiltrating employees to steal passes, passwords and private information.

There are plenty of simple, and usually cost-free, ways to defend yourself:

• Check your website, email and Companies House records on a regular basis. Also, reconcile bank statements and company credit card statements meticulously.
• Make it easy for staff, customers and suppliers to report anything unusual. For example have an email link on your website.
• Train employees and, as far as possible, customers to avoid phishing scams.
• Track registrations of new domains that are similar to yours. Consider registering common misspellings and variations of your company name.
• Take care of the papers you throw out. Shred anything sensitive.
• Set strict guidelines for staff about who can order things on behalf of the company and what information staff can give out to strangers (however plausible their story).
• As ever, make sure your computer security is sound: use antivirus software, firewalls, regular updates and strong passwords. This will protect against many online threats.

Stay safe.

Word documents: keeping track...

How often do you find yourself working on a document where you send it out to one or more people for their input, and it goes through several iterations before becoming a final agreed document?

And what do you do to control the document? Save each changed version as "original name Version x.doc" and start using many times more disk space than you need? Then you get to the final document and decide you can dispense with all the drafts..........only to find a query arises months later over who changed what, and at which stage. Sound familiar?

Well one of the little known features within Microsoft Word is versioning: if you want a record of changes made to a document, you can save multiple versions of a document within the same document. You also save disk space because only the differences between versions are saved, not an entire copy of each version. Once you've saved several versions of the document, you can go back and review, open, print, and delete earlier versions.

How do you do it? On the menu go to file--->versions.

Manually Any time you want to save a "snapshot" of a document in its current state, you can save a version of the document. For example, you might save the version you've sent to review, and after you've incorporated review changes, save another version.

Automatically You can have Word automatically save a version of your document each time the document is closed. This is useful when you need a record of who made changes and when — for example, in the case of a legal document.

Once you've saved multiple versions of a document in one file, there are two instances in which you will want to save a specific version as a separate file:

1) If the document you're sending to review contains several versions, and you want to make sure that you're sending only the most recent version or the specific version you want. This will prevent viewers from opening earlier versions of the document.

2) If you want to compare an earlier version of the document with the current version of the document. You can use the Compare and Merge Documents command on the Tools menu to compare separate files.

Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft has admitted it might be a challenge to convince some consumers to buy its new version of Office. Office, the world's most popular productivity suite, includes Word, Excel, Outlook and other tools.

"One of the biggest challenges... is to fight that perception that old versions of software are good enough," said Microsoft's Chris Capossela. Office 2007 goes on sale to business on 30 November, the same date new operating system Vista is launched. Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 - the software doesn't really expire, " said Mr Capossela, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Business Division.

Many large businesses will have Office 2007 delivered as part of existing IT contracts but small business and individual consumers will need persuading to make the change.

Read the full story here

Spam goes crazy.........

Have you been hit by a barrage of spam over the last few weeks? There has been a dramatic increase since September 2006. You can find out what's going on and learn about the state of the current threat landscape from a regular report issued by Messagelabs. If you'd like a copy of the October report, email me and I'll ensure you get one.

FACT: In October 2006 the global ratio of spam was 72.9%, an increase of 8.5% on the previous month.

How do you use Powerpoint?

Many people who use Powerpoint for making presentations on a large screen are not aware of the "presenter view" which is available. You will need to set your laptop up in dual monitor mode with the extended desktop option (by changing the graphics settings) and then within Powerpoint by selecting slide show then setup. You can then select presenter view under the multiple monitor section.

So what's the big deal about this? What it gives you is a different screen on your laptop - instead of showing the normal slideshow that your audience are seeing on the big screen you get to see the current slide, your speaker notes underneath, the slides vertically down the left side (so you can skip or move about easily within the slideshow) along with large icons for going to black screen, ending the slideshow etc.

For me the big advantage is having the speaker notes on screen, so you don't need to to have any paper to refer to - and if you find yourself running out of time it's easy to skip a section without your audience noticing......although of course if you have rehearsed you won't be short of time.

Concerned about uncontrolled email and web use in your business?

Are you concerned about the uncontrolled email and web use within your business? The ePolicy Institute and MessageLabs have combined to bring you this FREE best practice guide to implementing and enforcing email and web acceptable usage.

Ensure your email and web acceptable usage policies are up to date. Learn how to effectively enforce your policies.

If you would like a copy of this valuable document, email me and I'll send you a copy.

What was I saying about backing up?........

Following on from my earlier warning about the need to backup data, Concerto Networks partner Ontrack has published an interesting list of the top ten data disasters of 2006. Obviously the actual disasters were extreme but Ontrack managed to recover the data.

Read the full list of disasters here - and don't let it happen to you!

Free broadband users less happy........

"Free" broadband deals have resulted in a downturn in customer satisfaction levels, a report has said.

According to the uSwitch Customer Satisfaction Report, most providers fail to match rising customer numbers with improved services and technology.

The survey of more than 11,000 customers found a 9% drop in broadband satisfaction levels. The report also says consumer trust in their internet suppliers is currently at an "all time low".

This serves as a reminder to those business owners who may work from home on a regular basis to ensure that they have a reliable provider of internet services; consideration should be given to having a business (as opposed to residential) internet service because of the additional services levels which may be provided.


Read the full article here

What would you do if you lost all your data?

Are you confident that if your hard drive fails you will be able to get your data back? Many people do not back up regularly and leave their business in serious danger. There are ways of getting data back in such circumstances (such as using our partner Ontrack Data Recovery) but these are often an expensive option.

It is far better to perform and test regular backups so that you can restore data easily should there be a problem. Solutions include backing up to an external drive, such as a USB hard drive or even memory stick (for small amounts of data) or backing up to a secure remote location using your internet connection. These often cost less than expected but more significantly should be regarded as part of your overall business insurance.

What does your email say about you?

As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. That's true in social settings and it is very crucial for business. Your email address can tell your customers something about your business. Essentially your email address is also a billboard to the outside world just like the sign on your front door. Are you taking advantage of the opportunity to advertise your company name and show your contacts that you are a reputable business? If you are a home based business, the outside world doesn't need to know you use AOL, BT or your local internet provider for connectivity; you can still portray the image of a larger company. Here is a very simple solution to make it easier for your customers to recognize and remember your email address.

First take a look at your company name and what you do. Now look at the email address on your business card. Does it say anything about your business, services or products that you provide? The first response that we often hear is that it is too expensive. That is just not true. First you need a "domain", such as "yourbusinessname.co.uk". You can register a domain for only a few pounds a year.

People often then have the impression that it is expensive to get "hosting", and put up a web page. Actually this service to provide hosting for your domain and a small web page is very low, so a simple domain and small website can be done very affordably.

Now you will probably ask, "How much does it cost to develop a web site?" The cost and development will depend on your objectives and what you need. Web sites can be as simple as a resume saved as a web page in Microsoft Word. There are even basic templates available as well to give you a site for presence until you are ready to elevate to something more elaborate.

Your website gives your customers insight into your business, or even just to find you in the first place. Think of it as a minimum as your online business card and informational brochure. In addition it will make it easier for you customers to remember YOUR email address when they need you.

Take a look at Simple Office Hosting