Security Update for Exchange 5.5 (Oct 22)
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to run programs and access data on a computer running Microsoft® Exchange Server 5.5 Outlook® Web Access. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft.
Read: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-047
Download: Security Update for Exchange 5.5 (KB828489) (English)
Download: Security Update for Exchange 5.5 (KB828489) (different language)
How To Manage General Information For Multiple Contacts (Oct 22)
Creating contacts is easy and before you know it you’ve got several dozen, hundreds of them in your Contacts folder. It is very likely that some of them have relations with one another like the same company. If you want to store company info with the contacts you just don’t want to open every contact and add the same information to it. Even worse; do you want to change the address for every contact when the company relocates? I know I wouldn’t!
The following method describes an easy way to manage general information for contacts that are linked with one another in some way.
View: How To Manage General Information For Multiple Contacts
No Final Rights-Management Support for Office 2003 — Yet (Oct 22)
Users who are counting on locking down document permissions via Office will have to work with beta RMS components for now.
When Microsoft officially takes the wraps off its Office System 2003 family on Tuesday morning, the company will be launching six different versions of its desktop suite, four new Office System servers and one service (its Live Meeting Web conferencing offering).
But there will be one offering missing from its line up: Its Windows Rights Management Services solution.
Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) —and its Office implementation, known as Information Rights Management — is the technology that Microsoft has developed to increase user control over documents and data. While RMS is technically a member of the Windows Server 2003 System family, not the Office System, it is via Office 2003 that most users will get their first taste of RMS.
Microsoft has been talking up its rights-management plans since earlier this spring. But the final RMS products just missed the cut-off date to be part of the Office System launch, say sources.
The RMS client has been available for download from Microsoft’s Web site since early September, and a near-final release of the RMS server has been downloadable since mid-September. The Rights Management add-on for Internet Explorer component of the RMS solution went to beta test in May.
Sources close to the company say that Microsoft could release its RMS solution to manufacturing as early as this week, and be launched officially early next month.
A Microsoft spokesman said that RMS is “still on schedule to go before end of calendar year 2003,” and declined to provide further specifics.
Microsoft has signed up a number of software and services partners who plan to support its RMS products. EDS, Avenade, Digex, Reciprocal and Omniva all are working on offerings that will build around RMS.
One Microsoft services partner, GigaMedia Access, announced on Tuesday a beta version of its RMS-related offering. The GigaTrust managed service (available for both individuals and enterprises) is designed to extend RMS to support clients other than Office 2003. GigaTrust will allow Windows XP and Windows 2000 clients to author and consume rights-management-protected content, company officials say, in a secure way.
GigaMedia is working on providing other rights-enabled portal-based content, say company officials, and are working to add rights-managed support for mobile devices.
View: No Final Rights-Management Support for Office 2003 — Yet
Producer for PowerPoint final (Oct 22)
Earlier I posted you the tutorials for Producer 2003. Now that the Office 2003 suite has been released Producer is final as well and ready for download in several languages
Download: Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 (English)
Download: Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 (different language)
View: Producer 2003 Tutorials
OneNote 2003 Trial Software (Oct 22)
A 60-day evaluation copy of Microsoft Office OneNote is also available now for download.
Download or order: 60-day evaluation copy of OneNote 2003
Latest (and last?) MSN Messenger 6.1 Beta (Oct 22)
Because tomorrow should be the launch of the new MSN 9 Explorer which will include the final MSN Messenger 6.1
Download: MSN MEssenger 6.1 Beta build 6.1.0150
Happy Launch Day! (Oct 21)
Microsoft Corp. today announced the general availability of the new Microsoft® Office System, along with research that shows how leading companies are already gaining a competitive advantage from Microsoft Office System productivity solutions. The research, conducted for Microsoft by Navigant Consulting Inc. (NYSE “NCI”), showed that information workers using the solutions gained an average of two hours in productive time each week without working longer hours, that the companies realized a median net present value of $4,000 per worker, and that the solutions paid for themselves in an average of just eight months. (Full details of the new research can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/officesystemlaunch.)
With six suites, 11 products, four servers, one service and Solution Accelerators, the new Microsoft Office System is evidence of Microsoft’s focus on helping information workers, the teams they work on, and the companies they work for become more productive and achieve their goals. The Microsoft Office System consists of the 2003 versions of the core Office suites and programs; updates to other information work programs such as Visio®, FrontPage®, Publisher and Project; two completely new programs, Microsoft Office OneNote™ and Microsoft Office InfoPath™; and four servers, including the new Office Live Communications Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003. Added to that are additional services, such as Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and solutions that help people and their organizations make greater use of information, collaborate more effectively, and easily integrate business processes to increase individual, team and organizational productivity.
“The new Office System is a major leap forward for information workers,” said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect at Microsoft. “It makes information work more productive — and more profitable — by offering innovative new ways to communicate, to find and share information, and to manage complex projects.”
Microsoft Office System Launch Event with Bill Gates
56K | 100K | 300K
New Office Website
http://office.microsoft.com
Highlights on the website:
Why is the new Office worth a look?
Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade to Office Professional Edition 2003
Microsoft Accelerator Downloads (Oct 20)
Microsoft Office Solution Accelerator for Recruiting
Microsoft Office Solution Accelerator for Recruiting is an integrated set of software components and prescriptive documentation that makes the recruiting process more efficient for recruiters, hiring managers, interviewers and recruiting assistants. It accomplishes this by enabling companies to quickly schedule interviews, create on-line customized interview plans and easily capture feedback on candidate performance.
Microsoft Accelerator for Six Sigma
Microsoft Accelerator for Six Sigma is an integrated set of products and services customized for Six Sigma practitioners. The accelerator can help Six Sigma project teams more effectively manage a large number of projects, more easily track their financial impact, optimize and track resources, and electronically share knowledge gathered across the enterprise. By helping the customer focus on reducing costs, business cycle times, and solving business problems using Six Sigma projects, the accelerator enables companies to effectively manage Six Sigma initiatives across the enterprise.
Woman sentenced for reading e-mail of husband’s ex-wife (Oct 20)
A judge sentenced an Arizona woman to 60 days home detention for intercepting her husband’s ex-wife’s e-mail, saying the penalty is a warning to others who might be tempted to do the same.
“Privacy is still a cherished value,” U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch said in sentencing Angel Lee, 28, of El Mirage, Arizona.
Lee pleaded guilty in March and admitted accessing at least 215 e-mails sent last year to her husband’s ex-wife, Duongladde Ramsay.
Officials said she fraudulently obtained the user name and password information for Ramsay’s e-mail account.
Matsch, best known for his role overseeing the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, bombing trials, has said the e-mail case involved a vicious divorce dispute over children. At Lee’s sentencing Friday, he said he considered sending her to jail but believed she needed to be home with her young children.
“I really apologize for what I did,” Lee told the judge. “She (Ramsay) has a right to feel the way she feels.”
Ramsay has compared Lee’s actions to someone breaking into her home and reading her diary.
View at CNN: Woman sentenced for reading e-mail of husband’s ex-wife
New Microsoft Office allows emails to self destruct (Oct 20)
MICROSOFT LAUNCHES its latest upgrade to the all-conquering Orifice suite of programs tomorrow, and one of the features incorporated into the new Outlook will be an email “self-destruct” function, which, it seems, it could have done with during its court battle with the US Department of Justice.
During that trial, the court ordered Microsoft to hand over thousands of old emails, some of which turned up some very interesting stuff about how the Vole actively worked to annihilate its competitors.
Microsoft reckons its use of “Information Rights Management” to determine who is allowed to see emails and by which date emails should be deleted is supposed to increase security. We here, however, as journalists and chroniclers of the age, suggest that the software decreases security by allowing revisionist versions of our current history to appear, as the original documents are digitally shredded.
Even in the US, destroying emails can be a federal offence. Indeed, just this year brokers Morgan Stanley were fined $1.65m for failing to keep proper e-mail records.
View: New Microsoft Office allows emails to self destruct
New Microsoft Office System Arriving Worldwide (Oct 20)
On Tuesday, Oct. 21, at events in New York City and worldwide, Microsoft launches the new Microsoft Office System, a system of productivity programs, servers, services and solutions that help connect people and organizations to information, business processes and each other. PressPass is assembling a package of feature articles, transcripts, and virtual newsrooms to assist journalists.
Go to: Microsoft Office System Launch Virtual Pressroom
USPS Electronic Postmark(EPM): Digitally sign and postmark Word documents (Oct 20)
The USPS Electronic Postmark (USPS EPM) is a web-based service that allows users to digitally sign and timestamp electronic documents within Microsoft Word. This electronic proof, digitally signed by the US Postal Service, provides evidence to support non-repudiation of electronic transactions. The USPS EPM is designed to detect the tampering or altering of electronic data. This service is integrated as a Word extension within Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office XP.
Click to go to the United States Postal Service Web site.
Producer 2003 Tutorials (Oct 20)
Microsoft Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 makes it easy to capture, synchronize, and publish audio, video, slides, and images. Producer 2003 is the current version of this popular add-on for Microsoft PowerPoint and is the ideal tool for creating engaging presentations, training, and business communications.
Download: Producer 2003 Final Release Candidate
View: Producer 2003 Tutorials
DWT Browser w/ Sample DWTs (Oct 20)
FrontLook DWT Browser enables you to acquire, browse and manage your Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 compatible Dynamic Web Templates (DWTs). Two Sample DWTs included.
There are three main components to the FrontLook DWT.
Browser: DWT Online Browser – enables you to browse and install online DWTs.
DWT Manager / Browser – enables you to browse and view the list of available DWTs on your hard drive. It also copies the DWT to the current web so that you can customize the DWT for that web without affecting the other webs that might use that DWT.
Two Sample DWTs to use on one of your webs.
Download: DWT Browser w/ Sample DWTs
New XML Features in Microsoft Office Access 2003 Sample (17)
Learn about Microsoft Office Access 2003 by using these sample files in conjunction with the article “New XML Features of Microsoft Office Access 2003” available on MSDN. See Related Links for more information.
This download contains several sample files. You can modify these sample templates to fit your needs.
Download: New XML Features in Microsoft Office Access 2003 Sample
