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Major Microsoft Patch Releases Block Infected E-Mail

Software giant releases largest collection of security patches in more than a year.

By Ben Ames, IDG News Service

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Network administrators were busy today as Microsoft released its largest collection of security patches in more than a year.

The monthly security update includes 21 vulnerabilities on 12 updates, the most since February 2005, said Jonathan Bitle, product manager with Qualys.

The update is so large because hackers are exploiting "client-side" weaknesses instead of automated services that run in an operating system. That type of attack relies on PC users' tendency to open e-mail attachments and other files from unknown senders.

"It's a who's who of what applications are installed on an end-user PC, from Internet Explorer to PowerPoint to Word to Media Player," Bitle said.

How to Manage Smart People

By Scott Berkun

The other day, over lunch, a friend recounted how her boss was just like the manager from the movie Office Space. After a few stories of cubicle horror related to said manager, she looked up at me and asked: “Am I an idiot? Or did something I did in this or a previous life make me deserve this?” I didn’t know what to say, other than that no one deserves to have a bad manager (Well, almost no one). Certainly this friend, who is bright, hard working, and fun, doesn’t deserve one. But unfortunately there is a normal distribution of manager quality, and many people with the job title of manager don't quite rise to the challenges of the role. It’s often not their fault: sometimes they’ve just never had a good manager themselves to model after. Then again other times they’ve just focused on the wrong things.

Social networks poised to shape Net's future

By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: June 12, 2006, 10:45 PM PDT

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.--Social networks, mobile video and "Googlism" will continue to transform the Net in years ahead, Piper Jaffray analysts said Monday at the opening of its annual Global Internet Summit.

"The Google revolution is not over yet," said Safa Rashtchy, managing director and senior analyst at investment firm Piper Jaffray, referring to a fictional term, "Googlism." The search giant "has been inspiration for many new companies," as well as changing how many companies are formed today, he said.

Microsoft to Bulk up Office Business Intelligence

By Martin LaMonica
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: June 5, 2006, 9:01 PM PDT

Microsoft will offer analysis and planning applications as an add-on to its Office suite, a move meant to steer corporate customers away from specialized business-intelligence providers.

The Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, due mid-2007, will provide a set of programs geared at helping knowledge workers to make more informed decisions.

MACROMEDIA STUDIO 8 NOW AVAILABLE

Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8, Fireworks 8, and Flash Player 8 ship with new advanced features and workflows

San Francisco, CA - September 13, 2005 - Macromedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced the immediate availability of Macromedia Studio 8, the essential suite for web designers, developers, video professionals, and graphic artists to design, develop, and maintain interactive online experiences. Combining the latest releases of award-winning Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Flash Professional, and Macromedia Fireworks, and key productivity tools Macromedia Contribute and Macromedia FlashPaper, Studio 8 offers a new level of expressiveness, efficiency, and simplified workflow to create websites, interactive media, and mobile content. For more information about Studio 8, please visit http://www.macromedia.com/software/studio/.

Mich. first to mandate online learning

Students will need online 'experience' before they can graduate
From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
Michigan became the first state in the nation to have students experience some form of online instruction before receiving a diploma when the state legislature on March 30 approved a bill to ratchet up the state's graduation requirements.

April 3, 2006—Looking to improve the level of rigor in high school classrooms and better prepare students for the realities of the modern workforce, Michigan lawmakers have approved a bill that requires every student in the state to take part in some form of online instruction before they graduate.
Believed to be the first of its kind in the country, the requirement--part of a larger proposal designed to hold high schools across the state to a higher standard of learning--clears the way for other states to consider online competency as a prerequisite to graduation.

Macromedia updates e-learning tools

Software maker Macromedia plans to announce on Monday an update to Authorware, its collection of tools for creating computer-delivered educational content.

Authorware is one of Macromedia's oldest product lines, initially used to produce educational CD-ROMs for corporate and academic settings and later expanded to include extensive support for online delivery. The software lets designers combine text, images, video and applications into an interactive learning experience.

The six-second teacher evaluation

Family lore has it that my uncle was influential in instituting what is now a fixture in college education: student evaluation of college instructors. He was class president at the University of Washington in the 1960s, when tensions between students and the school administrators were high, and he suggested implementing one of the first student course evaluation systems in the nation as a way to address the problem. Needless to say, the idea caught on.
While college faculty complain unceasingly about the fairness of the now nearly universal student course evaluation system (I did it myself, back when I taught college courses), it has in general been shown to be a relatively reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness, correlating positively with other measures such as faculty and administrator evaluation, as well as actual student learning.
From the teacher's perspective, however, the students can't possibly have enough information to make an effective evaluation of their teaching. A college course represents just a tiny sliver of the total knowledge in a discipline, and even after a semester in a college course, students are in no position to make judgements that will impact a faculty member's entire career.

Updating the Stethoscope with an iPod

Listening to heart sounds is a skill doctors are quickly losing. Could an iPod help?

By CHRISTINE GORMAN

For an instrument that was invented in 1819, the stethoscope still provides physicians with a wealth of medical information—provided they feel comfortable using it. By listening for subtle changes in sounds produced in the chest, they can detect heart murmurs, valve problems, or various lung conditions long before symptoms emerge.

Trouble is, a growing number of younger doctors are losing that ability—if they ever had it—and so are ordering up more and more high-tech (and high-cost) diagnostic scans to learn more about their patients' internal condition.

How I Work: Bill Gates

It's pretty incredible to look back 30 years to when Microsoft (Research) was starting and realize how work has been transformed. We're finally getting close to what I call the digital work style.
If you look at this office, there isn't much paper in it. On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you'll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.

The screen on the left has my list of e-mails. On the center screen is usually the specific e-mail I'm reading and responding to. And my browser is on the right-hand screen. This setup gives me the ability to glance and see what new has come in while I'm working on something, and to bring up a link that's related to an e-mail and look at it while the e-mail is still in front of me.