It must be true, because ad agencies are running Help Wanted ads. So, ad budgets are getting bigger. Tsk tsk. They have been missing out. Actually, for maverick thinkers like you, that should be good news.

When the Pundits say, “Times are getting tougher,” usually the first thing to get axed in business are ad and marketing budgets. This makes nearly no sense. But, to your competition, you should say, “Tighten that belt another couple of notches!”

Because that’s when you go for the kill.

So-called “tough economic times” should be a boon to your marketing. It’s then that your competition will pull back their advertising efforts. And you should increase yours. Your competition is purposely weakening its position. It is the perfect time to fortify yours.

Since most others are cutting back on their ad spending, media becomes more negotiable, if not altogether cheaper. Your messaging can become more visible with less clutter.

Your message also needn’t be more hard-sell in this type of environment. Traditional notion dictates hard sell is the way to go. But proper strategy, creatively executed, will nearly always win over a hard sell approach. Creative ads always get noticed, and often garner free publicity.

Of course, you don’t want to confuse “Bad Taste” with “Creative.” If you have the proper strategy, that shouldn’t be much of a concern. If you are presented ad concepts that bother you on a deeper level (more than the placement and size of your logo or other such trifles), maybe it’s time to address the strategy as much as the concepts.

The big payoff really comes when bad economic times rebound into good. When people have more money to spend, your business will have a higher, better mind share than the folks who chose not to advertise. Higher mind share leads to higher market share when the public starts buying again.

There’s the story of a brand of peanut butter that, due to government-mandated conversion of its factory for the effort during World War II, was not even commercially available. Yet, the brand was consistently advertised. When the war was over, guess which brand had higher market share?

And it’s in this atmosphere of free spending that market share is hardest to hold onto. More dollars to throw around, more choices, the market gets diluted. Why not go into that phase the leader, or the biggest gainer?

So, when your competition rolls back their ad spending, pump yours up. You stand only to benefit from the less-competitive atmosphere. Still a little unsure? Then set up a dollar cost averaging system for marketing. Spend the same amount every week, every month, every quarter. You might be surprised you get more results in “down turned” markets.

Marketing is everything. If it weren’t, your company would only subsist on word of mouth and chance.~

Republishing part of or entire article, in all forms, is welcomed, as long as author bio info is printed and proper authorship credit is given. As a courtesy, please send author a complimentary copy.

John is a freelance commercial writer based in Omaha, Nebraska. He publishes a free monthly e-zine focusing on branding, advertising, and marketing from his web site http://www.brandedbetter.com. Speaking with both agency and in- house experience, he knows the most valuable asset of a business is its brand.

Firefox is a free browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation develops open source software. Another excellent application is Thunderbird, an email program.

More than likely you are using Internet Explorer to view this web page. This browser is part of Microsoft Windows operating system. To check which browser you are using:

• Click on the Help in your browsers menu bar. (It’s the last option on the right hand side, after File, Edit?)
• Click on the last option in the menu that appears.

If it says Microsoft Internet Explorer® then you have the browser that between 80% and 90% (depending on who you talk to) use.

So why change?

Security: Most experts agree that you are less likely to be the subject of a malicious attack by “hackers” if you use Firefox than if you use Internet Explorer.

Firefox Extensions: There is a whole array of quick and easy to install extensions available for Firefox. Extensions add functionality to your browser. They are a bit like the added extras that you get with your car (except they’re free!). Everything from Ad blockers to your local weather forecast.

Tabbed browsing: Instead of opening your browser more than once to view more than one page at a time, which can slow down your computer, tabbed browsing allows you to open many web pages, in tabs, in only one browser.

1. So how do you get the Firefox browser?
2. Click on this link to go to the Firefox download page.
3. In the top right corner of the page is a green area with a link to the free download.
4. When the dialog box appears, click save.
5. Select a location to download the file to.
6. The file should start downloading to the location you selected.
7. When the file has finished downloading, (it should be called something like Firefox Setup 1.0.5.exe) double click on it to open it.
8. If you have Windows XP service pack 2 is installed, a dialog box may appear. Select execute.
9. After Firefox has extracted, click next.
10. Click on the radio button beside ‘I accept the terms of the License Agreement’ and then click on the next button.
11. The standard installation is fine so just click on the next button.
12. This screen just confirms the location that Firefox is to installed, so just click on the next button again.
13. Click Finish to complete the installation and launch Firefox.

Congratulations! You have now installed Firefox. When Firefox starts the first time it will ask if you want to set Firefox as your default browser. Select yes.

One last thing. Under no circumstances remove Internet Explorer from your system. Firefox is a better browser but Internet Explorer is used by your computer for other things than browsing the web.

Aonghus Flynn is an Irish web developer specializing in Flash development. Aonghus has over 7 years experience in the IT industry as a developer and a trainer. You can reach him at http://www.aonghusflynn.com

Actually first documented in 1997, Web logs initially used the abbreviated version: wee-blog, with a Web log editor referred to as a blogger. Since then, all types of Web logs (blogs) and blogging software have emerged, giving rise to this lucrative and dynamic market.

Now, everything from advertising blogs to zoology blogs exist, with every topic in between apparent online. Political blogs are rampant, and groups of blogger’s across the globe post regularly on every topic imaginable.

What does a blog supply that an e-zine, newsletter, or forum might not? What has skyrocketed the popularity of the blog over the past several years?

The answers are really quite simple:

1. Blogs are more highly interactive. Posters get to see the results of a post immediately, as the post appears simultaneously after posting. Posters also don’t have the usual moderation that appears in forums, where posts may be deleted without warning. Usually, in blogs, more freedom is given, and posts are usually accepted no matter what the content, or the topic.

E-zines and newsletters, with their one sided presentation of views, have decreased in popularity with the increase of the popularity of blogs.

2. Blogs are easy to maintain and easy to start. The sheer volume of choices is staggering! Everything from “blogging software” to “blogging services” are available, and even a novice blogger will find blogging quick and easy to do.

3. Blogs are “Search Engine Friendly Food”. Search Engines love blogs, because of the constantly changing content that appears daily. Search Engines are constantly “searching” for new content, and blogs meet this requirement splendidly!

4. Blogs are actually a lot of fun! The entertainment aspects of a blog cannot be dismissed. A great deal of “voyeurism” exists on blogs, where other blogger’s continually monitor discussions, both pro and con concerning an issue. Discussions on blogs can be “heated” and interesting, with much repartee occurring daily! Blogs are a rousing form of media, indeed, with many blogger’s returning repeatedly throughout a day to view new posts.

For a view into popular blogs of many categories, just visit: http://www.blogit.com

5. Many blogs are capable of syndication. Syndication is a great way to ensure that your writing and your views are exposed to as much of the general public as possible. Syndication is many times included in blogging services now, and this has drawn individuals to the art of blogging continuously.

6. There are no lists to maintain, or spam filters to worry about with blogs. This is one reason why so many writers and publishers have turned to blogs. E-mail delivery of newsletters and e-zines has become difficult over the past few years, with the advent of spam filters. Blogs are not delivered, and therefore, no methods of defeating filters are needed, and no “non-deliverables” occur, which has been the bane of writers and publishers prior to this.

A good blogging software exists at: http://www.silkblogs.com

7. Blogs are economical. Since no lists are maintained, there are no list server costs. Blogging software and blogging services are also very reasonably priced, giving good value for the money spent monthly consistently. Some blogging services charge others to “read”, while others charge writers to “write”, but overall the monthly charges are rather minimal either way.

8. Blogs are educational. There are such a variety of informative and educational blogs available now, that a search for any subject usually turns up hundreds of offerings. Differing points of view on all subjects are offered routinely, giving a reader or poster an “insight” into the hearts and minds of other blogger’s.

Blogs also, to be successful, however, need to contain the same elements of a popular newsletter or e-zine:

A. Compelling, well-written content. No one, either online or offline wants to read materials that are poorly written or difficult or boring to read.

B. Updated material. Just as in newsletters or e-zines, if material is not updated continually, then the audience eventually dies.

C. Rousing topics. Topics of interest to a wide range of readers succeed more than topics that appeal to very few, or are rather dull topics.

D. A nice layout and visual appeal. A blog is akin to a Web site for written materials, and just like in the design of a Web site, every care should be made to have the blog be visually appealing and friendly to visitors.

Newsletters, e-zines and forums, of course, will remain. But as you can clearly see, blogging, blogger’s, and blogs themselves, have definitely added to the “online experience” and will possibly (and hopefully) be around for decades more!

Vishal P. Rao is the owner of: http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/ An online community of people who work at home.

Was I ever wrong!

When I finally got the courage to give it a go, I went to blogger.com and signed up for an account. To my amazement, I had a blog set up in about 5 minutes. My first post was uploaded to my site about 10 minutes later.

The only thing even remotely technical I was required to do was enter the FTP settings for the web site my blog would be published on. But even that wasn’t a requirement. With Blogger, you can set up a blog on their site, Blogspot, and not even worry about FTP settings.

Since then, I’ve started 3 Blogger blogs on different sites. Blogger remains one of the most popular blog applications in the world simply because it is so simple to use and set up. If you’re a technophobe or don’t have the time to learn something completely new, I would urge you to drop by Blogger.com and take a look. You could be blogging - and enjoying the benefits - almost immediately.

Another very simple blogging tool is WordPress. This blog is my first WordPress blog, and I’m very impressed with how powerful it is - as well as simple.

WordPress is installed on your own web site, but don’t let that stop you. Most hosts that have Cpanel already have WordPress ready for you to install. Look in your Cpanel for the Fantastico application, click it open, and then choose WordPress to install. It will automatically install it on your site for you, and you can start blogging right away.

If your host doesn’t already include WordPress in the scripts on your server, you can still pick it up at:

http://wordpress.org/

Then go to the WordPress Wiki for instructions on how to install it in 5 minutes:

http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=5MinuteInstallation

WordPress is free, open-source software. It is very simple to install, even for technophobe’s, and has a lot of online documentation. There are also many sites with free WordPress add-ons and templates. I’m using a template for this blog that I picked up at Alex King’s site:

http://www.alexking.org/index.php?content=software/wordpress/styles.php

The WordPress Wiki is a wealth of information on all things WordPress, including installation instructions, help files, a long list of template sites, and all kinds of hacks and extras you can use to modify your blog and make it original.

If you’re a WordPress user, another place to visit is the WordPress discussion forum:

http://wordpress.org/support/

If you’re a new blogger, both WordPress and Blogger are very user friendly. There isn’t a long learning curve. And you won’t have to learn any new technical tricks. Why not give one of them a try?

For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my “Why Marketers Should Blog” weblog at (what else) http://www.WhyMarketersShouldBlog.com

I have this theory that sludge builds up inside a computer over time, much like an automobile engine. After a while, it doesn’t start right up like when it was new, it stalls unexpectedly, and performance is sluggish on the (information) highway. Is there something like engine cleaner we can pour into our personal computer to restore that “like new” performance? Actually, yes!

Cyber Sludge Remover

Here’s my special recipe to clean that icky goo out of your computer’s pipes, so Windows will start quicker, run more reliably, and go faster on the info-superhighway.

INGREDIENTS:

Firefox is a free browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation develops open source software. Another excellent application is Thunderbird, an email program.

More than likely you are using Internet Explorer to view this web page. This browser is part of Microsoft Windows operating system. To check which browser you are using:

• Click on the Help in your browsers menu bar. (It’s the last option on the right hand side, after File, Edit?)
• Click on the last option in the menu that appears.

If it says Microsoft Internet Explorer® then you have the browser that between 80% and 90% (depending on who you talk to) use.

So why change?

Security: Most experts agree that you are less likely to be the subject of a malicious attack by “hackers” if you use Firefox than if you use Internet Explorer.

Firefox Extensions: There is a whole array of quick and easy to install extensions available for Firefox. Extensions add functionality to your browser. They are a bit like the added extras that you get with your car (except they’re free!). Everything from Ad blockers to your local weather forecast.

Tabbed browsing: Instead of opening your browser more than once to view more than one page at a time, which can slow down your computer, tabbed browsing allows you to open many web pages, in tabs, in only one browser.

1. So how do you get the Firefox browser?
2. Click on this link to go to the Firefox download page.
3. In the top right corner of the page is a green area with a link to the free download.
4. When the dialog box appears, click save.
5. Select a location to download the file to.
6. The file should start downloading to the location you selected.
7. When the file has finished downloading, (it should be called something like Firefox Setup 1.0.5.exe) double click on it to open it.
8. If you have Windows XP service pack 2 is installed, a dialog box may appear. Select execute.
9. After Firefox has extracted, click next.
10. Click on the radio button beside ‘I accept the terms of the License Agreement’ and then click on the next button.
11. The standard installation is fine so just click on the next button.
12. This screen just confirms the location that Firefox is to installed, so just click on the next button again.
13. Click Finish to complete the installation and launch Firefox.

Congratulations! You have now installed Firefox. When Firefox starts the first time it will ask if you want to set Firefox as your default browser. Select yes.

One last thing. Under no circumstances remove Internet Explorer from your system. Firefox is a better browser but Internet Explorer is used by your computer for other things than browsing the web.

Aonghus Flynn is an Irish web developer specializing in Flash development. Aonghus has over 7 years experience in the IT industry as a developer and a trainer. You can reach him at http://www.aonghusflynn.com

Consider how you name your files and folders. Have you missed an opportunity to clear the clutter and make your work more accessible? When you look at file names within a folder, do they sing out to you with sweet meaningfulness, or are they a cacophonous jumble of confusing hieroglyphics?

The eye likes symmetry. The mind loves order. When you create files and they pile upon one another over time, does their accumulation reflect a master plan or a disaster unplanned? When you view your list of files, is your eye happy, your mind content?

Basically, file naming is an unrecognized art. Most of us are left to our own devices to figure it out. The good news: with some thought, you can be the artist of a system which will resonate with function.

Let’s start by considering the basis upon which files should be ordered. I will jump to the punchline and say it out loud: chronologically. To order files chronologically, have the filename start with a date stamp prefix such as YYYYMMDD- or YYMMDD. If you do this, your files will always sort themselves chronologically and you will have no trouble finding the latest and greatest work within a folder.

What you do following the date stamp prefix depends upon how the file will be used. If the file travels to someone else as an email attachment and then returns back to you after some sort of review, I recommend having the second portion of your filename be a locator.

The locator can be a 3-5 character abbreviation which will give you a solid hint about where the file needs to be re-filed upon its return. You develop the locator so that you and others in your group recognize it as an abbreviation for a project. When they see the date stamp prefix and locator, they will already have much information about the contents of the file.

After entering the date stamp prefix and locator, now you can write a nice, meaty descriptive text (descriptor). Use as many characters as you like, just beware that beyond a certain length, the filename will be truncated during display, and you will lose, rather than gain information. Consider 30 characters to be a maximum filename size.

Subtracting 7 characters for the date stamp and 3-5 characters for the locator, this gives you 18-20 characters to tell your story. The way to know if you are doing a bad job with descriptors, is when you see the identical descriptor in multiple files. Don’t repeat descriptive text unless you specifically want to highlight the similarity between the two files.

Tip: NO spaces in names of files or folders. Spaces are not FTP-friendly and you may be FTP-ing sooner than you think.

Tip: NO unnecessary capital letters and DEFINITELY NO TEXT WITH ALL CAPS. It’s not only irritating, but it also takes away a useful tool, that of using upper and lower case text for better conveying your message.

Tip: Find a style and stick with it. For example, if you like the looks of hyphens separating date stamp, locators and descriptors, then do it that way every time. If using underscore between words in the descriptor feels right, then make it a habit. Even artists can have discipline, you know.

Tip: Use language to the greatest extent possible. In other words, use words more than acronyms. Cutesy corporate acronyms, after the first dozen or so, get pretty boring.

Examples of good file names:
050727-par-FieldTesting.doc
2004-o4-21-oak-Access_to_site.xls
Bad file names:
article.doc (too vague - what article? )
Work Project.xls (too general - what work project? when? )

Copyright 2005 Mark Meshulam

A versatile denizen of Northbrook, IL, USA, Mr. Meshulam is an owner of a productivity software company (http://www.poingo.com), a construction company (http://www.buildersarch.com), and a document scanning/reprographics company (http://www.repro.docsys.us). His software product Poingo Email Printer has a feature which adds time stamps to filenames.

While an old computer will never operate at the same speed as a newer (and bigger & faster) computer, you can help your computer stay as “young & healthy” as possible.

1) Disk Cleanup

Performing a disk cleanup regularly is a good idea. Whenever you “surf the internet”, open attachments, delete files, your computer saves a record of your activity. Many of these files are harmless, and individually are very small. But if you spend a lot of time on your computer, before long you’ll take up enough space to slow your computer down a bit.

Disk Cleanup is a Windows utility that helps keep unused and unwanted files from taking up extra storage space on your computer. You can think of it as “spring cleaning” for your computer.

Basically, it removes files that may have once been useful or used but now are just taking up extra room that could be used for more useful programs and files.

To perform a disc cleanup, click on the Start button on the bottom left of your computer screen, then Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disc Cleanup. A small box will pop up, allowing you to select the files to delete (most files are OK to delete, but if you are unsure, it is best to not select the file). Then click OK, and the unused files will be removed.

If you’ve never done a disk cleanup on your computer, now is a good time to get started. Then, depending on how much you use your computer, you can perform a disk cleanup every few weeks to keep your computer running smoothly!

2) Defragmenting Your Computer

Another way to improve the performance of your computer is to defragment your hard drive. What is defragmenting, and why do you need to do it? Here’s a simple explanation:

Basically, defragmenting is putting files back where they belong. With the files in the proper order, your computer will run more efficiently.

You don’t need to hire a computer expert to defragment your computer. It’s simple to do. You just need to plan ahead, because if you have a lot of “stuff” on your computer, it could take a while.

And it’s best not to use your computer while defragmenting.

Not sure how to defragment your computer? You can either click on your computer’s help file (Click the “Start” button on the bottom left of your computer screen, then Help), or click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Defragment - for most computers) .

Keep in mind that the actual wording is slightly different depending on the operating system you use (Windows 95, 98, XP, etc) so you might need to refer to your computer’s help file.

Periodically defragmenting your computer will keep it running smoothly!

3) Removing Spyware & Adware

If you’ve ever had spyware or adware on your computer, you know how frustrating it can be - strange things happening, your homepage changing, inappropriate popups, unfamiliar icons… What exactly is spyware or adware?

Simply, files that are often downloaded onto your computer without your knowledge (or at least without you knowing what they really are).

Unfortunately, many of these programs “sneak” their way onto your computer, so avoiding them entirely is difficult, especially if you spend a lot of time on your computer, surfing the Internet and downloading new programs and files.

Fortunately, there are ways to remove these unwanted files from your computer.

Here are 2 adware/spyware removal programs that are simple to use (and both are free): Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/
Spybot http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

Why does adware/spyware continue to be such a problem? Because most of these programs make money for the people creating and spreading them, unfortunately. So, all we can do is try to avoid them as much as possible, and to remove them when they do find their way onto our computers.

If you do find spyware on your computer, don’t panic. In many cases, you just have some extra “junk” on your computer. But keeping spyware and adware off of your computer will help it run more quickly and efficiently.

4) Uninstalling Old & Unused Programs

While uninstalling old, unused programs will help speed up your computer, removing the wrong files can cause you some big problems. So, please proceed carefully. And if you are not comfortable, please ask for help from someone you know who is more knowledgeable.

Most programs that you download simply have an “uninstall” feature that comes with them. If you’re like me and you download a lot of free programs or free trials, after a while your computer begins to slow down. That means it’s time for me to remove some of the old programs I don’t use any more (and most I only used once just to see how they work).

To uninstall unused programs from your computer, first click on the Start button on the bottom left, then Programs, then click on the name of the program and Uninstall. If there is no uninstall option, then click on the Start button on the bottom left, then Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

Again, if you are unsure whether or not to remove a program, it is best to leave it.

If you follow these instructions, you should find your computer working faster right away.

5) Get A High Speed Internet Connection

If you spend a lot of time on the Internet, a high speed Internet connection is a must. It is more expensive, but for most people the savings in time and effort is worth the added expense.

There are several advantages of having a high speed Internet connection - faster surfing, web pages open more quickly, files download faster, and if you send or receive large files, like pictures or video, trying to open these files with a slower dialup connection is extremely frustrating!

If you’re already spending $20 a month or more for your dial-up connection (through your phone line) then you’ll find DSL to be comparable in price, and a lot faster.

A cable Internet connection might cost a little more, but it is usually the fastest type of internet connection you can get from home.

High speed wireless connections are available for those who travel a lot. And high speed satellite Internet is available in areas where other options are not (check your options first, as this is the most expensive high speed connection).

That’s all the tips for increasing your computer speed and helping your computer run more efficiently. We hope you found these tips helpful!

Kris Bickell is the owner of Hi-Speed-Internet.com, a helpful site for consumers comparing high speed Internet services. For information on high speed DSL, Cable, and Wireless Internet, visit: http://www.Hi-Speed-Internet.com, and sign up for the free email course “5 Simple Ways To Increase Your Computer Speed”

Konsole

Let’s start from what most people think Linux is all about - a text based shell. Konsole is what is known as an X terminal emulator, often referred to as a terminal or a shell. It gives you the equivalent of an old-fashioned text screen on your desktop, but one which can easily share the screen with your graphical applications. What makes Konsole special? Konsole’s advanced features include simple configuration and the ability to use multiple terminal shells in a single window, making for a less cluttered desktop. Konsole is also available as kpart and can thus be easily embedded in other applications, like practiced by Kate and Konqueror.

As most system administrators need log into servers on a regular basis the konsole gives them a benefit over the Windoze command prompt. In windows one needs to use a program like putty to log in using SSH. Also as linux is the desktop OS the techs can use the man pages on the local system.

One can also try out the various commands locally. Consider a simple example.

Is it

$ ln sourcefile destinationfile

or is it

$ ln destinationfile sourcefile

Such things can be easily found out locally without carrying out experiments on the server. Many techs believe that servers are places where they can experiment. However, such experiments can lead to major losses to the customers due to one small error. A system administrator must understand that people have immense faith in them when they give their entire data to them and they cannot risk carrying out simple experiments on servers.

Some screenshots of the konsole can be seen at the konsole site

Personal Information Manager / Groupware

There are two popular choices here. Evolution from Novel and the Kontact from KDE. Both these an email client, calendaring, meeting scheduling, a task list, contact management and syncing functionality. Kontact is essentially the regular KDE PIM components which have been put in together i.e. kmail, korganizer, knotes etc.. It is very a very neat package and is stable and light. Both these are very functional and can connect to many groupware servers.

Klipper

Klipper is the KDE clipboard utility. It stores clipboard history, and allows you to link clipboard contents to application actions. Klipper can perform actions on the contents of the clipboard, based on whether they match a particular regular expression. For example, any clipboard contents starting with “http://” can be passed to the web-browser as URLs to open.

Copying text is as simple as highlighting the text. And to paste the text all one needs to do is click on the center mouse button. This can be particularly useful for sys-admins as they use a sequence of commands from time to time. Having these in the clipboard and using them often can make the work a lot easier.

Gaim / Kopete

Communicating via an instant messenger is an essential these days. Linux has a very clean solution for this. Both Kopete (http://kopete.kde.org) and Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) are capable of handling multiple IM protocols such as supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus SameTime. Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.

Kjots

KJots is a small program that helps you to write down some short notes and organizes them for you. It has two basic items used to organize your notes - “Books” and “Pages”. This is a good light tool to write in all the templated responses and other important notes for quick references.

Kwallet

A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins including those of kopete and websites.

Tea Cooker

KTeaTime is a handy timer for steeping tea. No longer will you have to guess at how long it takes for your tea to be ready. Simply select the type of tea you have, and it will alert you when the tea is ready to drink. Now how can a tea cooker be useful for techs. Often techs get involved in solving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

Koffice/ Open Office

M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

Lyx

Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

What is LyX?

LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

LyX is what?!

LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visual layout to the software. LyX produces high quality, professional output — using LaTeX, an industrial strength typesetting engine, in the background; LyX is far more than a front-end to LaTeX, however. No knowledge of LaTeX is necessary to use LyX, although it will give a user more power. LyX is stable and fully featured. It has been used for documents as large as a thesis, or as small as a business letter. Despite its simple GUI interface (available in many languages), it supports tables, figures, and hyperlinked cross-references, and has a best-of-breed math editor.

Dia

Dia is a great tool for creating diagrams. It has a huge in-built library of objects which are specially useful for software engineers. So making a diagram of a computer network is as easy as dragging a few computers and switches from the list of objects available. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

Gnucash

An average tech earns a good salary and spends it is well too. To keep track of all these personal expenses the best is to have a great software. Gnucash is an ideal way to manage personal finances. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

KTuberling

And finally a product for all those techs who maintain their servers well and have no work or pending issues and yet have to sit through the nights waiting for some issue to popup.

KTuberling (http://opensource.bureau-cornavin.com/ktuberling/) was originally game intended for small children. Of course, it may be suitable for adults who have remained young at heart. Most techs in general love this software. It is a “potato editor”. That means that you can drag and drop eyes, mouths, mustache, and other parts of face and goodies onto a potato-like guy. Similarly, you have a penguin and an aquarium on which you can drop other stuff.

There is no winner for the game. The only purpose is to make the funniest faces you can. There is a museum,like a “Madame Tusseau” gallery, where you can find many funny examples of decorated potatoes, penguins and aquariums.

World War II - Germany decided to attack Poland. Poland had many great warriors. They all prepared to fight the Germans. They were all ready with the best armor, the best and well trained horses, and ofcourse the best weapons , swords , spears …. And the Pols were brave and were ready to give their lives for their country. Sadly they did just that… give their lives. The Germans had tanks… It is very important to have the right weapons when one goes for a war.

In the same way it is very important for system administrators to have the right tools to to work smart. Linux is a great desktop OS for developers as well as system administrators. Let us take a look at some of the utilities which makes this a great environment for system administrators and developers. Most of the content below is taken from the home pages of these apps and the I make no claims on the originality. My aim is to introduce the reader to the wonderful tools that are available in a Linux/BSD desktop environment.

Konsole

Let’s start from what most people think Linux is all about - a text based shell. Konsole is what is known as an X terminal emulator, often referred to as a terminal or a shell. It gives you the equivalent of an old-fashioned text screen on your desktop, but one which can easily share the screen with your graphical applications. What makes Konsole special? Konsole’s advanced features include simple configuration and the ability to use multiple terminal shells in a single window, making for a less cluttered desktop. Konsole is also available as kpart and can thus be easily embedded in other applications, like practiced by Kate and Konqueror.

As most system administrators need log into servers on a regular basis the konsole gives them a benefit over the Windoze command prompt. In windows one needs to use a program like putty to log in using SSH. Also as linux is the desktop OS the techs can use the man pages on the local system.

One can also try out the various commands locally. Consider a simple example.

Is it

$ ln sourcefile destinationfile

or is it

$ ln destinationfile sourcefile

Such things can be easily found out locally without carrying out experiments on the server. Many techs believe that servers are places where they can experiment. However, such experiments can lead to major losses to the customers due to one small error. A system administrator must understand that people have immense faith in them when they give their entire data to them and they cannot risk carrying out simple experiments on servers.

Some screenshots of the konsole can be seen at the konsole site

Personal Information Manager / Groupware

There are two popular choices here. Evolution from Novel and the Kontact from KDE. Both these an email client, calendaring, meeting scheduling, a task list, contact management and syncing functionality. Kontact is essentially the regular KDE PIM components which have been put in together i.e. kmail, korganizer, knotes etc.. It is very a very neat package and is stable and light. Both these are very functional and can connect to many groupware servers.

Klipper

Klipper is the KDE clipboard utility. It stores clipboard history, and allows you to link clipboard contents to application actions. Klipper can perform actions on the contents of the clipboard, based on whether they match a particular regular expression. For example, any clipboard contents starting with “http://” can be passed to the web-browser as URLs to open.

Copying text is as simple as highlighting the text. And to paste the text all one needs to do is click on the center mouse button. This can be particularly useful for sys-admins as they use a sequence of commands from time to time. Having these in the clipboard and using them often can make the work a lot easier.

Gaim / Kopete

Communicating via an instant messenger is an essential these days. Linux has a very clean solution for this. Both Kopete (http://kopete.kde.org) and Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) are capable of handling multiple IM protocols such as supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus SameTime. Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.

Kjots

KJots is a small program that helps you to write down some short notes and organizes them for you. It has two basic items used to organize your notes - “Books” and “Pages”. This is a good light tool to write in all the templated responses and other important notes for quick references.

Kwallet

A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins including those of kopete and websites.

Tea Cooker

KTeaTime is a handy timer for steeping tea. No longer will you have to guess at how long it takes for your tea to be ready. Simply select the type of tea you have, and it will alert you when the tea is ready to drink. Now how can a tea cooker be useful for techs. Often techs get involved in solving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

Koffice/ Open Office

M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

Lyx

Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

What is LyX?

LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

LyX is what?!

LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visual layout to the software. LyX produces high quality, professional output — using LaTeX, an industrial strength typesetting engine, in the background; LyX is far more than a front-end to LaTeX, however. No knowledge of LaTeX is necessary to use LyX, although it will give a user more power. LyX is stable and fully featured. It has been used for documents as large as a thesis, or as small as a business letter. Despite its simple GUI interface (available in many languages), it supports tables, figures, and hyperlinked cross-references, and has a best-of-breed math editor.

Dia

Dia is a great tool for creating diagrams. It has a huge in-built library of objects which are specially useful for software engineers. So making a diagram of a computer network is as easy as dragging a few computers and switches from the list of objects available. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

Gnucash

An average tech earns a good salary and spends it is well too. To keep track of all these personal expenses the best is to have a great software. Gnucash is an ideal way to manage personal finances. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

KTuberling

And finally a product for all those techs who maintain their servers well and have no work or pending issues and yet have to sit through the nights waiting for some issue to popup.

KTuberling (http://opensource.bureau-cornavin.com/ktuberling/) was originally game intended for small children. Of course, it may be suitable for adults who have remained young at heart. Most techs in general love this software. It is a “potato editor”. That means that you can drag and drop eyes, mouths, mustache, and other parts of face and goodies onto a potato-like guy. Similarly, you have a penguin and an aquarium on which you can drop other stuff.

There is no winner for the game. The only purpose is to make the funniest faces you can. There is a museum,like a “Madame Tusseau” gallery, where you can find many funny examples of decorated potatoes, penguins and aquariums.

Amarjyoti Krishnan heads bobcares.com, a tech support company for webhosts and ISPs. He is the co-founder of Poornam Info Vision Ltd., a software and IT services company which specializes in Linux based solutions for Webhosts and ISPs. Poornam Info Vision is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company with a team of over 100 engineers.

Amarjyoti is a Computer Engineer based in India and has over 7 years of experience in the hosting industry. He has spoken and written extensively on the subject. His articles have been published both online as well as in print in magazines.

It is widely known that passwords are the most common means of access control. It is also common knowledge that passwords are the easiest way to compromise a system. Passwords have two basic functions. First, they allow initial entry to a system. Next, after access, they grant permission to various levels of information. This access can range from public data to restricted trade secrets and pending patents.

The best passwords are a lengthy and complex mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. The tendency for people when using these formats is to write them down, store them on a hand held device, etc. thus destroying the integrity of the password.

The integrity of passwords can be circumvented through “Human Engineering.” People can unwittingly make grave errors of judgment in situations that they may view as harmless or even helpful. For example, a password is shared with a forgetful employee and a system can be compromised. In more ominous cases, a con artist or hacker can phone a naïve employee and present themselves as senior executives or help desk personnel and obtain that persons password. People have also been duped by callers claiming emergencies, cajoling or even threatening the employees job if a password is not provided.

These human lapses can be addressed through employee training and written policies that provide solid guidance and procedures in these circumstances. Training in information security, including password protocols, should be mandatory for every employee of the enterprise. Management support of this training and the security policy is critical to its success. To be effective, training should be repetitive with quarterly reviews of the company policy. There can also be frequent reminders, such as banners, about password security that appear during logons.

Management must not only support security measures, they must also provide a written and enforced policy statement. These written policies should be developed with assistance from the I.T. department as well as the human resource and legal departments. Written policies should be a part of the employee’s introduction to the company and should be reviewed at least twice a year. It is also critical that the employee sign off on the document indicating that they received, read, and understood its contents. Firms that ignore these practices do so at their own risk.

Enforcement is an important partner to training. A policy that is not enforced is far worse than no policy at all. In fact, haphazard enforcement or lack of enforcement can increase a company’s liability in many legal actions. To work, a policy must have “teeth”. There should be a range of consequences for lapses whether it is a single event or multiple or flagrant incidents. This can range from a verbal warning all the way to termination.

In summary, passwords can be kept more secure by recognizing the human factor. Through management initiative, communication and training, as well as written and enforced policies and procedures, companies can have more control over their information assets and keep their clients and partners much safer.

About The Author

Terrence F. Doheny

President, Beyond If Solutions,LLC

www.beyondifsolutions.com