It is the sixth version of this worm.

SOBIG.F follows a computer worm known as “Blaster,” or “MSBlaster,” which infected at least 500,000 computers all over the world only a week ago. The “Nachi” worm which is designed to protect pcs from “Blaster” caused its own havoc including infiltrating unclassified computers on the Navy-Marine intranet and the collapse of the check-in system of Air Canada.

Associated Press has stated that 1 in 17 emails sent around the world has been infected.

According to Paul Wood of MessageLabs it took anti-virus companies at least 12 hours to release updated software to combat the worm.

W32.Sobig.F@mm is, in fact, a worm, not a virus. This worm sends itself to every email address it finds in files with the following extensions:

• .TXT

• .WAB

• .MHT

• .HTML

• .HTM

• .HLP

• .EML

• .DBX

The “SOBIG” worm is found in emails in your inbox with the following subject headings:

• RE: DETAILS

• RE: THANK YOU!

• RE: YOUR APPLICATION

• RE: YOUR DETAILS

• RE: DETAILS

• RE: APPROVED

• RE: THAT MOVIE

• RE: WICKED SCREENSAVER

I have personally received emails with all of these subject headings on a daily basis. The body of the email simply refers you to an attached file. It is absolutely critical that you DO NOT open this attachment. It is this attachment that contains the “SOBIG” worm.

The “SOBIG” worm is attached to files with the following names:

• Movie0045.pif

• Your_document.pif

• Thank_you.pif

• Document_all.pif

• Details.pif

• Document_9446.pif

• Wicked_scr.scr

• Application.pif

The last day on which the “SOBIG” worm will spread is 9 September, 2003. Although this means email address collection and mass-mailing will stop at that date a computer infected with the worm will still try to download updates from master servers even after this date.

The worm affects Windows 95, 98, Me, Nt, 2000 and XP but leaves Unix, OS/2, Windows 3.x, Macintosh and Linux unaffected.

Thankfully Symantec Security Response has created a removal tool which is free to clean an infected computer.

To access Symantec’s free removal tool visit: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sobig.f@mm.html

For a free virus scan visit: http://www.stop-sign.com

This past month’s computer attacks follows a historical trend – virus activity surges when college students have free time on their hands in the summer.

However, there is a suspicion that these kind of virus attacks may be driven by profit motives because worms such as SOBIG.F place a “trojan horse” on infected drives of unsuspecting pc owners which allows spammers to quickly distribute millions of unsolicited emails around the world.

Poorly designed software is declared the main cause of increased virus activity by computer designers as software is often distributed without appropriate amounts of testing.

Microsoft last year announced its intention to slow down software development so that software can be made more safe from infiltration.

Regardless of the cause, here is the reality:

• Sobig.A was found on January 9 2003 with no expiry.

• Sobig.B was found on May 18, expiring May 31 2003.

• Sobig.C was found on May 31, expiring on June 8 2003.

• Sobig.D was found on June 18, expiring on July 2 2003.

• Sobig.E was found on June 25, expiring on July 14 2003.

• Sobig.F was found on August 19, to expire 10 September 2003.

The spread of the SOBIG.F worm is being hailed the fastest ever.

History, therefore, tells us that Sobig.G is, in fact, just around the corner, faster and stronger than each of its predecessors.

As Sobig.F nears its expiry on 10 September 2003 I can almost envisage its evil grin as it declares, “I’ll be back.”

About The Author

Copyright 2003. Karin Manning. All Rights Reserved. Karin Manning is the webmistress of http://www.reprintrights4u.com and the publisher of Net Wealth, filled with up to the minute tips and techniques for growing your business online. To subscribe visit http://www.reprintrights4u.com and fill in the Newsletter Popunder on entry.

karin@reprintrights4u.com

Individuals in need of state-of-the-art 3D modeling software, which is also capable of tasks such as animation and rendering solutions, have many options to choose from. What follows is just an example of what is readily available.

(The majority of these software vendors offer a free trial download of their products, making it easier to locate the package most suitable for the impending project or projects.)

Autodesk 3ds Max is a must have for those in search of a top notch 3D animation, modeling and rendering solution package. It is packed with features such as: data and scene management, modeling, polygon modeling and texting, character animations, hair and fur, prosound connectivity and integration and so much more.

This software is a particular favorite of individuals in the digital publishing, film, television and game developing industries.

A wide variety of plug-ins is available, for Autodesk 3ds Max. They go a long way in broadening the scope of what can be accomplished, with the program. Whether designers are in need of the latest fluids, atmospherics, rendering, cloth or animation plug-ins… chances are quite high that they can be located.

Maxon Cinema 4D was originally created, several years ago, for use with Amiga computers. Currently, there is both a Mac OS X and Windows version available. This software is often used by those in the film industry. In fact, it was used to create the blockbuster hits Polar Express and Monster House, to name just two.

There are several add-on modules that can be used with Cinema 4D. These include but are not limited to:

Sketch & Toon – used for cartoons and technical drawings

Hair – stimulates things such as grass, hair and fur

PyroCluster – smoke and fire simulator

MOCCA – cloth simulation and animation of characters

Because of the software’s easy to use interface, individuals who are new to the industry should be able to learn how to use it rather quickly.

Autodesk Maya is another award-winning and powerful software package, dealing with visual effects, animation and 3D modeling. It is suitable for a wide variety of projects.

Autodesk Maya provides users with a full-featured product and includes a comprehensive range of animation tools, 3D modeling and texturing tool sets, advanced visual effects tools, flexible rendering and customize software options.

New features include a new

selection paradigm which means less chance of trial and error, improved workflow, Maya Assets (the best way to organize, share and present projects) and animation layering that allows greater flexibility when creating and editing all types of animation.

Softimage XSI (now referred to as Softimage 7.5) is an excellent choice for those interested in game production and visual effects. There are two versions available, original and advanced.

This software prides itself on the introduction of ICE or Interactive Creative Environment. ICE is a new platform used strictly to build tools and effects, by way of a node based paradigm.

Those who purchase Softimage 7.5 are privy to hundreds of hours of no cost video training, via the website. There is an informative online community available there, as well.

Newtek Lightwave 3D is another award-winning software program used by a variety of industries. It is responsible for creating special-effects for television and film. Notable projects include: Titanic, Babylon 5, Star Trek Voyager and Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius.

This full-featured package can also be used for projects such as print materials, industrial design, website creation, medical imaging and architectural design. It is available in MAC and Windows version.

Purchasing Lightwave 3D, from the Newtek site, entitles the buyer to a free one-year membership to the HardCORE program, which provides instruction and many other benefits to the user.

Blender 3D is a no-cost graphics and animation program capable of doing many of the same tasks as its counterparts. It boasts a unique user interface that makes it very easy to use.

Blender 3D has been made available under a general public license. Windows, MAC and Linux versions can now be downloaded, from the website.

This is a full-featured program that is frequently updated. It can handle tasks such as modeling, animation, rendering, texturing, nonlinear editing and compositing… just to name a few.

Once the program has been downloaded, users have access to a wide variety of tutorials and other information that will make using the software much easier. As with any type of software program, practice and familiarly is the key to success.

Take advantage of http://www.rebusfarm.com/ rendering service to render online all your 3D animations. Donwload the Farminizer software for free, it’ll make your life as a 3D developer much easier.

Let’s say you’re going to lunch, a meeting, or going to run some errands, but will be coming back to use your computer in a few hours. You might want to turn your computer off so it doesn’t waste electricity, but your “computer guy” (or girl) told you it’s dangerous to turn your computer on and off all the time, so what do you do? This would be a perfect time to use the “sleep mode” on your computer. When you tell your computer to go to sleep, it turns off the monitor, stops the disk drives and saves its current state into memory. When you return, just touch your mouse or keyboard and your computer quickly wakes up, and you’re exactly where you

left off.

What if you’re going to be away from your computer for a longer period of time but will be coming back relatively soon? This is when you should use the hibernate mode. Think of hibernate is a deeper state of sleep. In hibernate mode your monitor is shut off, hard disks are stopped and your state is saved. A major difference between sleep and hibernate is power consumption. In sleep mode your computer is in a very low power state, and can wake up quickly. In hibernate mode your computer isn’t using any power so it takes longer to warm up.

Some other tips you should keep in mind are always save your existing work before going into sleep or hibernate modes. Occasionally the computer will fail to wake up and you will lose any unsaved data. Laptop owners should also remember sleep uses power and will eventually drain the battery.

© Copyright TabletPC.6LN.com, All Rights Reserved.

Eve Larson writes news and computer tips for tablet pc’s, laptops, and desktop computers on her website http://www.tabletpc.6ln.com, where you can read more tips or subscribe to her blog.

• Business System value. For large publicly traded enterprise ERM application needs to be tailored to serve unique business processes. In the case of traditional ERP system for big businesses, such as Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft, the modules have very rich functionality and you can expect that majority of the required functionality is already present. In the case when the system is coming the way up from mid-size to large clientele – you expect more customization to be done. There are pluses and minuses of both approaches: in the case of traditional system you overpay for the functionality you do not need and probably consulting rates will be higher, in the case of Great Plains – you might need more customization hours with lower rates

• Implementation Partner Expertise. This is very important question. In the case of Great Plains you should be aware that typical Microsoft Business Solution partner/VAR serves local market and mid-size clients. Plus it might not have dedicated Great Plains developers – consultants may not segregate functional and technical consulting duties. Also look for your industry implementation expertise – if

you are project organization – ask for Great Plains Project Accounting tailoring and integration expertise, if you are nation-wide placement agency and want to deploy payroll module for your temps – ask for US Payroll module customization and case studies

• Technology Diversity challenges. You should analyze your current technologies in use and cross-integration needs with Microsoft Great Plains – Lotus Notes/Domino, custom Oracle systems, Unix-based databases, such as DBII, Java/EJB oriented web systems, Siebel CRM solutions? If you have these so-called non-Microsoft platforms and systems and you need cross-integration – check if proposed Microsoft Business Solution partner has the expertise

• Do not be sold – select your provider proactively. It is not a secret that when VAR hears the name of your fortune 500 corporation – it deploys it’s sales heavy artillery. You need to find people who could do the job and you need to find them via independent objective research. Good luck with selection, implementation and customization, if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job – give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Microsoft RMS, Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: andrewk@albaspectrum.com

The latter is more expensive but is much easier to use during a disaster. That is, of course, what off-site storage is meant to prepare you for—the destruction of your media and/or the building that holds it. If you have a complete set of backups in another location, you would be able to recover from even the worst local disaster.

Choosing a media vaulting vendor

Choosing a media vaulting vendor is an important a task as choosing your backup software. Choosing the wrong vendor can be disastrous. You depend on that vendor as your last line of defence, which is why you are paying them. Therefore, their storage and filing procedures need to be above reproach. Their movement-tracking procedure must be free of holes. Here is a list of things to consider when choosing an off-site storage vendor:

Individual media accountability

The first media vaulting vendor I ever used stored all of my volumes inside cases. They never inventoried the individual pieces of media. It was up to me to know which volume was in which case. When I needed a volume from one of the cases, they had to go in and get it. Once that was done, there was no log of where that volume actually existed. This is reffered to as container vaulting. Most media vaulting companies also offer individual media vaulting. This method ensures that every volume is being tracked.

Bar-coded, location-based inventory

Again each volume should have a bar code that allows your storage vendor to scan every volume in and out. They should scan volumes into their vault when they arrive and scan them out when they give them back to you.

Electronic double check

If you are keeping track of every volume’s location, and your vendor is too, you should double-check each other. One or both of you can print out an export of your database that shows volume locations. You can write a program that cross checks the location of every volume against the other inventory. I can’t tell you how many times such a program has saved me. It’s great to find an error when it happen, instead of weeks later when you need a volume that got misplaced.

Testing your chosen vendor

See if your vendor is on their toes. One tricky thing you can do is to see if they leave you alone in the vault. You are a customer of this company, so ask them if you can do an inventory of your media alone. See if they allow you unrestricted

access to the inside of the vault. If they leave you alone inside the vault with no supervision, you have access to other companies’ media. That means that at certain times, other companies may have access to your media. Run, don’t walk, away from this company.

Make surprise inspections. Make spot checks. Ask for random volumes back, and see how quickly they can find them. Ask for volumes you just sent them. Volumes in the process of being inventoried are the hardest to find, but they should be able to do it. If you regularly send them five volumes a day with an inventory, put four volumes in one day, but list five on the inventory. See if they notice. If they don’t, raise a ruck’s! Their procedures should protect you from these types of human errors. If they don’t, these procedures need to be improved. Be unpredictable. If you become predictable, you may be overlooked. Keeping them on their toes will make them remember you – and how important you think your volumes are. (By the way, your ability to make surprise inspections and spot checks should be spelled out in your contract. Make sure that it is OK for you to do this. If it is not…well, you know what to do)

Vendors store two types of volumes: Those that rotate in and and those that stay there indefinitely. As you rotate the cyclical volumes in and out, they are inventoried. Your archive volumes are another story. If a volume has been there for two years and has never been touched, how do you know that it’s OK? You should make a full inventory of those volumes at least once, preferably twice, every year.

Electronic vaulting

Electronic vaulting is becoming quite popular. It can be expensive, but it’s a beautiful thing. If you can afford it, I highly recommend it. The premise is that your backups are sent directly to a storage system at the electronic vaulting vendor. One question you need to ask yourself is, “What happens if they burn to the ground?” All your data could be lost. Don’t let this happen. Make sure that this storage company is not the only location for your backed-up data. In addition, make sure that you know how you’re going to do a large restore. While a small network link may be large enough to do a continuous incremental backup, it’s probably not large enough to do a 100 GB restore. If this is a concern, ask your electronic vaulting vendor about a local recovery appliance.

Backup Data Offsite is an online provider of offsite data backup solutions and you can use the services of them to store data offsite.

But, if you are to purchase video editing software, what should you use? What should you purchase? Here are some tips to help you choose the video editing products that you should purchase for your needs.

• First off, know what those needs are. For many, you simply want to take your home movie of the family vacation and edit it out. But, if you want to do additional things to it, you will likely need to insure that those features are available to you in whichever product you

choose to purchase.

• You will also want to make sure that the video editing software that you choose, works on your computer as well as with your digital devices such as your mobile phones, your video camera, and your digital camera. These things will matter in what you can use the editing software for.

• Go ahead and check out the bells and whistles that these things have. You will be impressed by how many various types of editing you can do. For example, you can dub over sound, you can cut and add in graphics, and you can take everything out of order without running the original pieces.

• You will want to look for quality as well as user friendliness. The more able you are to use the editing software, the more often you will use it.

Video editing has come a long way and features huge amounts of features that you just have to take advantage of. More than likely, it will continue to grow as well!

For more information please see http://www.video-editing-help.co.uk

A great number of our customers use file compression on a daily basis. RAR archiver is very popular and it is often used, when sending large files within your local network or outside.

However, in some cases it is safer to send unpacked files, because file compression is not always stable and this way of forwarding files may lead to their corruption. If you have just downloaded a file of RAR format and you see an error or corrupt rar, when trying to open this document, you may need Recovery Toolbox for RAR.

This rar repair tool helps, when users are unable to download large files one more time due to any reason, for example, when your Internet traffic is limited. Moreover, you may need a single document from the whole archive, that is why, redownload is irrational. The program for rar repair, fix rar and repair rar works with

all tools, that can create files of RAR format, all compression rates are supported. Your archive may be protected with a password, it is unimportant, password-protected files are easily processed. Please note, that Recovery Toolbox for RAR is not a crack of any kind, users should enter the password, when opening compressed files, you are not allowed to use Recovery Toolbox for RAR for illegal purposes. Recovery Toolbox for RAR will easily extract documents, if it is possible. In some rare cases, RAR archives may be seriously damaged, it may lead to impossibility for Recovery Toolbox for RAR to retrieve some files from corrupted documents of RAR format. Do not hesitate to drop us an email, if something about rar fix, repair rar file or fix rar file is not clear, we welcome feedback with regard to rar recovery software and rar fix tool from our customers.

Beyond a spare pda battery replacement you can use some basic battery conditioning techniques to help further extend the life of your pda battery like: use the AC adapter or pda cradle at a desk, powering your pda battery down when not in use, dimming your pda screen down, and using peripherals wisely.

But with PDA batteries there is far more going on internally that work against the life of a pda battery. Contained within your PDA Battery is a design and chemistry make-up that impacts your battery life far more than your usage activity and there is no amount of conditioning you can do to preven the ultimate power loss of your pda battery.

For example we know that batteries are rated by their voltage, their mAh, and of course the chemicals contained within. These three technical facts about your battery give some insight into the actual life of (energy stored within) your battery.

But the length of time a pda battery can operate is not linear to the amount of energy stored in the battery. In fact their are four ongoing problems with all batteries that affect performance and the extended battery life of your pda.

They are: declining capacity, increasing internal resistance, elevated self-discharge, and premature voltage cut-off on discharge.

These are more complex issues that are beyond user control and are wholly contained within your pda battery and within your device! As we will see these issues (declining capacity, increasing internal resistance, elevated self-discharge, and premature voltage cut-off on discharge) do more to cause PDA Battery Degradation and PDA Power Loss than your typical PDA owner could ever do.

Declining Capacity

Declining capacity is when the amount of charge a battery can hold gradually decreases due to usage, aging, and with some chemistry, lack of maintenance. PDA batteries are specified to deliver about 100 percent capacity when new but after usage and aging and lack of conditioning a pda battery’s capacity will drop. This is normal. If you are using a pda battery (or any lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery) when your battery’s capacity reaches 60% to 70% the pda battery will need to be replaced. Standard industry practice will warranty a battery above 80%. Below 80% typically means you have used the practical life of a battery. Thus the threshold by which a battery can be returned under warranty is typically 80%.

Loss of Charge Acceptance

The loss of charge acceptance of the Li‑ion/polymer batteries is due to cell oxidation. Cell oxidation

is when the cells of the battery lose their electrons. This is a normal process of the battery charge creation process. In fact every time you use your pda battery a loss of charge acceptance occurs (the charge loss allows your battery to power your pda). Capacity loss is permanent. Li‑ion/polymer batteries cannot be restored with cycling or any other external means. The capacity loss is permanent because the metals used in the cells run for a specific time only and are being consumed during their service life.

Internal Resistance

Internal resistance, known as impedance, determines the performance and runtime of a battery. It is a measure of opposition to a sinusoidal electric current. A high internal resistance curtails the flow of energy from the battery to a pda device. The aging of the battery cells contributes, primarily, to the increase in resistance, not usage. Expect a typical life span of a Li‑ion battery to be one to three years, whether it is used or not. The internal resistance of the Li‑ion batteries cannot be improved with cycling (recharging). Cell oxidation, which causes high resistance, is non-reversible and is the ultimate cause of battery failure (energy may still be present in the battery, but it can no longer be delivered due to poor conductivity).

Elevated Self-Discharge

All batteries have an inherent self-discharge. The self-discharge on nickel-based batteries is 10 to 15 percent of its capacity in the first 24 hours after charge, followed by 10 to 15 percent every month thereafter. Li‑ion battery’s self-discharges about five percent in the first 24 hours and one to two percent thereafter. At higher temperatures, the self-discharge on all battery chemistries increases. The self-discharge of a battery increases with age and usage. Once a battery exhibits high self-discharge, little can be done to reverse the effect.

Premature Voltage Cut-Off

Some pdas do not fully utilize the low-end voltage spectrum of a pda battery. The pda device itself cuts off before the designated end-of-discharge voltage is reached and battery power remains unused. For example, a pda that is powered with a single-cell Li‑ion battery and is designed to cut-off at 3.7V may actually cut-off at 3.3V. Obviously the full potential of the battery and the device is lost (not utilized). Why? It could be something with elevated internal resistance and are pda operations at warm ambient temperatures. PDAs that load the battery with current bursts are more receptive to premature voltage cut-off than analog equipment. High cut-off voltage is mostly equipment related, not battery.

Dan Hagopian of Batteryship.com authored this article. http://www.Batteryship.com offers PDA Battery Replacement Kits with tools and instructions for iPod battery, iPAQ battery, Clie battery, Palm Battery, Axim battery, Treos, and Blackberries.

The Extent of the Problems

One of the most common problems, particularly with older versions of the email application, is that the database files can become corrupted for no apparent reason. The larger the amounts of communications you are storing the more vulnerable your program is to this threat. Additionally, when the application tries to compact the database this problem is common.

If your database becomes corrupted, you may lose the ability to access certain messages and folders. You might even lose the ability to access your email application at all and might need to reinstall the program. Imagine all of the emails you could end up losing!

Possible Solutions

Now that you’re worried about Outlook Express problems you’re probably thinking of ways to protect yourself. One way is to choose a different email application program but most of them are more difficult to set up than this one and may be more difficult to locate, especially if you’re not that interested in the IT sector. Many of them have their own problems, as well.

Another solution is to rely on the fixes and updates provided by Microsoft. Unfortunately, these are always issued or released well

after a problem has been established and by then it’s too late for those who have been victims of the technical trouble. The solutions may not always be effective either so you might still find that you’re out of luck despite your efforts.

A Better Option

Instead, you could consider the Repair Tool for Outlook Express. This handy program uses a highly evolved analytic engine when you have a problem with your application. Using this engine, the program is able to locate the emails and messages you need access to, including their attachments, because it can actually read the corrupted database (DBX) files. You can then repair these recovered files so they will be available again. The folders can also be repaired and all important data can be transferred off the hard drive or server onto some type of removable media, including CDs and flash drives. If you’ve lost a large number of files due to the problem, you can do batch repairs to save time.

But the Repair Tool for Outlook Express does even more than that. For example, if you’ve accidentally deleted a message you had intended to keep, you can recover it easily. And that can be done even if you’ve removed them from your “Deleted” folder. The best part of the program is that you don’t need to be an IT expert to use it effectively. The controls are intuitive, and they let you continue using your Outlook Express email application with greater peace of mind and less cause for concern.
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