Since my last post most of the news in the industry has swirled around Microsoft's Windows XP SP2 and the effect it's likely to have on your computing environment. I've got it sandboxed on one machine in my lab--I'm looking forward to seeing what still works, what works better, and what doesn't work at all.

Others haven't waited as long as I did, and they've been diving into the SP2 maelstrom since slightly before its release. There have been a ton of news stories on SP2, its problems and its benefits (and, yes, there seem to be several important benefits to SP2). If you have a couple of hours to kill and want to read a lot of high-volume declaiming on the subject, the folks at Slashdot have been doing their usual thorough job of wringing something out (both technically and linguistically).

Be sure to check out the Buzzcuts in the next issue of Network Computing--there's more information coming. For that matter, check out the Buzzcuts in every issue. They're quick to read, they're pithy, and they tend to give us all new things to think and argue about.

If there's one thing you can rely on Microsoft for, it's major delays for the release of their newest version of Windows. Longhorn won't be any exception -- the folks at Redmond are now touting its debut will be sometime in 2006.

Longhorn, however will be "short" one major feature: a new system -- originally lauded as a key component -- for finding and storing information.

MS promises the feature will follow soon behind.

Hmmm, wonder if this would make a good Top 11 for us -- "Other key features Microsoft sacrifices to ensure LongHorn gets delivered on time."

We recently asked NWC Readers if electronic signatures figure into their enterprise master plans? (For more on this topic, see our workshop)

Here's what your fellow readers had to say:

20% said, "Way too risky for this IT Pro"

28% chirped, "Absolutely, we're using them now"

44% said, "Signatures are so 80s; PKI's the thing for me"

8% lamented, "E-sign? Is that like a sig file?"

On September 2, 1969, a couple of UCLA computer scientists named Stephen Crocker and Vinton Cerf linked two large computers together with a 15-foot long grey cable. Their hope -- to exchange data over networks.

And here we are, thirty five years later -- clicking away from pop-up ads and trashing penis enlargement SPAMs that fill up inboxes faster than we delete them.

Cynicism aside, it's a milestone to be sure.

So Happy Birthday, you great big Internet. Oh, and thanks for the job. I'd probably be selling dirty-water dogs to Republican Conventioneers right now in NYC if it weren't for you.

The Otherpower.com staff thought of building a hamster-powered nightlight a couple years ago at a rather, uh, soused company Christmas party. Then recently Analise, an 8th grader from Albuquerque, NM, contacted DanF through the AllExperts.com Science For Kids forum, asking 'Can a rodent generate enough electricity to power a light by running on it's wheel?' That was enough inspiration for us to start the project, and we soon added Skippy the Hamster to the Otherpower.com payroll.

Dear Corporate Users,
We have a down internet connection. It's because someone deleted the internet when they dragged the little blue 'e' to the recycle bin. We are working with our internet service provider to restore the whole world wide web from tape backup. The problem is that the offsite storage for the WWW tape backup, is on another planet and with NASA grounded we have to use one of those Russian space flights to get the tapes. So it's a little slower than a regular restore.

Okay folks, it would appear that the Soyuz capsule was able to retrieve the tapes and restore the WWW. Thank you Russians! Three cheers for those guys!

The security industry was abuzz last week with news that collisions--when two different messages result in the same hash--have been discovered in the SHA and MD5 cryptographic functions. When a cryptographic hashing function is found to produce collisions, it is generally accepted that the overall security of the function will continue to degrade as more optimized methods for producing collisions are discovered.

In other words, once you can cause the function to collide, it's only a matter of time until you can find quicker, easier ways for it to collide. Does this mean that the SHA and MD5 functions should be immediately tossed into the waste bin? Not necessarily. Using a stronger SHA version (like SHA-256) is still a viable option at the moment.

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This week we managed to successfully integrate WebSphere 5.0 with our AD server, which was a cool thing to do. Softerra's LDAP Browser is a wonderful thing, mainly because it let us quickly browse AD and figure out what the DN should be ;-) Finding a user to bind with, however, was another story, but we managed to do that as well and soon WebSphere was happily authenticating us against LDAP.

We're gearing up to put Web Services platforms to the test and, in the midst of all that fun, beginning to prepare ourselves to migrate from AD and Exchange 2000 to AD and Exchange 2003, because it's about time we did and because we want to consolidate the servers. Right now we're using 2 and we're going to put both AD and Exchange on the same machine to save some space and hopefully reduce some of the heat issues that still crop up from time to time.

We've also got a ton of storage stuff in the lab at the moment. We've got more TB of space available than we have a right to have. Of course most of it isn't yet networked and what is networked isn't ready for the NWC Inc. network. I suspect it'll be ready soon and that's a good thing because the Spanstor keeps yelling at us about being low on disk space. I've been deleting backup images from the first half of the year in an attempt to make it happy but apparently I'm not deleting fast enough.

I really want to just "rm -f *" but I've been warned against that and for the moment I'm doing things by the book, even though it is a painfully slow method of managing files.

For your protection and ours we have established a procedure for parties wishing to introduce a link to the ATHENS 2004 website on their site.

Can't you just see the yellow "Have a Nice Day" smiley guy from the Wal-Mart commercials whistling as he glides through the Google corporate office -- everyone smiling and waving as he yanks out his giant scissors and starts slashing at Google share prices?

The price of a Google share has gone from the estimated $108 to $135 to a low, low, low $85. Gotta love those Rollbacks...

That is if you managed to get in on that annoying "Dutch Auction" Google implemented.

We recently asked our readers if they were ready for a network audit?

Here's how the thirty-six respondants answered:

• 31% said positively, "'Compliance' is our middle name"
• 22% lamented, "We're not covered yet"
• 47% replied, "Not sure -- do I need last year's receipts?"

(For more on the subject see our Workshop)

Is it just me, or does it seem like the average age of 'Net attackers is getting younger and younger?

Last week, High School Senior Jeffrey Parson pleaded guilty to unleashing a variant of the "Blaster" internet worm that hosed thousands of computers last summer.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Young kids are exploring the wonderful world of virus deployment as well as hacking for reasons such as impressing their friends, getting free stuff, etc.

Used to be kids would steal a chocolate bar or comic book from the corner store to gain attention.

Are we not doing something right by them? Are we not teaching kids the rights and wrongs of hacking and attacking? How old will the next attacker be -- 16? 14? Younger?

It's probably way too early on a Monday to be waxing on about this stuff, isn't it?

You wouldn't think that deleting a log file would take so much thought, but it has.

After doing some testing that resulting in a 2GB + error file for NWC Inc.'s web site I decided to delete it.

DENIED. Because Apache was running, I couldn't.

Well, I didn't want to stop the processes just so I could delete the file - all those widget orders we'd lose would be a problem for the business folks, right?

But what else can you do?

;-) Share the logs directory, mount it under Linux and delete the file.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Share your solution to the problem - the only requirement is that you can't stop Apache from running.

Utah-based Northface University is a new school that hopes to offer something unique. It's dispensing with liberal arts courses and focusing solely on a tech-centric curriculum. The goal is to produce software designers ready to jump into jobs, which in turn will please potential employers that their new hires require little or no training.

Tuition at Northface costs $60k for an intensive 28-month bachelor's degree in computer science. The school is backed by main sponsor IBM Corp., as well as Microsoft, Oracle and Unisys, all of which have donated software, tools and training regimens.

Already there are some critics to the program, who fear that removing the liberal arts courses may produce skilled IT personnel who will lack a more rounded knowledge base.

Whether that turns out to be true remains to be seen. We'll know for sure by May 2006 - when the first of the school's initial 130 enrollees make their way into the world. The school expects 1,200 graduates a year by 2007.

OK, so is this really such a good idea? Singapore has decided to have a contest to find and reward the city's best hackers. As if the chance to use stolen credit card accounts and spam millions of e-mail in-boxes weren't enough, now computer criminals can compete for exciting prizes. I'm sure this will work out really well. Really.

We recently asked our readers if they thought that early exposure to technology a help or hindrance to young children?

Here's how the eighty-nine respondants answered:

• 65% said Tech's in their future, so it's okay to start them young.
• 27% feel it could be a hindrance to child development.
• 8% said they weren't sure.

For more on this topic, read our blog.

Hewlett-Packard's new notebook has got a thing for flightless waterfowl -- particularly the open-source breed.

The company has announced that they will be the first large PC maker to offer a business notebook computer with Linux pre-installed.

The H-P Compaq nx5000 will feature Novell Inc.'s SuSE Linux and will market for around $1,140.

Poco Systems Inc. wants to change your outlook on e-mail clients.

I've been wishing for (Novell) Ximian Evolution to be ported to Windows because it's a great e-mail client on Linux and supports groupware connectivity to Exchange (amongst others), but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Barca is pretty good as a replacement, though the import capabilities are minimal (vCal, iCal, CSV, Netscape, Outlook Express) and it only uses POP/IMAP/SMTP. Even with the groupware connectivity of Outlook it won't be a perfect replacement, but from the bit of playing I did do if you don't need synchronization to a PDA then Barca might be an option for you. It isn't vulnerable to the virii and worms that periodically hit Outlook, so that's a definite plus and it's priced at a mere $59.95, which isn't too shabby.

Ever feel as if dealing with your wireless provider is like talking to a mannequin? Well New Jersey-based Magnolia Broadband Inc. has taken it one step further. They've hired an actual dummy.

"Bob" is a mannequin with a liquid-filled head and a cell phone strapped to its hand that the company has been driving around the streets of NYC and Kansas, in an attempt to determine how their new wireless technology -- called "antenna diversity" -- does in different areas.

The new technology includes a second internal antenna in the wireless phone. Magnolia hopes that the two separate signals from the two antennas will produce better reception and faster data rates.

No word is the dummy will be replacing the "Can You Hear Me Now" guy in those commercials.