Every day individuals fib, lie and embellish their way through the work day, not realizing that there are repercussions. The consequences may not always be as severe as termination, but it can be a reduction in bonus, a permanent mark on your record or a poor score on your yearly review, not to mention the damage done to your reputation among fellow colleagues.  What follows are 4 frequent fibs that every single should avoid in the workplace.

Pulling the Healthy Sick Card
If you call in sick when you’re feeling perfectly fine you better be smart about it. Taking off one too many hangover Fridays, or regularly turning the day before calendared holiday 3 day weekends into your personal 4 day long weekends, will no doubt cause suspicious minds.  So come clean to your supervisor and ask that these  be reported as vacation days, or try to schedule your healthy sick days on less conspicuous days during the week.

The Faux Appointment/Emergency
Leaving work under false medical or other emergent pretenses is asking for trouble. Take it from Kristine who played hooky to get prepped for a date and was spotted getting her hair blown out at the salon by one of her co-workers. All it takes is one sighting or slip and you can lose your credibility, especially when medical or family issues are used as an excuse.

Pointing the Finger
When people’s jobs and egos are at stake, blaming others when you’re at fault can lead to war in the workplace. Remember, it’s a politics game and you’ll lose if you try to dodge the bullet by feigning innocence. Folks, the only way to keep allies and integrity intact is to play fair and take ownership of your conduct and work in good times and in bad.

Fudging Hours & Fudging Expenses
Working to make sure you get in those all those billable hours is seriously stressful. You may hit your targets by rounding up to the nearest hour but don’t press your luck. This is a serious offense, and companies’ billings are increasingly being examined by their clients and their clients’ audit units or accountants. If you’re a certified professional, lying here may not cost you just a client, but your license.

Bluetooth 3.0 officially launched

The latest version of , Bluetooth 3.0 + HS, was officially launched during a recent meeting among the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). 

Based off of the 802.11 protocol, Bluetooth 3.0 will increase transfer speeds from 3Mbps up to an impressive 23Mbps, according to Bluetooth supporters.  The technology is based on Wi-Fi standards and offers power-saving benefits that weren’t available with Bluetooth 2.1.

“Utilizing the 802.11 radio was a natural choice as it provides efficiencies for both our members and consumers — members get more function out of the two radios they are already including in devices, and consumers with Bluetooth 3.0 HS products will get faster exchange of information without changing how they connect,” Bluetooth SIG director Michael Foley said in a statement.  “We are excited to expand the possibilities of the PAN.”

During the announcement, Bluetooth 3.0 is expected to be used to help transfer large amounts of information between PCs and media devices, with wireless syncing available.  Bluetooth has mainly been used by mobile phones, but the faster speeds should lead to Bluetooth adoption with more camcorders, TVs, Blu-ray players, cameras, and other consumer devices.

Even though Bluetooth 3.0 is out and about, many manufacturers are just now catching up to the Bluetooth 2.0 standard.  Furthermore, no Bluetooth 3.0 devices are available on the consumer at the moment, and won’t begin shipping until Q3 this year, if that early.

Tech journalists and analysts long-anticipated the launch of Bluetooth 3.0, and have high expectations of what it will be able to do in the future.  Users will be able to transfer music library, DVDs, and photos all in a matter of seconds, a Bluetooth SIG statement said last week.

Foley said there could be a handful of Bluetooth 3.0 devices in time for the 2009 holiday shopping, but officials don’t expect a significant amount of products until next year.

When the iPhone OS v3.0 came out, there was talk of medical peripherals at Apple’s presentation.  While such thoughts might strike some as odd, the prospect of medical devices attached to smartphones is becoming increasingly considered.

A pair of computer engineers at Washington University has developed a USB-basedultrasound probe technology which connects to smart phones and an interface program to display the results directly on the phone screen.  The new device, invented by William D. Richard, Ph.D., WUSTL associate professor of computer science and engineering, and David Zar, research associate in computer science and engineering, won’t be used on Apple’s iPhone anytime soon, though — it was funded by Microsoft.

Researcher William D. Richard (left) takes an ultrasound probe of his colleague David Zar’s carotid artery. The pair designed the probe, which works on Windows smart phones over USB.  (Source: Washington University)

:——:
Microsoft gave the researchers a $100,000 grant and it has paid off handsomely, as the pair has completed an intriguing device forWindows Mobile smartphones.  The task of porting the imaging algorithms to the phone APIs and making a peripheral that met the low power requirements were daunting, but in the end the pair succeeded.

Their device is capable of delivering imaging of the kidneys, liver, bladder and eyes, and comes with endocavity probes for prostate and uterine screenings and biopsies, and vascular probes for imaging veins and arteries for starting IVs and central lines.

The program on the phone is capable of creating medical quality images and resolving detail as fine as individual arteries. And best of all, the cost is under $2,000.  (Source: Washington University)

:——-:

Describes Professor Richard, “You can carry around a probe and cell phone and image on the fly now.  Imagine having these smartphones in ambulances and emergency rooms. On a larger scale, this kind of cell phone is a complete computer that runs Windows. It could become the essential computer of the Developing World, where trained medical personnel are scarce, but most of the population, as much as 90 percent, have access to a cell phone tower.”

Professor Zar adds, “Twenty-first century medicine is defined by medical imaging.  Yet 70 percent of the world’s population has no access to medical imaging. It’s hard to take an MRI or CT scanner to a rural community without power.”

From the size of a cabinet, the electronics for the scanner were shrunk over the years to a 1×3 inch circuit board which uses only the power provided by a USB connector.  (Source: Washington University)

:——–:

Professor Richard designed the probe electronics.  He was able to, over the course of over 25 years, shrink the probe from the size of a small cabinet, to a 1×3 inch design.  The costs also dropped, down from $30,000 to $2,000.  He believes the units will eventually cost $500, opening them up to the third world.  Professor Zar optimized the software, an equally daunting task.

The pair is currently demoing their device at Microsoft and health events across the country.  They have two main plans for deployment.  One is to potentially partner with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to deploy the device in a series of field trials in the third world.

The other plan is to deploy the device in battlefields, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, to help diagnose soldier’s shrapnel wounds.  Such a deployment could literally save lives.  States Professor Richard, “We’re at the point of wanting to leverage what we’ve done with this technology and find as many applications as possible.”

HP on Monday will reportedly launch a new server system designed for corporate data centers. The Wall Street Journal reports:

According to HP documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal and people briefed on the matter, HP plans to announce Monday a blade server, dubbed Matrix, which will be able to automate many data-center processes. The system will come with HP software for monitoring and controlling an array of chores, such as managing email and information storage.

Cisco’s entry into the server market and plans for the data center—dubbed the Unified Computing System—has headlined a bevy of announcements from IT giants. Dell has its simplify the data center strategy. Sun has its cloud plan and new servers as does IBM, which offers cloud computing services.

While all the vendors claim to be different there are a few common themes that emerge in the data center wars:

• The data center is going virtual;
• The enterprise data center is increasingly referred to as a private cloud;
• The rallying cry is to make the data center more modular for easy box—server, storage and networking—swaps;
• And vendors need to consolidate and save space, labor and energy costs.

We’ll update with more information on HP’s grand plan as we get it.

By Mitch Wagner 
InformationWeek 
April 6, 2009 04:00 AM 

Some of us are noisier than others. Indeed, this article might also be headlined “how to get Mitch Wagner to shut up,” because I am most definitely part of the problem. I just love to share on Facebook. How do you get blabbermouths like me to shut up and stop bothering you?

Well, you can un-friend them of course. I’ve done that with a few people who are active on Facebook, and whom I barely know. But un-friending people has consequences. As obnoxious as your cousin’s political links might be, un-friending him could be awkward at the next family Bar Mitzvah.

Fortunately, there’s a way to get rid of obnoxious people’s updates without un-friending them — and it’s actually pretty simple.

3 Easy Steps To Silence

 
Remember, the word “Hide” won’t show up unless you hover your mouse over an update posted by the person you want to hide. So, go ahead, hide news items on Facebook from over-sharing motormouths, and enjoy the blessed silence.Facebook spokeswoman Meredith Chin (who has wisely chosen to ignore my recent friend request) shares some additional tips.
 
You can add [people you hide] back to your stream at any time by going to the bottom of the page and clicking on ‘Edit Options’ and then ‘Add to News Feed’ beside their names. 

“In addition, you can create a special Friend List of the people you care about the most. That Friend List will appear on the left hand navigationmenu giving you the ability to filter your stream by those friends and see only their updates. If you want that list to be the default every time you go to your home page, you can drag that list above the ‘News Feed’ filter. Whatever filter is at the top will be your default view.”

She noted that Facebook is constantly tweaking its user interface, so what you see on your screen might be slightly different from what’s described in these instructions and shown in the accompanying image gallery. But it should be close enough — until Facebook does another radical redesign, that is.

 
Keep Your Friends Separate

And now, here’s how to create a Friend List:

1. Click “Friends” on the blue horizontal bar at the very top of your Facebook page. Select “All Friends” from the dropdown. 
2. Select an existing Friend List from the vertical sidebar on the left side of the page, or click the blue “Make a New List” button and create a new list. 
3. Look for the text box near the top of the center column, labeled “Add to list.” Start typing a friend’s name in that box and then when the correct friend’s name comes up on the list below the box, select that name by clicking it or hitting “Enter” on your keyboard. Alternately, you can click the “Select Multiple Friends” button, and see a list of all your friends, and click on the ones you want to include in your list.

 I’ve created one list so far, called “Fav” for people who are actually my friends and family in real life.

New communications technology requires new forms of etiquette. When answering machines became popular, people argued about whether it was polite to screen calls. People argued over Caller ID. Now, we’re starting to see arguments about appropriate of social media like Facebook.

I think in the future we’ll see a consensus that you’re not required to subscribe to your friends’ Twitter feeds, or Facebook news, or blogs. That’s what I already tell people who complain about my social media garrulousness, I say, “I realize my style isn’t for everyone — if you want to un-friend me, I won’t be offended.”

 
How do you handle people who talk too much on social media? Or are you the one who talks too much — how do you handle complaints? Let us know.

The worm was activated on April Fool’s Day, but experts said Wednesday that although nothing noticeable had occurred computer users are not off the hook.

As the worm slithered through millions of infected machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, computers were expected to try and phone home to a master control centre by logging on to thousands of Internet domain names.

Patrik Runald, chief security adviser for F-Secure, estimated more than 50 million computers were infected worldwide, meaning the worm could still be lurking on computers. “That is happening right now,” he said on Wednesday. “Obviously April 1st has already hit Asia so we’ve had over 24 hours of these computers reaching out to these websites and nothing has happened.”

The worm infects computers by taking control of the operating system. Then it spreads like cancer, ravaging security services by attacking vulnerabilities in the Windows system and blocking access to security websites.

Runald, whose company works as part of an industry alliance of security companies and Internet service providers called the Conficker Working Group, anticipated the worm will continue for weeks.

“Just because nothing happened today doesn’t mean the danger is over and we can relax because something could happen at any moment.”

But just what will happen baffles even the most tech-savvy individuals.

No one knows who created it but the president of Canada’s Internet Registration Authority says it’s likely a group of elite hackers whose motivation is old-fashioned greed rather than something like bringing down the Internet.

The hackers could be collecting credit card numbers stored in confidential documents on infected computers, which could generate millions of dollars, said Byron Holland.

“Or It could be a case like Mafiaboy — you remember, that good Canadian kid who created a botnet and then used it to attack major commercial websites like CNN for example and brought them to their knees,” said Holland.

He added there is no doubt in his mind the worm’s authors picked April Fool’s Day intentionally to launch the worm to create a smokescreen by making people think it’s a prank, thereby lulling people into a false sense of security.

“This particular piece of code is extremely sophisticated, clearly written by software engineers,” he said. “This is not an unconscious decision. The fact is it gets people wondering if it’s a joke, creates confusion and people don’t take it seriously.”

Bruce Cowper, chief security adviser for Microsoft Canada, said security officers have disabled a significant number of domains targeted by Conficker to disrupt the use of the worm and prevent potential attacks.

“We are not currently aware of any customer impact from this activity,” he said in a statement. “Currently, we have not identified any actions outside of what we expected, including no new variants of Conficker and no other malware uploaded on the domains.”

Microsoft has offered $250,000 to anyone who can provide information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Conficker.

Holland also noted Canada’s Internet Registration Authority was also aggressively working to block the worm by isolating previously unregistered dot-ca domains.

“We can’t wipe it out like polio but what we can do is really mitigate it,” said Holland. “I think the fact that the worm has been relatively benign so far to some degree speaks to the fact we have been effective in this.”

There are several ways to identify an infected computer including, a hard drive that is whirring away on its own and not be able to surf security websites such as Symantec.com or McAfee.com.
Source => http://www.canada.com/technology/Hackers+activate+worm+systems+trashed/1456113/story.html

Through Eventtriggers.exe, you can automatically start a batch file or VBS script which performs a custom action or captures useful information. You can also use a script to perform correction actions on the machine, preventing the problem from reoccurring.  Sometimes you just need to be notified when certain events are created in the Event Viewer, so we can use a script to send an e-mail alert. For example, you can create a trigger that monitors the event logs for low disk space events and if such events occur, you can run a script that removes any temporary or unnecessary files to resolve the low disk space condition, and/or send an e-mail alert telling you about it. Another reason for using Eventtriggers is to help you identify application and service outages quickly, and to possibly restore normal operations.

Eventtriggers.exe can also help you maintain system security and integrity. When a system is under attack, if auditing was enabled events may be written to the log files that indicate failed logon attempts in the security logs as a malicious user attempts to gain access.

Eventtriggers.exe command has 3 switches:

• Eventtriggers /create  – Creates a new event trigger and sets the action to take.
• Eventtriggers /query  – Displays the event triggers currently configured on a specified system.
• Eventtriggers /delete  – Removes an event trigger when it is no longer needed.

The command itself is pretty simple to use. From a command prompt run:

eventtriggers.exe /create /eid /tr /ru /rp /tk

• /create – is used to create an event trigger,
• /delete can be used to delete the trigger
• /eid – is the event id number you wish to track
• /tr – is the name you would like to give to the event trigger
• /ru – is the user name to run under userdomain or user@domain.com are both acceptable
• /rp – is the user password
• /tk – is the action you would like performed when triggered

Event triggers are created and their associated tasks are run by default on the local computer with the permissions of the user who is currently logged on. Because this command is used primarily for administration, you will be prompted for a password before the event trigger is added. If the triggered task needs to run with different or specific user permissions, provide the Run As permissions using /ru [Domain]User [/rp Password] options.

See the links section below for some useful examples and a full syntax explanation of Eventtriggers.exe.

We can use the Eventtriggers.exe command and combine it with a 3rd-party tool that will send us the e-mail notifications. In order to send an e-mail based on Event ID trigger we’ll use free mail software called BMAIL.exe which can be freely downloaded from the Beyond Logic website

Note: You can also use other methods of sending e-mails. If you read my “Send Mail from Script” article you’ll get many more examples of methods to sending e-mail via scripts.

In order to configure the trigger, please follow these steps:

1. Create a folder in which we’ll place the BMAIL.exe, a batch file that calls the BMAIL.exe application, and a text file that contains the e-mail body.

Figure A

2. Create a batch file that will call the BMAIL.exe with the following syntax:

BMAIL.exe -s ExchangeServerName -p 25 -t mail@domain.com -f Event576@domain.com -m msg.txt -a “Disk is nearly full!!!”

(insert in text box)

Replace ExchangeServerName with the name of your Exchange server.

Replace the e-mail addresses in the above batch file to those that fit your organizations and needs.

Duh note: “Disk is nearly full!!!” is just an example…

Use bmail.exe /? To get the complete syntax of the BMAIL.exe use.

3.  The text file will contain the e-mail body. You can safely skip this stage and only create an e-mail subject in the batch file mentioned above. Here is an example of such a file. Save it as msg.txt in the working folder from step 1:

"The disk is at or near capacity. You may need to delete some files. Please take care of this before things stop working."

4. Open a Command Prompt window by clicking on Start > Run, typing CMD and pressing Enter. 

5. To create a new event ID (in this case event ID 2013 – alerting us whenever a disk is ) we'll use the following syntax:

eventtriggers /create /eid 2013 /tr EventID2013 /ru domainuser /rp password /tk C:Systembmailtrigger.bat

Replace C:Systembmailtrigger.bat with your path and file name. Also, replace /eid 2013. with whatever event number you need to monitor, as well as /tr EventID2013.

The /RU and /RP parameters hold the credentials you’re going to use. Replace them with your own.

6. Type eventtriggers /create /? In order to get the complete syntax of the commands

7. Once the above Eventtriggers command is run, you can use eventtriggers /query to see if your trigger is ready.

Figure B

8. Make sure that the Exchange server you are using the Eventtriggers command has relay permissions in the SMTP Virtual Server. Otherwise – you’ll get no e-mails…

9. I got an e-mail…

Figure C

That’s it …

Irtiza Haider, a Pakistani student of class 8 from Faisalabad has been crowned to be the world’s youngest Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA). He did it by answering 80 percent of the questions correctly in 2 hours, in order to pass the CCNA test. The CCNA, is a certification that emphasizes on the technology and skills needed to work with networks of 100 nodes or fewer, covering both IP and non-IP networks including IPX and AppleTalk. Irtiza had already enrolled in the CCNA classes back in June of 2007 however he, his father and teacher went to Islamabad to attend the Cisco Academy Awareness Day in Islamabad on June 19, 2007 to learn more about the prospects of the program. In order to pass the CCNA, you need more than a good teacher and a supportive family. One needs to grasp key networking technologies and concepts. Further levels of certifications will extend towards the CCNP (Cisco Certified Networking Professional) and the CCIE (Cisco Certified Internet Export), which will place Irtiza amongst an elite group of Networking Professionals around the world. The 12-year old boy’s teacher and mentor is Rizwan Dastgir, Curriculum Lead and Academy Instructor at Ahad IT Services (a Cisco Local Academy), in Faisalabad, a city of about 3 million people.

Microsoft plans to make the bits available as of 9 a.m. PT on Thursday. Interested parties will be able to grab them from the Internet Explorer 8 Web site, officials said.

Update: The final IE 8 bits are downloadable now from here for Windows XP and Vista. The final version isn’t meant for installation on Windows 7.

Microsoft officials will launch officially IE 8 during the Mix ‘09 morning keynote on March 19.

There are very few changes between the Release Candidate (RC) IE 8 codethat Microsoft delivered in January and the final bits, officials said.

Starting with the RC, Microsoft began offering users a downloadable Compatibility List of sites which automatically default to the older, non-standards-compliant version of Internet Explorer 7 in order to lessen compatibility problems with IE 8. Since January, Microsoft has tweaked that list a bit, removing sites which have since updated so as to work properly with the more standards-centric IE 8, and adding new ones that aren’t standards-mode compliant. Otherwise, the tweaks to the product have been few.

Microsoft is planning to push IE 8 to users via its automatic updating mechanisms, but has yet to set a date as to when it will do so. In the interim, downloading the IE 8 code from Microsoft’s Web site will be the way interested users can obtain the latest release of the Microsoft browser.

Microsoft also plans to bundle IE 8 with Windows 7 when that operating system is launched, most likely later this year. Recently, officials said they plan to offer users the option of “removing” IE 8 from Windows 7 in order to try to head off antitrust punishments likely to be doled out by the European Commission overseeing the Opera browser-bundling complaint against Microsoft.