Microsoft Releases Offices 2003 Service Pack 1

Microsoft released Office 2003 Service Pack 1 yesterday.  The service pack bundles security updates, bug fixes, and product enhancements.  Outlook 2003 gets an update for its spam filter and OneNote 2003 gets a whole list of useful enhancements.  We are currently evaluating the service pack and suggest Clients either wait for our OK or test the service pack on a limited number of workstations before rolling the service pack out.  We will have the service pack available on CD for those with slow Internet connections or many machines.

Virus Idiots Still At Work

There are yet another group of emails containing viruses circulating.   These emails purport to show Osama bin Laden committing suicide or a suicide note created by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Real slick stuff! 

New Mydoom Virus Variant Spreading Fast

A new version of the mydoom family of viruses is spreading rapidly today.  The virus is spread though an email attachment.  The subject line of the email will vary but the body will indicate that the users domain has been detected to have a virus.  It will request that the user opens the enclosed attachment for instructions on how to clean the virus. 

Due to the way this virus is constructed, search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc have been hit very hard today causing serious slow downs and some times prohibiting access to their sites.

Users should be made aware of this virus as soon as possible.

New Look and Features For Blog

As you can see, I have made some changes to our Blog.  Now that Google owns the servers that host Blogspot they have added some new features.  I have changed the template that our Blog uses.  I think it is simpler and therefore easier to read.  One of the new features is the ability to use different fonts and colors.  I'm sure you'll see some of that!  You can now comment on any Blog post simply by clicking on the comments link at the end of each post.  You can see comments from other as well.  And the SSGI Blog is now syndicated meaning you can use an RSS reader to access the Blog and get notified when new posts are published.  More about that later.  I hope you like this new format and find the features useful.

Microsoft To Release Windows XP Service Pack

Sometime in August we expect that Microsoft will release a long awaited service pack for Windows XP.  Service Pack 2 will include many security updates and unfortunately is expected to cause some problems.  The built in Windows Firewall will be turned on by default, and while firewalls are generally good things, it is expected that some users will have problems with some applications, although nothing that should be disasterous.
 
We have been running the early releases of Sevice Pack 2 for several months and find it pretty stable.  We suggest that if you are planning to install the update yourself you test it on non-production devices before you roll it out.  Clients on our Maintenance Plan will have the update installed by us during the following maintence cycle after the product is released.