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September/October 2003 Issue |
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Feature Articles Professionalism in Computing: A Goal to Reach or a Way of Life? What did one former CIO, AITP
Chapter President and current Department Head of an academic computing
department say to John Whitehouse, Jr., CCP (the ICCP Director of Certification)
after attending a weekend examination review session of the ICCP Certification
Council? Dr. Jim Woolen, CDP, CCP, of Ferris State University, shares his
impressions. I really
enjoyed working on the test items this weekend! It was a great learning
experience with expert colleagues in the IT field. It was a time for reflection
on my profession of 34 years and again to reinforce the value of certification
in my mind. While the long and intense days did contribute to a level of
fatigue, the exhilaration of satisfaction from being totally immersed in a
venture of this importance lifted me to an even higher level of energy. It was: a. An
outstanding experience b. Great
professional company c. Feeling
like I contributed to my professional community d. Learning
more depth in my area of specialty knowledge e. Learning
that I could contribute in a significant manner f. Finding that my contribution was valuable g. Seeing
that even the highest standards can be improved h. Having a
lot of fun i. A couple of great days with two fabulous
dinners in the company of my peers, where we continued discussions on the day's
accomplishments! The ICCP
examinations that I worked on were the Microcomputers and Networking
examination, the NEW Integrated Project Management (IPM) examination, where I
learned a lot about the new model-based approach to Information Systems
Development and the old favorite Information Technology Management examination
which was based on the original Certified Data Processor (CDP) examination for
IT Managers. There were
a number of examinations that needed to be updated, in fact we updated the IT
Management subject outline as well and recommended improvements for some of the
test items. I now have even a greater respect for the ICCP. The quality of
examination, the quality of the test item development processes, the test
management software application that has captured the knowledge from testing
for over 35 years, all were a great reinforcement to me of the value of my
certification. I really
recommend that CIOs out there get their employees
assessed using the ICCP examinations. It is a great way to distinguish your
star players. We used to
consider it a real honor to hold the CDP, and you really knew that you were
equal to the best in our industry when you achieved your CDP. Well, I want to
say to you that today I feel really proud to hold the CCP and of the fact that
the ICCP continues to maintain that tradition of excellence. I am really glad
to be calling myself a Certified Computing Professional. Less than
1% of the IT industry has achieved this professional designation, and I am
proud to state clearly that I am a member. * CCP
(Certified Computing Professional) is a professional designation awarded by the
Institute for the Certification of Computing Professionals. It is a vendor and
product independent certification that represents the highest standards of
achievement and adherence to a professional code of ethics. Less than 1% of all
IT professionals have achieved this distinction. See http://www.iccp.org to learn how you can earn
this distinguished professional certification. |
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The following article is one of a series of articles
on spam that appears in Information
Executive. Spam Legislation by Charles Oriez Spamcop reports that it processes 1/2 million spams daily
for its spam source database. This is
from a combination of customer accounts, spam traps scattered around the
Internet, and spam reported by non-customer volunteers (such as me). A recent Spamcop "spam
in progress" study showed that the 11 top spam sources in the world, and
14 of the top 15, were mainland Chinese servers. At other times, top sources have been in There are nine pieces of
spam-related legislation introduced in the Congress currently. As I write this, S877 is moving in the
Senate. Writing about legislation while
a legislative body is in session and considering them is akin to shooting at a
moving target. Because of this, the AITP
legislative committee will provide a link on its web site at http://www.aitp.org that will contain current
information on the various spam bills, updated as new information comes in. Bills with an HR designation
were introduced in the House, while those with an S were first introduced in
the Senate.
S877, if complied
with by spammers, will put SPEWS out of business, because there is a
prohibition in 5(b) on sending spam to harvested addresses. Since all spammers
are such fine, upstanding ethical business people who would never dream of
doing anything contrary to law, and therefore won't ever again mail to the
harvested spamtraps used by SPEWS to detect spam, this would make the SPEWS
business model non-functional. One provision of S877 is a
global 'do not spam' list, which regrettably has some serious causes for
concern. Ignore the problem that much
spam is currently being routed through foreign servers, frequently servers in Another problem with the
bill as originally written was that addresses will be placed on the list one at
a time, with no provision for domain-wide listing. When an individual or business creates a new
domain, we have the option of receiving mail in a default mailbox if a
particular address has not been assigned to a specific person. This gives us the opportunity to catch email
to "bad" addresses rather than bouncing it. These addresses are still valid, and should
still be added to the list if the domain owner so chooses. Any email address can include up to 255 lower
case letters, upper case letters, numbers, unicode
and special characters. The number of
possible combinations of characters in the user addresses for just one domain
means that the FTC will be spending more money on storage next year than the
total projected $1.3 trillion in revenue that the federal government expects to
bring in. If someone decides to add a
second domain to the list in a similar fashion, we'll be bankrupt. The only solution to this problem is to
provide for domain-wide listing. Failing
that, investing in the common stock of hardware companies such as EMC DASD
would seem to be indicated. Even the
direct marketers, who in general favor this bill, see the problems inherent in
this list. AITP has in the past
endorsed legislation that is similar in design to the Bowen bill in The Computer Owner Bill of
Rights [S563] is an interesting piece of legislation that will probably go
nowhere. I included it in this
legislative summary because it includes a provision for a "do not spam"
list similar to the one found in S877.
However, its main thrust is aimed at shoddy customer service. It requires software companies to stand
behind and support their products, run help desks that actually help people,
and act quickly to fix bugs and security holes.
No hearings have been scheduled for it yet. State Laws Something on the order of 30
states currently have laws on the books dealing with
spam. In general, they require a valid
opt-out procedure listed on the mail, a tag which is usually some variant of
ADV: on the subject line, a bar on deceptive subject lines, and a prohibition
on theft of resources from third parties.
Technically, that is the use of open proxies or open relays in most
cases. Most of them permit end users and
ISPs to sue, usually in small claims courts, for anywhere from $10 to $500 per
offense. Some of them permit State Attorneys
General to go after spammers. With over
half the states having enacted these laws already, spam is a rapidly decreasing
problem, isn't it? A review of your
state statutes, minus ones passed in the last few months, can be found at the
Spamcon Foundation at http://law.spamcon.org. "It's against the law
for advertisers to send you sales pitches that burn fax paper and toner or fill
up your phone answering machine and voice mail, so why should advertisers be
allowed to overwhelm your e-mail inbox with ads you didn't ask for and don't want?"
Bowen asked. According to a Washington Post article about the bill,
Bowen charges that the bill died because of 11th hour arm twisting
by Microsoft. "[T]heir focus has
been on getting immunity for themselves and preserving their ability to strike deals
to send spam," she said. Microsoft
denied the charge, claiming that the substitute bill that the company supports
is similar in all key areas. However,
according to the Post, the final
language of the substitute bill has not yet been drafted. Whether it will contain the opt-in language
of Bowen's version remains to be seen. Bowen is looking for ways to
bring her bill back. Missouri Attorney General
Jay Nixon had similar complaints in his state, where he claims that Microsoft
opposed his "do not spam" registry.
Microsoft opposes "do not spam" registries, expressing
security concerns. Microsoft argues that
spam laws should aggressively target the purveyors of scams and pornography,
who would ignore a no-spam registry anyway.
However, Nixon voiced a
position similar to that of AITP, saying that spam is about consent, not
content. His view is that a registry
would permit consumers to tell all marketers not to send them spam. The AITP Legislative
Committee shares Microsoft's concerns about security, as well as objecting to
the size of a database that would contain individual addresses. Microsoft's concerns, and ours, could be
addressed by permitting domain level listing and creation of a hashing function
to protect individual addresses. However,
such a directory would still legitimize the opt-out model versus the opt-in
model that we favor, and we feel that a directory of e-mail addresses of people
who actually want to receive spam would be significantly smaller and less
wasteful of storage space. The All Party Parliamentary
Internet Group (APIG) is holding a public inquiry into stemming the flow of
bulk unsolicited email ("spam") to UK Internet users. The inquiry will focus upon
the following:
The first step of the process
was a July 1 summit meeting at Messagecare's figures are based on where the mail servers are
located. "There may be a user in
some other country connecting to an open relay in the Taxes There have been a few
proposals floated to put some sort of per-message charge on all e-mail, on the
theory that the costs would destroy the business model that makes spam cost-effective. Hopefully, these proposals will go nowhere,
since they will destroy e-mail as an effective communications medium while
doing little or nothing to stop spam.
For them to have any chance of working, they'll have to be collected
fairly and accurately. That means that the
open relays and open proxies now being abused by spammers would have to be
closed. If they are closed, though,
spammers will lose their primary medium for delivering their messages. We'll
then be better able to identify and block their true points of origin and spam
will end as a scourge, without the tax having contributed in any way to the
solution. Charles Oriez has an MS-CIS from the Looking for more information on Spam? Check out the
next two articles in this series, "Complaining About
Spam 101" and "Spam in the Courtroom," which will be published
in the November/December 2003 issue of Information
Executive. |
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Technology Options for Fighting Spam AITP shares the view of many
that technology works better than legislation at fighting spam. Given the ease
with which spam crosses national borders, legislation within one country or
within one state in one country, is going to have a steep uphill climb to be an
effective tool in fighting spam. There are many options that
you can choose among to help you avoid spam. Spam fighting is not
formulaic. The set of blacklists and other options I use for a small non-profit
in Blacklists A DNSBL is a DNS-based blocking list created to limit the acceptance
of spam. The MAPS RBL was the first, but has since been supplanted by others. Sendmail, which seems to be the most popular mail server
software, permits the ISP or company to add a DNSBL with a FEATURE line in the
configuration file, which might look like this: FEATURE(rbl, 'spamcop.net', '570 Spam blocked!') Every piece of e-mail
hitting your server has an IP Address for the server that is attempting to hand
off the mail to you. In this example we compare that IPA to a database on the
remote spamcop.net server. If that IPA is listed on spamcop
as a spam source, we refuse the e-mail. If we want to check that IPA against
other databases, we simply add additional FEATURE statements to our
configuration file. There are well over 400
different DNSBLs in existence today. Most of them,
including many of the most effective ones, are free to use. The database
providers' reasoning is that the more people use them, the more effective the
providers will be in putting pressure on spam-friendly areas of the Net to
clean up their act, making their own spam-fighting job easier. But if you decide to go in
this direction, which DNSBL(s) do you use to the best effect? That, of course,
is up to your own business needs. The single most effective
thing for any ISP to reduce the amount of spam coming to its customers is to
block all traffic coming through Asian servers, in particular those from Spamcop, which I used in my example, tracks current spam. They use an algorithm
that compares total traffic originating on a server to the amount of reported
spam originating on that server. When a threshold value is hit, the server is
listed. The listing remains only until the spam stops coming, and potentially
as long as 48 hours longer. I usually recommend to clients using DNSBLs to block spam that they query spamcop
first. They are at http://spamcop.net. SPEWS has
spam traps scattered over the Internet. Spam comes in, they complain, and the
Internet provider has an opportunity to act on or ignore the complaint. One key
to SPEWS' success is that nothing in the complaint alerts the ISP that the
complaint is coming from SPEWS. Ideally, an ISP should treat every complaint it
gets as coming from SPEWS, and act equally promptly on all of them. However, if
the ISP makes a choice not to act, a small part of the ISP's address space
covering the spammer's operations gets listed on SPEWS. If the ISP still fails
to act, progressively larger parts of the ISP's space gets listed. Eventually,
the listing gets large enough that someone decides it is time to act on the
complaints. Judging from complaints from spammers, spam-friendly providers and
legitimate customers who get caught in the expanding blocks, this list seems to
be particularly popular and effective. SPEWS is at http://spews.org. Spamhaus works more or less like SPEWS, with one key difference. Spamhaus expands its blocks by adding the corporate servers
of the spam-friendly ISP to the list. Then, instead of customers complaining
that mail isn't getting delivered, it is the sales force complaining that mail
isn't being delivered. Spamhaus is at http://www.spamhaus.org. There are also a large
number of lists intended to focus on specific security holes that spammers
exploit to steal third-party resources to send their spam. ORDB and DSBL both look
for open relays. They can be found at http://www.ordb.org
and http://dsbl.org. Another favorite security
hole for spammers is open proxies. Monkeys.com's open proxy list at http://www.monkeys.com/upl/index.html seems
best for identifying those. And finally, there used to be a problem with insecure
formmail scripts. SORBS http://dnsbl.sorbs.net
provides one of those. A reasonably complete list
of all free DNSBLs is available at http://moensted.dk/spam/. I recommend the Osirusoft suite of DNSBLs,
augmented perhaps by country-specific lists provided by blackholes.us
if you are confident that you will not be getting legitimate mail from the
countries in question. In addition to the far eastern countries already
mentioned, consider blocking Since this was written, both Osirusoft
and SPEWS have been subject to denial of service attacks, presumably
orchestrated by spammers upset at the effectiveness of these tools in detecting
and blocking spam. Osirusoft has permanently shut
down. The SPEWS query engine remains reachable via mirrors at SORBS and
Reynolds. Procmail Procmail is not for the faint of heart. Because of the
potential for problems, few ISPs permit their customers to use it. I'm lucky,
in that my ISP has it installed on its server and lets me use it to filter my
mail. However, learning to use it and coding scripts without mistakes is my
responsibility rather than theirs. And more than once I have unintentionally
deleted mail and had to contact correspondents to ask them to retransmit their
mail. After my ISP has run mail
through its global filters and decided to accept it, they route my domain's
mail to either my mailbox or my users' mailboxes. Procmail
then looks at the headers of the e-mail and decides whether to accept it or
not, depending on my own criteria. The advantage of Procmail is that this filtering decision happens at the
server level, rather than at my desktop. I don't spend the time downloading
something only to delete it later. My ISP saves on the spool space that he
would use holding the mail until I download it. Procmail uses regular expressions to determine whether the
mail should be rejected or not. Below are some examples, and explanations. The
lines starting with a # are comment lines only, to
remind me of why a particular entry is in my script, and when I entered it. #mpinet 06.17.03 216.53.128.0/17 :0 *
^Received.*216\.53\.12[89]\.[0-9]|\ ^Received.*216\.53\.1[3-9][0-9]\.[0-9]|\ ^Received.*216\.53\.2[0-5][0-9]\.[0-9] {EXITCODE=77
LOG = mpinet - :0/dev/null} The
example above rejects any mail coming from a server in the mpinet
region of the Internet. The EXITCODE=77 returns a "permission denied"
message to the sender, while the /dev/null line deletes the mail from the
server. The LOG entry puts information in my reject log so that I know which
script bounced the mail. # hotmail DAV exploit 6/8/03 :0 *
^Received.*hotmail\.com with DAV {EXITCODE=77 LOG =
« DAV - « :0 /dev/null} This one blocks anything
coming from hotmail that uses the DAV function to transmit spam. This hotmail
security problem was only recently discovered, and will probably be fixed.
However, almost all spam coming with a hotmail return address, except for those
with forged addresses, is using this security hole. Good information on using procmail, including some standard recipes, can be found at http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/proctips.html,
while the source code, for any ISP who wants to install it on a server, can be
found at http://www.procmail.org. Challenge-Response systems Challenge-Response systems
force senders of e-mail to prove they are human, with real addresses, rather
than spammers using forged addresses. Most of your legitimate e-mail comes from
someone you know. They may even be in your address book, but most likely you
have already exchanged mail with them. When mail comes from a known address, it
is automatically passed through to your inbox. However, when mail comes from an
unknown person, it doesn't immediately show up in your inbox. In that case, the
traffic is held on the server while a message goes back to the sender, asking
them to confirm that they are real. They have to respond to that challenge
before your ISP's system lets the original mail through to your inbox.
Earthlink is implementing just such a procedure on its systems now. It appears to be a great
idea, but it has problems. Sometimes mail comes from a system that is not spam,
but isn't coming from a person. Recently, I renewed my Denver Broncos season
tickets on-line. As part of the process, I got an automated message from them
confirming the purchase and providing various other information
such as my priority number, when to expect the tickets in the mail, and
instructions on getting a parking or transit pass. That did not come
from a real person, and a challenge to it would not have been read and
responded to by a real person. Similarly, when a Denver AITP member makes a
reservation for dinner he might get parking or speaker information. In those
cases, the person receiving the confirmation message can pre-approve the
sender, but only if he knows what address the sender is using. This also poses
problems for administrators of legitimate opt-in mailing lists. "They can
get pretty overwhelming, is a nice polite way of putting it," said David
Farber, a former Federal Communications Commission chief technologist who runs
a 25,000-member list on technology. Ironically, the vendor of
one challenge-response system (Mail-block.com) was using spam to promote its
system, got blacklisted, and the challenge-response messages issued by their
system got rejected as spam on systems using DNSBLS to manage their inboxes. Bayesian filters Spam has certain patterns to
it. If you receive mail discussing Viagra, it is almost certainly spam if you are not a doctor or pharmacist. Similarly, mail
whose subject lines contain lots of capital letters or exclamation points is
probably spam. Mail that claims to comply with S1618
is guaranteed to be spam. Mail mentioning certain African countries and bank
accounts, certain parts of the body, or for that matter some anti-virus
software, all will usually be spam. Bayesian filters detect these key words and
add to a score. When the score gets large enough, the mail is rejected or
tagged as spam. This of course presents
certain problems. When I did a spam workshop for Mile High AITP, the syllabus
that I sent to the program chair scored too high. People discussing the Super
Bowl ran into problems once Super Bowl XXX happened, and Amnesty International
once had a problem when they reported a massacre of "over 21" people
somewhere in Africa. The problem is that certain spammish
words can occur quite naturally in any legitimate e-mail communication. Popular bayesian
filter software includes SpamAssassin (found at http://spamassassin.org) and Spamnix (http://spamnix.com
). Mile High AITP's ISP uses SpamAssassin
on their server. I use Spamnix as a plug-in to Eudora
on my desktop. And while I have pointed out the problems with this type of
filter, they have proven to be fairly accurate. Not perfectly accurate though,
so I use them to tag spam rather than to delete it. Tagging is a process by
which either a mail server or a client identifies mail as probable spam and
inserts a keyword identifier, either in the headers or in the body of the mail.
SpamAssassin inserts **JUNK** in the subject line and
adds some extra headers with its analysis. Spamnix
puts a block of analysis at the bottom of the mail. The recipient then routes
anything identified as possible spam by either application to a special junk mail
folder for further review. These applications don't
just use Bayesian logic though. They will also query many of the standard DNSBLs. If it was sent through an open relay, or
compromised proxy server, the score reflects that. A complete list of the tests
used and default scores assigned by both of those applications can be found at
spamassassin.org. Poetry Since this
was written, CEO Ann Mitchell departed from Habeas, citing irreconcilable
differences with her board over the future direction of the company. Whether
the direction chosen by the new leadership of the company will preserve its
usefulness as a spam-fighting resource remains to be seen. One interesting tool being
experimented with right now, which might bear some promise, is a haiku-based
system developed by Habeas. Founded by the former attorney for the MAPS Realtime Blacklist, this system uses copyright law, rather
than anti-spam law, to fight spammers. If you are a legitimate sender
of bulk mail, which is to say someone who uses confirmed opt-in to build your
lists, you contract with Habeas to include their haiku in your headers. This
haiku is a method of sender warranting that the e-mail is not spam, so its
presence lets your mail pass SpamAssassin and other
filters. However, if a spammer inserts the haiku without signing the contract,
or without having a confirmed opt-in process, then they have infringed on the
Habeas copyright. Penalties under DMCA for copyright infringement are
substantially higher than the penalties for violating various state anti-spam
laws. This is an innovative
combination of law and technology that may be worth watching, even though it
relies on the court system to go after spammers, which presents many of the
same objections that we have to other legislative and legal solutions. More information can be
found at http://www.habeas.com. It may be
just the thing for legitimate senders of bulk mail to use in order to avoid the
filters that currently route them into my spam folder. Charles Oriez has an MS-CIS from the University of
Denver and writes and speaks on e-mail issues in the Denver area. Looking for more information on Spam? Check out the
next two articles in this series, "Complaining About
Spam 101" and "Spam in the Courtroom," which will be published
in the November/December 2003 issue of Information
Executive. |
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Verisign DNS
change By
Charles Oriez
"Editor's
note - After this story was approved for publication, ICANN demanded,
and Verisign acquiesced to, restoring the status quo of Sept 14 (no
wild cards) pending further study. AITP applauds that decision."
Verisign,
the company tasked with managing the Internet's root servers, recently
rolled
out an unannounced and untested change. They added wild cards to their
DNS
servers for the net and com top level domains. Any mistyped domain name
is now
reported by Verisign to be a valid domain. The
Internet Architecture Board (IAB), a committee of the Internet
Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), studied the change and found
serious
problems. "One of the main known weaknesses and dangers of wildcard
records is that they interact poorly with any use of the DNS which
depends on
'no such name' responses". Web browsers around the world stopped
presenting 'page not found' messages in the local language and
character set. Domains with misconfigured, but
workable, MX records (used to route
mail), no longer work properly. Mail now incorrectly goes to a
Verisign
mail server, where it sometimes bounces, and sometimes does not.
Application
GUIs that try to ensure that users enter valid domain names now accept
anything
as valid. Spam filters that reject traffic from invalid domains do not
function
properly. Cellular phones whose page not found message had been one
packet in
size now present pages that are 17kb in size. The cellular companies
are happy
about the higher user charges for this traffic, of course. Others have
reported
problems with print servers on local networks. IAB concluded that the
change
should be reversed pending significant additional discussion and study.
Associated
Press has reported that ICANN chairman Vint Cerf demanded that Verisign
back
out its change pending review. Meanwhile, the Internet Software
Consortium,
authors of BIND, distributed a patch that neutralizes the Verisign
change. BIND
is the software used on many servers to translate domain names into IP
addresses. The
AITP legislative committee has passed a resolution that called on ICANN
to
either instruct Verisign to stop giving incorrect answers to DNS
queries or
terminate the Verisign contract to provide DNS service. The full AITP
resolution and additional information can be found on the AITP
legislative site
at http://denveraitp.org/legislative/. Companies
and ISPs running their own servers should install the BIND patch. Users
wanting
an accurate error message for invalid domain names can point the domain
sitefinder.verisign.com to IPA 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file on their
desktop
machine. Users of Windows 2000 and Linux desktop machines will find
that file
preconfigured in their /etc directory, and need merely to add a single
line in
the obvious place and format. Users of Windows 98 should make a copy of
the
file hosts.sam with the extension omitted, in the same directory, and
edit that
copy. Windows 98 machines need to be rebooted for the change to take
effect. This
change will significantly speed up browser responses when an invalid
domain is
entered on the location bar. |
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Death of UCITA by
Charles Oriez The National Conference of
Commissioners for Uniform State Legislation (NCCUSL) recently announced that it
would withdraw the controversial and troubled Uniform Computer Information
Transaction Act (UCITA). UCITA was sent to the states for adoption in 1999 and
sought to bring a set of consistent rules to software contracts and licensing
agreements. At that time, AITP, 32 State Attorneys General, and numerous other
organizations, businesses, and individuals came out in opposition to the bill. During its life, UCITA was
only passed in two states - UCITA proponents tried to
win passage in only two states, In In In the view of AITP and
others, UCITA came to the table with numerous substantial flaws. The statute
was intended to standardize the terms of contracts for software. However, most
if not all of the terms were drafted for the benefit of the vendor, not for the
benefit of the consuming business. It could have barred publication of
benchmark tests that would have revealed that a product was defective. It would
have protected vendors from liability for shipping products with defects, even
if those defects were known and easily fixable before the software was shipped.
And it could have bound the consumer to revised contract terms on software
purchases, even if notice of the revised terms was never received because the
e-mail with those terms never got to you. Those are only a few of its
many problems. If you want to read a detailed analysis of what is wrong with
UCITA, and why AITP opposed it, Cem Kaner, a CIS professor at Florida Institute of Technology, prepared
a detailed analysis that can be read at his Web site http://www.badsoftware.com/engr2000.htm.
His article was published in the Winter 1999/2000 edition of the Journal of Computer and Information Law. UCITA was defeated by an
effective national coalition, Americans For Fair
Electronic Commerce Transactions (AFFECT). AITP is a member of AFFECT, along
with ACM, SIM, EFF, libraries, trade organizations and many businesses. AITP
legislative committee members regularly participated in AFFECT conference
calls, and local AITP chapters played a role in states where the other side
sought to advance the legislation. Ultimately, the bill was defeated because we
out-organized its advocates. AITP would in particular like to recognize the
leadership role of the American Library Association in this effort. Its
lobbyists coordinated our meetings and conference calls, alerted us to target
states, and generally made sure that our bases were all covered. Next time
you're in your local library, thank them. The AITP legislative committee would
also like to thank our local chapters and leaders in key states. We and our
AFFECT allies were able to identify what the key states were, but AITP
legislative committee leaders in |
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Microsoft
Security Update - Protect your PC In light of recent viruses, we are offering this information on PC
protection and security by the Microsoft IT Pro User Group. Microsoft.com is in the process of
updating its messaging, outlining three steps for
customers to protect their PCs. Attached in this e-mail is Web/newsletter-ready
artwork to link back to http://www.microsoft.com/protect
for the most up-to-date information. Additional resources can be linked
to from your Web site: * Learn More About
Firewalls
<http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/firewall.asp> * Learn More About
Updating Your Computer
<http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/update.asp> * Learn More About
Antivirus Software
<http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/antivirus.asp>
|
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Be Careful Not To Block Your
Organization's Success by Ben DiSylvester,
Chairman Robert E. Nolan Company At a recent
leadership forum I attended, one of the panelists, a CEO of a Fortune 1000
company, said simply, "There are 10 major initiatives going in my company,
and I have to stay on top of what every one of them is doing." He added,
"If I don't, they will fall into the bureaucracy and get lost." How
many times have we seen that happen to major initiatives? With 30 years
of experience assisting companies to bring about organizational change, we have
observed many programs start with great promise -- and then dissipate into
ineffectiveness. Often, the initiative lapses into a
"them-against-us" mentality that renders the effort ineffective.
Rather than staying focused on helping the organization improve, the initiative
begins to focus on self-preservation and blocks even good ideas that could
bring true progress to the organization. Sometimes
even solid strategic decisions have unintended negative results. Jack Welch,
when he was CEO of General Electric, realized that many good, new product ideas
were summarily dismissed in his organization because he had mandated that G.E.
should be number one or two in any market it entered. Sometimes well-meaning
standards that are adopted in organizations to streamline decision-making and
avoid wasted resources can be counter-productive when new technologies emerge
and appear to contradict those standards. I can
personally remember a conversation we had long ago with a company's head of
productivity. He expressed concern about implementing computer terminals
because if they went down, processing would stop and company productivity would
suffer. Laugh if you must, but there are decisions being made in organizations
today that are no less preposterous. How do you
prevent this from happening in your organization? A good starting point would
be to measure the effectiveness of corporate services and other staff
functions, just as you measure the results of your operations areas. It isn't
just the cost of the functions, but also whether the efforts are achieving
their intended results. For
example, is your Six Sigma program reporting on quality or actually improving
quality? Is the technology function actually supporting the business units it
is intended to serve, or dictating to the business units what they can, or
cannot, do with technology? Interestingly, by 2005 even the federal government
will require the measurement of all programs relative to their effectiveness in
meeting intended objectives on a pass/fail basis. Your people already will know
which staff functions are passing and which are failing in their support of the
business units. Everyone
agrees that the performance bar is being raised every day in organizations. As
another CEO said at that same leadership forum, "Organizations need to be
responsive and adaptive, move fixed costs to variable costs, focus on those
things that will differentiate them and ensure their business model is
resilient." It is
important to ensure that the very functions created to facilitate reaching
these objectives are doing just that - and not blocking progress in meeting
those objectives. ------------------------------------------------------- About Nolan Nolan is a
management consulting firm specializing in the insurance industry. Since 1973
we have helped our clients achieve measurable improvements in service, quality,
productivity and costs. Our experienced industry specialists deliver proven
results through the optimum blend of people, process and technology. |
|
|
Inside AITP President's Message  Now that it is
fall, it is
"back-to-school time" for our student chapters and back to focusing
on fall and winter activities for our professional chapters. To our
student
members, let me welcome you back to school for the 2003-2004 academic
year. During the
summer, your
Association has been busy rolling out our new Web portal, which
contains some
exciting additional features. These include an array of expanded forums
for
discussions with other AITP members on a variety of information
technology
topics and high-quality resource material (white papers, etc.). If you
have not
already visited the new portal, please check it out at www.aitp.org. Some web portal pages
are
exclusively for AITP members and require a login. In July, you received
an
e-mail from headquarters with your username and password. If you don't
have
that e-mail message, jus click on the 'Member Login' link on the home
page.
Then click on the 'Forgot Password?' link to have your log-in
information
e-mailed to you. As you begin
"ramping
up" your chapter for your fall and winter activities, please focus on
recruiting new members and - even more importantly - on retaining your
existing
members. For student chapter leaders, please remember that the Student
Membership Fee is now $35. Be sure to tell prospective members that
becoming a
student member makes them eligible to become a professional association
member
once they graduate at a greatly reduced rate ($25 the first year versus
$80 -
plus chapter dues) through the AITP Interim Membership program. For
professional
chapter leaders, remember that the AITP Interim Membership program is a
great
recruiting tool for you as well. As many of you
know, the
AITP periodical The Information
Executive/Nanosecond is now available in electronic form and
current and
previous issues (for student research projects, etc.) can be accessed
via the
portal. Student chapter
leaders
should begin planning now to attend the AITP National Collegiate
Conference in Finally, I would
like to
advise you that the annual "Meeting of the Members" will be held in
conjunction with the AITP National Conference in I hope to see
many of you at
the professional conference. Have a great fall and be sure to make this
"A year of personal growth and
professional development." George R. Koscho, CDP
2003
AITP Association President |
|
Executive Director's
Message  The National Conference
is rapidly approaching. Networking,
information and education are among the keys to success in IT and other
industries. There is no question that rapid changes in technology,
business and
economic models will continue. The conference and other AITP member
programs
address those changes. AITP's commitment
is to help
you proactively meet the challenges. The conference, alone, should be a
"must attend." Again, those dates are IT professionals must
continue to hone knowledge and skills.
Flexibility - attained through continuing education - enables any
professional
to adapt to the changes in employment demands. Conference tracks focus
on
management, technology and security. There also is a CIO Security Forum
that
allows perspectives of this growing issue as it relates to multiple
industries.
It's a challenge that faces IT professionals regardless of discipline. Attendees will have the
opportunity to meet with industry
suppliers and vendors, unveiling the latest and most advanced
development in
technologies. The vendor show runs Thursday and Friday, October 23 and
24. Additionally, there is
hospitality. Opportunities to network
with peers compare to no other benefit of attendance. While many events
will be
carried to chapters via Web casts, there is nothing like being there.
Visit the
AITP Web site (www.aitp.org) or go
directly
to the show site (www.aitpstlouis.org/conference)
for more details about how you can keep abreast of changes in your
profession. Ernie Stewart AITP Executive
Director |
|
New Members Welcome new AITP members! The
following members joined AITP between 00-Chapter-at-large Individual Members Region 00 Win BJ Mlambo Jafar Albadran, BSc 01-Southwest Region Anthony S. Karrer Frederick
J. Heles Karina
Gamble, CQA Linda
Sweeney Michael T. Tibbits Geraldine
Caruso Individual Members Region 01 Beth Smith 02-Northwest Region David R. Pitkin, MCP Linda D.
Mack Rey Del
Rios Anne J.P.
Yoshino Conrado
P. Cortez Phi Nguyen Donna M.
Conrad Jeff D. Hassler Eugene G.
Lawn Jessy O. Strebel, MCSE, CNE, CCEA Greater Terence P.
Ryan, BSIT, CNE Individual Members Region 02 Bob Baer 03-South Central Region Daniel M. Yezak Chandra Sekar Kancharla William K. Taeger, MCP Jackson Chapter James
Dunaway Paso del
Norte Raymond
Long Carmen
Rodriguez Alexis V. Rutter Carl E.
Foster Ark-La-Tex Chapter William Marak Ashton C.
Mouton, Jr. John L.
Bailey Karen Tegtmeyer Craig C.
Baker Carla K.
Monk David
Eubanks Robert G.
Memory Darrell R.
Lee Robert H.
August Big Country Chapter David P. Weems Individual Members Region 03 Jory Privett Andrea
Hernandez 04-Central Region Mile High Larry Dinsmore Samuel S. Conn William J. Witbrod, MCSE,CCNA,MCP,CCSA Marty Stahl James R. La
Voy Stephen H. Sladek Kyle A. Bodenstab Northwest Frank W. Lilja Brian H. Curtiss 05-Pacesetter Region Alice M.
Blackburn, GESS, DWS Catherine
A. Morearty Julianne F.
Manteufel Capitol Audra A.
Cottrell Dusten
Nance Mike Guentherman, MCSA Kevin Shen Richard D. Kneller, Jr. Windy City Tina M.
Gravel Patrick E. Moroney John Preussner, Siebel CC, CPA Debra H.
Harris Cynthia
Goss Randall K.
Sharpe Frank L.
Wood Arnie Penner John M. Reale Todd R. Simeone Christopher
Smith 07-Southern Hospitality Region Brad D. Ham Alvaro J. Hoyos, A+, MOUS Excel, Word Terrance F.
Atkins, MCSD, I-Net+, A+ Josh Evitt, MCSE, MCP+I, CCNP Peter Vongboupha David Perry Michael D.
Aldridge, MCSE, CCNP, CCDP Anantha
N. Lakshamanan, Java, Oracle CADBA Larry Kwok,
Java Cert. Prog. William K.
Brown Stephanie
Wilcox Tom Brittain Andrew R.
Akins Joanne Dalka Tony Karlovich, A+, Network + Theresa K.
Morris, ACS, FLMI Frank J. Futyma Sammy G.
Starling Micheale
E. Cherry Ginny
Provost Robert F. Mayhue Steven Normoyle Lee Frazee John A. Stoysich Ed M.
Bradley Ivan S. Marden, WINI Nancy A.
Banker Duane L.
Rogers 09-Heart of AITP Region Dennis J. Diment, PhD Dawn M.
Kolb Greater Gina G. Dauer Ted P.
Corrigan 11-Mid-Atlantic Region James V.
Christy, Special Agent Charles J.
Dowling Litsa
Roberts Adetola
Felix Adefila, MCP, CCNA Kevin Goldblatt Ebonique
L. Padgett Gary T.
Greenwald Eric E.
McKean, MCSE, MCT, A+, N+ Mary P.
Ham, MOS, MCP Gustavo C.
Lopez Bruce R.
Marco, CISSP CCSA CCSE Walter V. Discenza Jerry
Johnston David M. Schartel Kenneth A. Rion, A+,MCP,MCP+I,MCSE,S+ Michael
Lefebvre Gregory J.
Smith Dulles Corridor Charles R. Fullwood Brent S.
Hare 13-Empire Region George H.
Connors Pete Casey Linda Zola Jim Petry Robert W. Juckiewicz Dale D. Dreps Reza Raquib Barbara Jurysta Financial Industries Chapter Steven A. Seiden Central/North David J.
Ricks 18-Leadership Region Robert L.
Logan, MCP, MOS Research Triangle Brian T.
Buchanan David W. Buttgereit, CNE Douglas R.
Cox Jenifer
B. Bucchi Warren S.
White Kelly A.
Ryan Raymond A. Wroblewski Samreem Shahid David H.
Zimmerman James F. Lehan, III Roger D. Canatsey Sandra M. Lail Dana R. Crist Individual Members Region 18 Linda
Schnell |
|
Renewing Members Welcome back to our AITP renewing
members! The following renewed their AITP memberships between Region 00-Chapter-at-large Individual Members Region 00 Norman Salt Karen
Lopez, I.S.P. 01-Southwest Region Charles
Tigerman Ian J.
Fraigun, CDP Robert W.
Goit, CSP George R.
Kanoff Andrew
Laderman Susan
Peterson Bruce
Schwartz Kerry G.
Powell Ted T. Pena Jyotin
Purohit Dale E.
Pittman Darlene
Hite-Dickinson Brad
Rodgers James W.
Ellisor John F.
Shiffler 02-Northwest Region Ross M.
Degerstedt Dan
Morrison Gary M.
Kang Diana L.
Shelton Ralph M.
Yasuhara Carol M.
Holden William H.
Hutchison, CDP Mary Anne
Green, CCP Robert E.
Ousley R. Scott
Armstrong Stephen H.
Bloom John C.
Parlberg, Sr. Douglas A.
Davis, CDP, CRM Alice J.
Rupe, CDP Eugene Chapter Mike
Corcoran, CDP Greater Carla
Cacananta Lila E.
Bailor Dennis Halm Michael J.
Caskey, CDP, CCP Evergreen Paul Byrum,
PMP Individual Members Region 02 Carl M.
Schmidt Randy Dodd Doris G.
Duncan, PhD., CDP, CSP, CCP 03-South Central Region Leonard S.
Svoboda, CDP Karen S.
Barbour Jenny Roach Anthony J.
Padon John G.
Lambert Bruce C.
Rodriguez, MCSE Deborah J.
Farrar John Peden Mark
Stinnett Jackson Chapter Gordon W.
Skelton, CDP Umesh N.
Sanjanwala Paso del Norte Jennifer
Kreie Jack A.
Vaughn Kemit S. Grafton Irene V.
Dowling Robert S.
Romalewski Tommy
Tastet Ralph S.
Melian Seth E.
Stephens, CDP Charlie W.
Mellard Alma Lynn
Bane Gordon J.
Byrne Cathy
Robert, CDP Lance
Armstrong James D.
Kraft Linda H.
Peterson, CDP, CCP Robert A.
Lindemann, CDP Richard G.
Hetzel Michael P.
Lopez Ted M.
Ahlberg Carolyn W.
Green Susan R.
Sliva Big Country Chapter Michelle
McDonald Douglas B.
Batchelder Barbara J.
Hobbs Jack Russell,
PhD., CCP Keven M.
Webb Individual Members Region 03 Ronald V.
Lester Donald N.
Carlton, CDP Charles W.
Bane 04-Central Region Mile High W. William
Gillette, CDP Suzanne I.
Weston Richard M.
Cross, CCP Blake C.
Ressmeyer Douglas P.
Ziegler Alan M.
Hornstein, PMP, MCP Daniel M.
Likarish Judy Bond,
CSP Marvin W.
Henderson Karl E.
Crum Linda E.
Saul Pauline
Ratnasingam Northwest William H.
Foot Michael J.
Meehan Bob M.
Andersen Gary Sultan Jerry
Mathwig Marjorie H.
Ellert Thomas A.
Lesser Billy W.
Winkle Rodney
Bowers Katherine
C. Wieland Ak-Sar-Ben Daniel L.
Moser, PhD. Donna
Zwiegel Cornhusker Chapter Charles E.
Peterson, CDP Gale R.
Paxton, CSP Roberta M.
Steinhauser Deborah J.
Eagan, CSP Raymond M.
Swanson Karin
Kotschwar Don Freeman John M.
Shimonek Dennis
Schmidt Michael
Brown Dennis
Tyser Vijay K.
Agrawal Slava Paul Head of the Lakes Chapter Douglas J.
Leif Michael K.
Pomphrey, CSP, CDP Tonia C.
Queen John J.
Cioni, Jr. Michelle J.
Hulett Jason S.
Factor Dan Titus Albert J.
Goodman Sara M.
Clark James R.
Taylor Central Dakota Doran
Eberle Gary J.
Vetter Cheri L.
Giesen Ann G.
Schreiber Lucinda
Moos Individual Members Region 04 Patrick J. Fernan Ricky J.
Barker Dennis J.
Connolly Kevin
Brunner 05-Pacesetter Region Robert W.
McClelland, CDP Illowa Chapter Lori L.
Walljasper, CDP Dianna L.
Hill Gordon R. Steve
Duchac Gary J. DioGuardi,
CSP Jerry T.
Bell Glenn A.
Hinnenthal Cheri
Duchrow Thomas
Murphy Allen J.
Bandola Mark T.
Glomstead Les E.
Spindler Chris M.
Mott David A.
Jansen Corey J.
Popp Peter J.
Horvath, CNA Rod L.
Thompson Mark Nelson Marc R.
Sweger Patrick L.
James Jeff R.
Lacey Jay B. Esty Capitol Howard E.
Carr, CDP Ken
Feraris, Jr. John
Mitchell Rosemary E.
Connolly Kendall B.
Burgdorf, CSP William C.
Knapp Sharene L.
Miller Aaron Nance Susan E.
Yager Windy City Marvin O.
Lund Lisa
Timmons Gary Matula Jack Kohn Art J. Data Lloyd F.
Love Tom
Brackett Karen L.
Smith Anthony
Barone Mark Norton Daniel V.
Goulet Daniel R.
Bowen Richard F.
Gehrt, CDP Dennis
Ambuehl, CDP Mark S.
Gilfand, CDP Kent W.
Sunderland Gary J.
Christensen Donald A.
Drennan, CDP Sue Braun,
CDP Ryan E.
Redd Christopher
M. Johnson Heather
Michell Levita Etascha M.
Johnson Individuals Member Region 05 Michael
Liszka 07-Southern Hospitality Region Robert H.
Chapman, Jr., CDP Traci L.
Henderson Philip H.
Plowman Karen L.
Broughton Lee R.
Dawson Mark Keil Robert
Hofmann Edward J.
Zinkiewicz, CSP Robert F.
Reagor Paul W.
Thompson Gerald P.
Marquis, CDP Thomas W.
Neal Amelia A.
Whitehead Steve
Leichner Kevin J.
Winter Judith L.
Solano, CDP Wendell F.
Jinright, CSP Ismael
Rodriguez Ronald G.
Taylor Neal L.
Rogers, CDP, CCP Parilee M.
Glover Virginia
Dorough Adams, CDP Edward
Shockey, CDP Ronald C.
Herman Sherry
Deese Billy G.
Rhodes Antoinette
A. Palmisano Kay L. Damp Bernard C.
Krafsig Frank D.
Nestor Michael D.
Harrah, CDP Meryl Crews Jane K.
Sammons Steve
Wellslager Pamela
Wilson Rick
Moreland Viki Stokes Celeste E.
Mickiewicz, CPIM Cheryl A.
Mesick Marcia F.
Greenberg, CDP Jean C.
Harris Stephen W.
Flowers Michael W.
Lucas Walter J.
Cervoni, CDP, CCP, CSP Greater William G.
Swisher Individual Members Region 07 Forrest H.
Wood, CDP Ronald M.
Guilmette, CCP, CSP Sabrina L.
Farmer 09-Heart of AITP Region Scott D.
McGill, CDP Jimmy L.
Butt, Jr., CDP Carolyn J.
Innes Ilene M.
Lanfear Amy S.
Courter Greater John E.
Biggs James J.
Mankoski Lyle H.
Beck Individual Members Region 09 Jeffrey L.
Whitten, CDP Donald K.
Irmiger, III, CCP Linda K.
Stright 11-Mid-Atlantic Region Penn-York Chapter Louis V.
Pascale, Jr. Harry C.
Burch, CDP Susan B.
Carlson, CDP Bruce F.
Stumpp Wayne F.
Dash Steve S.
Mowrey Janet H.
Miller Jennifer L.
Seifert Fred N.
Schenerman Steve O?Connor Bruce
Rollier Jack K.
Roof Ronald I.
Braunstein Walter
Eckhardt Laura M.
Miller, CISA York-Lancaster Kevin Bupp,
CSP Linda L.
Townsend Harvey S.
Koch Pocono Northeast Leonard S.
Gorney, CDP Frank C.
Walters James M.
Baker Beverly R.
Bohner Ronald H.
Fellman Robert G.
Vincent Thomas N.
Dougherty Jonathan O.
Sands Linda T.
McGregor Tim McNatt James B.
MacGregor, CSP Susan A.
Sherer David D.
Jaques Robert C.
Kling Individual Members Region 11 Ronald L.
Reynolds, CDP 13-Empire Region Hudson-Mohawk Joseph L.
Salinger, CDP Jacqueline
Bishop, CDP David C.
Keefer, Sr. Jules V.
Steinhauer, CDP David L.
Lieberman, CSP Russell M.
Roach John J.
Cawley Donald E.
Boyle Margaret
Porciello Ivelisse E.
James David S.
Leigh John E.
Deere Richard D.
Hein Rise F.
Jacobs Eugene C.
Rogers Fred J.
Strauss Charles P.
Scopelitis, CCP, CSP Suzanne C.
Martin David G.
Najac James O.
Garrison, III Financial Industries Chapter Dick Lefkon Central/North Joe Glatt,
PMP, CCP Individual Members Region 13 Joel D.
Kenderdine Jan B.
Wilson, CCP, CDP Edward
Boyno 18-Leadership Region James L.
Moore Mary Jane
Scruggs, CDP, CNE Clark D.
Hoopes Research Triangle John Furman
Herring, CSP Toby
Vandemark T. Joseph
Gelm Charles W.
Rentsch Frank E.
Carpenter J. Fletcher
Penn, II Joel Walls Roger Shull David F.
Denes Wayne E.
Smith John H.
Brotbeck, III Louis J.
Gacek, CCP David M.
Lauterbach Wade L.
Churchfield Gene Nagy June S.
Guillot Susan J.
Fitzgerald Robert A.
Voorhis Harold D.
Eason John
Wharton Kent
Higgins Greater David W.
Pry Greater Edward G.
Sloane Bernard L.
Levite Bill L.
James, CNA Tarheel Chapter Larry G.
Patterson John W.
Brookie, Jr. Clara S.
Fox Deborah A.
Taylor, CCP George R.
Koscho, CDP Clifton U.
Hayes, Jr. Barbara M.
Smith Individual Members Region 18 Robert D.
Bartizek Albert L.
Harris, CDP, CSP James W.
Duckworth |
|
Association News National Conference
Seminars and
Vendor Show October 23 and 24, 2003 CIO Security Forum - Preparation is
in full swing
for the 2003 AITP National Conference in What?! You haven't registered, yet?
Go to the Website, www.AITPStLouis.org/conference,
now! You don't want to miss a superb
conference with three session tracks (management, technical and
security), a
vendor show with Microsoft's preview of Office 2003, the CIO Security
Forum,
ICCP training and testing, and, the exciting vendor auction and raffle! And, don't forget our special AITP
events! The DISA recipient will be
announced, IE and ABOD are meeting, Region 5 Board and Region
Presidents are
meeting, and all of us across the Can't travel? Well, you can still register and enjoy the
opening ceremonies, participate in the conference sessions, hear the
presentation of AITP awards and interact at the Annual Meeting of the
AITP
Members! Just register for the Webcast! Chapters
Participating
across the Ten chapters
have signed up
to conduct a local educational seminar and view the Annual Meeting of
the
Members via Webcast thus participating in
the
national conference and raising local funds.
Participating chapters include: Windy City,
Capitol City,
Northeast Wisconsin, Central Illinois, Cornhusker, Mile High Denver,
Polk
County, Milwaukee, Big Country and North Central Florida. Post-national
Conference Webcasts It is not too
late,
chapters, to sign up and plan an educational conference selecting from
the
national conference sessions for up to 30 days after the national
conference. Chapters can sign up for
$300 and use the national conference sessions to construct their very
own local
educational conference! Use the chapter
registration form noting the date of your seminar, and the St. Louis
Chapter
will work with you to select and deliver the conference to your chapter. With very little work, you can deliver a
quality series! But, to take
advantage of
this opportunity, the chapter must register before Members - You
Have
Options to Attend the National Conference! You can enjoy
the national
conference with your chapter via Webcast,
you can
come to Register now! Check the Website, www.AITPStLouis.org/conference,
complete the registration form and fax or mail to John Zeman
or Christine Leja as noted on the
registration form. Available
Only in The Vendor Show,
the CIO
Security Forum, CCP training and testing, and AITP special interest
meetings
are only available in CCP Training
and Testing Attendees at the
2003 AITP
National Conference will have the opportunity to receive training at no
additional cost! And, testing for the
CCP will be available at CIO Security
Forum On National Conference
Highlights Conference
Keynotes Kevin Jetton -
E-Commerce
and the Four Generations at Work Dan Coughlin -
Increase the
Velocity of Your Business and Your Career Michael Erbschloe
- Information Warfare: How to Survive
Cyber Attacks Key sponsoring
vendors
include: Robert Half International and
Web Ex Conference
Program Tracks
as of Management
Track
Technical
Track
Security
Track
CIO Security
Forum, CIO panel
members include: OmniTech Novell Risk Management
Web Security
Wireless Security
Legal and Regulatory Issues
Best Practices
Check our
Website for
Details: www.AITPStLouis.org/conference/. |
|
Microsoft
Software and Honeycutt Book to AITP Portal Contest Winners A copy of Windows Server 2003
software and Jerry Honeycut's Introducing Microsoft Windows Server 2003 were awarded to 50
members who logged into the AITP portal by August 31. The random drawing was
made available through the partnership between AITP and Microsoft. The lucky winners are: Region 01 - Southwest Region David Cato
of the Wallis Hardie - At-Large Member Region 02 - Northwest Region Thomas Cavaiani of the Qulan
Johnson - At-Large Member Region 03 - South Central Region Adrienne Critcher of the Ark-La-Tex Chapter Richard Feemster of the Barbara
Russell of the Darrell Lee
of the Alicia Achiuida the Region 04 - Central Region Larry
Clawson of the Ak-Sar-Ben Chapter Karin Kotschwar of the Cornhusker Chapter Brent Ahsmuhs of the Jason
Anderson of the Northwest Chapter Carrie Ball
- At - Large Member Region 05 - Pacesetter Region Elston Taylor of the ITT Technical
Institute - Eric Eberhardy of the Ray Taylor
of the William
Worthy of the Glenn Hinnenthal of the Mary Vertz of the Christine Leja of the Greg Vogel of the Southern Jeff Ritsema of the Wes Watson
of the Joel Heric of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student
Chapter John Braly of the Windy City Chapter John Fisher
of the Windy City Chapter William Arneson of the David
Peterson At-Large Member Region 07 - Southern Hospitality Region James
Borders of the Michael
Gibson of the Dan Hall of
the Alan Blanche of the Neal Rogers of the Kenneth
Kitchen of the Jose Ramos
of the Anthony
Byrd of the Region 09 - Heart of AITP Region Blair Gillam of the Region 11 - Mid-Atlantic Region Pradeep Pathade
of the Suzette Fedd of the Walter Eckhardt of the Region 13 - Empire Region David Ricks of the Central/North Mary Platt
of the Region 18 - Leadership Region John Hage of the Scott
Millard of the Greater Heather
Byrne of the Melissa Ginnard
of the David Buttgereit
of the Research Triangle Chapter Randy
Peeler of the If you are a winner, please respond to the e-mail with the address you
want the software shipped to. Windows Server 2003 NFR Usage Guidelines To our valued Microsoft customers
and partners: Microsoft Corporation is pleased to
offer you a free Not for Resale (NFR) copy of Windows Server 2003 software. Per
the End-User License Agreement accompanying the software, usage is defined as
demonstration, test or evaluation: "Software identified as Not for
Resale or NFR, may not be sold or otherwise transferred for value or used for
any purpose other than demonstration, test or evaluation." Please note that this does NOT
preclude production use. The software that you are receiving is still the same
RETAIL software that would be bought off-the-shelf and can be used in production
as long as it is done in accordance with the above requirements. Coupled with
the no time-bomb expiration and 25 Client Access Licenses included in the
product, we are sure you will agree that this is a very generous and unique
offer to your business partnership with Microsoft. |
|
Building the AITP Web Portal by Mark Gilfand, CDP and Mark Kleine AITP Web Portal Committee Shortly
after the AITP Web portal was launched, a member posted an item in one of the
AITP forums asking for information about the Web portal's architecture. The
member also wanted to know about the challenges in developing the portal. With
this article, the Web portal committee will attempt to answer that posting and
give you some insight on how this project developed. Background The AITP
Web portal project officially started early in the spring of 2002 when the AITP
executive committee approved a plan to move forward with the project. The goal
was to update AITP's Web presence - providing the
public with more information about AITP and providing AITP members with a
source of content and additional functionality. Our Web
site was old and tired-looking. It was confusing, hard to navigate and did not
provide much functionality. The only way you could really find any content was
to use the site map. And then, most of what you found were items of interest to
chapter, region and association leaders (manuals and forms), but not of much
interest to the individual member. Very few members knew we had a discussion
forum. Therefore the forum was not widely used and because there were few
postings, it provided minimal benefit. The
challenge with the Web portal was to build a clean and modern interface, moving
AITP's Web presence into the 21st century.
We wanted to make the Web experience easy for the member and non-member alike.
We wanted to provide content and functionality that AITP members could really
use. We knew we had to beef up the forums and showcase the benefits of AITP
membership. We needed a Web site that allowed the public to see who we are and
what we are about. The Design I would
like to say that we sat down, wrote out detailed requirements, handed it off to
a design and programming team, and out popped the portal. But it didn't happen
that way. Instead we used an iterative style of development, using a series of
prototypes to define what we wanted, what was possible, and what was practical
to build at this time. In an
effort to reduce ongoing maintenance costs, one of the major requirements was
that this portal should be administered by the AITP staff. When this is coupled
with the fact that the membership database must control the access to the site,
it was easy to see that this would have to be a custom-coded solution. The Details The AITP
Web portal is running on a Pentium class PC server that is running Microsoft
Windows 2000 server. The custom code that runs on the portal is written in Java
and we are using JavaScript for the client side processing. The Java programs
are being served by the Tomcat Java server that is running on an Apache version
2 Web server. In order to manage the tables that
define the site and to handle the user database, we are using Microsoft SQL
server. Each
evening, an extract of the AITP membership database is sent from AITP
headquarters to the AITP Webserver database to be
used for the next 24 hours. This database is used to create the user
directories, display current information and control access to the
'members-only' sections of the portal. In order
to speed up the development process, we chose to use an open-source forum
management tool called In the
MyAITP section, we are using a number of Java/JavaScript portlets that allow us
to interface with a number of external sites. The rest
of the site is built using various tables that contain either the information
or links to the information that is seen on each page. This table-based
technology has allowed AITP staff to make online changes to the system in real
time. New files can be uploaded to the portal and then content can be added to
the appropriate area by a few simple clicks in the administration system. This
method of updating the pages has allowed us to include the chapter level
information. There are thousands of entries that control chapter-specific
information and chapter officers in all of the chapters from across the
country. Keeping up with all of these entries in a static Web design would be
more than any Webmaster could keep up with. By the way, be sure to check your
chapter to make sure that the information shown is up-to-date! A
Macromedia flash file is used on the home page to provide some splash and
motion while not consuming great amounts of bandwidth. This new Web
site has been running for just over two months and in this time over 2,000,000
hits from tens of thousands of visitors have been recorded from all corners of
the globe. Future Enhancements This Web
portal is only a foundation of what is to come. Planned
technical enhancements include: ·
Upgrading
the server to include Windows 2003 server ·
Using
Microsoft IIS as the Webserver and using Jrun Java Server ·
Including
Real Simple Syndication (RSS) technology to increase the number and quality of
the MyAITP portlets The Results The
result is a portal that has sections open to the public so they can see what
AITP is all about and what benefits we offer. With the new Web portal, people
can see our mission, vision, code of ethics, and standards of conduct and
organization. The
chapter search was improved, providing a simple Web presence for chapters, even
if they don't have their own Web site. People can now easily see upcoming
events and the benefits of membership. At the
same time, we wanted to provide real content for just AITP members. The Members
and Publications sections of the portal do just that. In these member-only
sections, you will find nearly 20 discussion forums where you can converse with
other AITP members on specific topics of interest. The AITP member directory is
one of our most popular enhancements. And with the portal we introduced new
functionality such as on-line renewals and a way to update your personal
information online. These were 'must-have' enhancements. Our goal
was to provide members with real content that they could use both at work and
at home. You will find that content in the Publications section of the portal.
Here you will see a number of quality white papers on a variety of topics. And
this is just the beginning. As AITP builds more and more relationships with
other companies, we'll add more papers, case studies, newsletters and other
documents to this area of the portal. We knew
we could not afford to create everything at once. Our priorities were to build
something that would initially attract our existing members, the public and
other organizations to AITP. But the portal was built with the future in mind
as well. We also wanted an infrastructure that supports future functionality
and more unique content for AITP members. Over time, we will enhance what has
already been built and create new items and functions. The
launch of the portal is not the end of the project. Instead it is the beginning
of an opportunity to build more applications, content, functionality and benefits
for your AITP membership. |
|
Member Spotlight Mark Kleine Added to
AITP Board of Directors
Congratulations to Mark
Kleine, who has been chosen to replace Russ Finney on the AITP Board of
Directors. Russ resigned from the Association Board of Directors in order
to pursue new career interests, AITP would like to thank Russ Finney for his
dedicated service and wishes him the best in his future endeavors. Mark Kleine's
nomination was ratified by the Board on Mark is currently the
Information Systems Manager of McCoy Tree Surgery. This year Mark celebrates 20
years at that company. Prior to his current position, Mark spent a few years working
as a programming consultant to a number of oil and gas companies throughout the
midwest. This experience
allowed him to learn a wide variety of systems in a great number of
applications. Since 2002, Mark has served
as President for the Oklahoma City Chapter of the Association of Information
Technology Professionals. In college, Mark was active with the DPMA student
group and took part in the local programming contests that were offered. Mark
has been active with the student chapters in the Over the years, Mark has
continued his education and currently holds a number of certifications,
including A+, Network+, BICSI Service Technician 2, CCNA, MCP and MCSA.
Recently, he has been asked to perform expert witness testimony in local
Information Technology court cases.
Mark
and his wife Sharlene live on 8 acres outside the
city of |
|
Nita
Adams Selected as Central District Association Director The AITP Central District selected Nita Adams, CISSP,
to serve on the 2004 AITP Board of Directors. Nita, who was the 2001
Association President, will complete the Director's term of Mark Gilfand, CDP
who was elected the 2004 AITP Secretary/Treasurer. The Central District is
composed of Regions 5 and 9. The members of the 2004 Association Board of
Directors are: President Sam C. Luke, CSP Vice
President/President Elect Brian J. Reithel, Ph.D.,
CDP Secretary/Treasurer Past
President Directors Eastern District: Craig Jerry Buckland Central District: Sue Morton Nita Adams, CISSP Southern District: Kenneth McCardle Western District: Beth Pirrie Jim Henry Other members of the Board of Directors: President
of the AITP Education Foundation 2003 President is William R. Reaugh,
CDP President of the AITP Education Special
Interest Group (EDSIG) 2003 President is Jack Russell, Ph.D., CDP |
|
Chapter and Region News Setup an Online Store
on Your Chapter Website Ever wanted to sell a T-shirt
or hat with your chapter name on it? How about one that promotes a
special
chapter event or a slogan? Wouldn't it be great to sell branded
merchandise like
that from your own online store? However, if you have ever looked into
it
before, you probably abandoned the idea as too expensive or
complicated,
especially if you were looking at small quantity orders. My chapter (Hampton Roads, Cafepress has more than 50 items that you can sell
from your
own Website. They have T-shirts, hats, golf shirts, teddy bears, coffee
mugs,
tote bags and many other items. Clothing items are available in a
number of
colors and in many different sizes. You can choose a few things or a
lot of
things to sell. Cafepress handles the
order for you,
24 hours a day, using a SSL-secured Website. They will also accept
toll-free
telephone orders. They take the order and credit card information,
create the
item and then ship it directly to the customer's address. If you have
included
a markup on the item, Cafepress credits
your account
for the sale. Setup is easy and then everything is automatically
handled for
you. Best of all, it costs your
chapter nothing. As long as you sell items at a price that covers Cafepress's minimum "base price," anything above
that amount is earned as a commission for your chapter. Prices are
reasonable
enough (considering it's all custom work)
and the
quality of the items seems to be very good as well. For example, a
T-shirt with
logo has a base price of $13.99. At the Hampton Roads Chapter, we mark
this
item up $2 and sell it for $15.99. If you want, you can even sell at
the base
price. It's still a great promotion for your chapter even if you don't
make any
money directly from the sale. They also make very nice gifts if you
need it for
speakers or door prizes. If you are interested, take a
look at the online store I created for the Hampton Roads chapter (www.cafepress.com/aitp_hr).
This
took only a couple of hours to setup. Just go to cafepress.com and sign
up for
a free account. Then, create a graphic or graphics you want imprinted
on the
items you sell. Cafepress has helpful Web
pages and
templates to help you format graphics so they will print correctly on
your
merchandise. Just about any inexpensive photo editing or graphic
software is
all you need to get started. Then, just upload your graphic, click on
the items
you want to sell, type in your selling price and you're done! After
that,
invite everyone to visit your store. It's really easy. I bought a couple of items, a
golf shirt and a hat, as a quality check.
They use a digital transfer process that is similar to
silk-screening
and the logo is very nicely reproduced on
the items.
All the colors and wording came out on the graphic very cleanly and the
shirt
and hat look great! I've washed the shirt a couple of times and the
logo still
looks crisp and clear. There are many shipping
options available, including UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service.
Although
overnight delivery is an option, I elected the least expensive method,
which
was a $5 U.S. Postal Service charge for the entire shipment. I got my
order in
about 10 days. I also understand that they have a very reasonable
return and
refund policy. It's too soon for us to tell
how successful this will be and whether we will make any significant
money from
it. We've only just started and sold a few items so far. However,
since it costs nothing and takes no volunteer time (after initial
setup), we
can't see any downside to giving it a try. If you have any
questions on
the process, I'm sure most of them can be answered best from the Cafepress Website (www.cafepress.com). However,
if you want
to e-mail me directly (Ed Miller, efm@cox.net),
I'll be glad to share more of my experiences with you and help you if I
can. |
|
Microsoft
Office 2003 Presentation Opportunities by Kevin Jetton 2002
AITP Assoc. President Here is a super opportunity to have
a chapter meeting or region conference session on Microsoft's new Office 2003
product that launches later this fall. Simply click on the link below and
utilize the resources that are available from Microsoft including the ability
to request a live speaker for your meeting or session as long as the estimated
attendance is at least 50 IT professionals and/or students! This is part of a continued and
growing partnership between AITP and Microsoft. At the session, free software
and goodies will be made available to the attendees. www.officesystem2003events.com Nanosecond Hosting the 2004 AITP National Collegiate Conference "Preparing for the New 'Corps of Discovery' Continuing the Lewis & Clark Tradition" by Kevin
Jetton, 2002 AITP Association President and AITP
National Collegiate Conference Director Yes indeed - mark your calendars to be in Once again, Robert-Half Technology will be the
exclusive Diamond Sponsor and will provide career guidance throughout the
conference. Katherine Spencer Lee, Executive Director of Robert Half
International Consulting, will be our conference keynoter Friday morning ( Conference co-chairs Lloyd Hasche
of Modern Technologies Corporation and Mary Dobransky
of the Loads of information about the conference can be found
at www.aitp.org including transportation and lodging details, contest resources
and schedules, so check it out and make your plans to be in For additional questions or information, simply
contact Kevin Jetton at kj02@txstate.edu or 210-275-2062. |
|
Betty Stevens-Frecknall
Scholarships Awarded for 2003-2004 by Dorothy Smith Several
years ago, Betty Stevens-Frecknall left a portion of
her estate to the Foundation for Information Technology Education (EF) to set
up a scholarship fund targeted at assisting deserving men and women pursuing an
education in the field of information technology. President of the The
endowment created a national scholarship that is awarded annually to support
university students seeking an education in accredited degree programs related
to information technology. All candidates must apply via the Education
Foundation Web site. Candidates are evaluated on demonstrated scholastic
achievement, leadership and financial need. The selection process is
administered by EF Regents. The online application is on the EF Web site (www.edfoundation.org), and the
submission deadline for the 2004-2005 awards is The
recipients for 2003-2004 as agreed upon by the selection committee, which includes
Peter Frecknall, representing the family and a
representative of the It is our
hope that the information technology profession will benefit from Betty's
vision and generosity for years to come and that her spirit and dedication will
be instilled in the students she touches with this gift. The intent of the
Betty Stevens-Frecknall Endowment is to provide
scholarship funds in perpetuity. If you would like more information, or to make a tax-deductible
contribution to the Betty Stevens-Frecknall
Endowment, contact EF President William R. Reaugh at reaughb@cs.com. |
|
2002 - 2003
Student Chapter Awards by Susan Morton, AITP Awards Committee
Chair Along with
its awards to its professional ranks, AITP annually makes a special effort to
recognize its student member chapters, regions, and the volunteers that drive
their success. Awards include the SIPA (Student Individual Performance Award),
the SCOPA (Student Chapter Outstanding Performance Award), the Outstanding
Student Chapter of the Year Award, and the Outstanding Student Chapter Faculty
Advisor of the Year Award. · Student
Individual Performance Award (SIPA) Student members are encouraged to work toward this award by
completing activities that include · Successive Years of Chapter Membership · Perfect Meeting Attendance · Chapter Committee Activity · Chapter Officer Activity · Presentations Made to the Chapter on IT-related
Topics · Recruiting New Members · Academic Excellence · Attendance at Sponsoring Professional Chapter
Meetings · Special Projects (Working with Faculty Advisor) · AITP Conference Attendance · Attendance at Related IT Industry Events The award is non-competitive in that every member of the
chapter can achieve the award through participation. Detailed information can
be found in the Student Awards Manual (available in the Manuals & Forms
page online). SIPA:
2002-2003 Winners Student &
Chapter Mark Pauly, Michael Bodoh, William Flemal, Charles Ingrelli,
Kimberly
Casson, Mark Kroeplin, Eric
Papa, Michelle
Shefsky, · Student
Chapter Outstanding Performance Award (SCOPA) Student
chapters are encouraged to work toward this award presented annually for
outstanding chapter performance. This award indicates the chapter is providing
a variety of opportunities to and for its members. Performance is judged on · Overall Chapter Membership Headcount
Year-to-Year · Presentation of Educational Programs · Member Registration with IT Industry
Conferences or Exhibits · Attendance of Leadership Training
Sessions at Sponsoring Professional Chapter · Production of Meeting Announcements · Chapter Newsletter Publication · Monthly Activity Reports · Meeting Regularity & Activities · Participation with Association
Events, including Professional Chapter Meetings, Regional, National and Student
Conferences · Member Public Speaking Engagements · Special Projects Detailed
information can be found in the Student Awards Manual (available in the Manuals
& Forms page online). SCOPA:
2002-2003 Winners Region Chapter 03, 03,
Northwestern State University (3129) 03, Ole
Miss/ 05, 05, 09, 11, · Outstanding
Student Chapter of the Year Award Look for the Student Chapter of the Year
Selection at the 2004 AITP National Collegiate Conference in · Outstanding
Student Chapter Faculty Advisor of the Year Award This award is presented annually at
the National Collegiate Conference to the winning student chapter faculty
advisor chosen from faculty advisors of student chapters who achieved SCOPA for
the previous two years. Detailed information is published annually in the
National Collegiate Conference brochure. For
complete requirements for these awards, please
visit the Manuals & Forms Page http://www.aitp.org/organization/profile/manuals/manuals.jsp
and download the Student Awards Manual. |
|
The Outlook
Areas of Investment
