The office is a jungle. That’s why intrepid employees need a field guide to help them spot and identify the most powerful creature in the workplace: the boss. Here are ten common examples of the species, along with care and feeding tips should you encounter a manager in the wild. [Ed.–With the exception of "Our Hero," I’ve worked for just about every one of these types.]

A 10-year-old security problem has come back to haunt corporate IT, a security researcher told an audience at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing for IO Active, showed how problems in the way browser software works with the Internet’s domain name system could be exploited to give attackers access to any resources behind the corporate firewall.

The commonwealth of Massachusetts has officially thrown its weight behind Microsoft’s Office Open XML format along with the OASIS Open Document Format.

In July, the commonwealth added Microsoft’s format, also known as Ecma-376 or Open XML, to the list of approved standards in a draft of the Massachusetts ETRM (Enterprise Technical Reference Model), an architectural framework used to identify the standards, specifications and technologies that support Massachusetts’ computing environment.

With all the hype being gathered up by Microsoft Office 2007, there is a tendency to forget about Microsoft’s other office suite known as Microsoft Works. For many years, Works has been seen by many as the less-expensive, bare-essentials version of Office. While Works has always been a somewhat attractive option due to its low price, competition from OpenOffice and Google Docs & Spreadsheets has forced Microsoft to do something drastic: release Microsoft Works 9.0 for free.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Search & Advertising, recently said that the upcoming release of Works, presumably titled Works 9.0, will definitely be funded by advertisements. A free, ad-driven version of Works has been in Microsoft’s plans for some time.

At business meetings the world over, PowerPoint-style presentations are often met with yawns and glazed eyes. But at one of the world’s top business schools, such slide shows are now an entrance requirement. In a first, the University of Chicago will begin requiring prospective students to submit four pages of PowerPoint-like slides with their applications this fall.

Microsoft is making a tech-demo version of its upcoming DirectX 10.1 available via download, including a version of XAudio2, the company’s cross-platform replacement for DirectSound.

Users can try out both via the 468MB version of the August 2007 DirectX SDK. There’s a catch, though: the August 2007 Direct3D 10.1 Tech Preview requires the Windows Vista SP1 Beta which will be available to MSDN subscribers once it is publicly released.

The most influential technology product of the past 25 years is Microsoft’s oft-derided Web browser, Internet Explorer, according to a survey of IT professionals.

The survey was carried out by the Computing Technology Industry Association, a 25-year-old trade body that certifies IT professionals and that is funded by major vendors, including Microsoft. Out of the top five products in the poll, only one–the iPod–is not a Microsoft product.

SPAMfighter ApS has recently released a new version of the antivirus program, VIRUSfighter with the same capabilities but now compatible with Windows Vista operating system in order to give users the best antivirus program for their Vista-based PCs. VIRUSfighter offers a free 30-day trial for all computer systems and now also a special version exclusive for Windows Vista.

ANIXIS announced the release of Password Policy Enforcer 5.0, an application that enhances the security of Windows Server operating systems. PPE 5.0 has six new password policy rules, improved support for Windows Vista, and new password expiry options to simplify the introduction of new password policies.

The rudimentary password policy features in Windows limit administrators to a single domain password policy with an on/off complexity option. Microsoft includes a programmer’s interface to add new password policy rules, but a solid understanding of Windows system programming is needed to make use of it. ANIXIS Password Policy Enforcer allows administrators to enforce granular password policies without programming.

Amongst the six new password policy rules in PPE 5.0 is a keyboard pattern rule, a first for the Windows platform. It detects simple keyboard patterns like QWERTY, and also more complex patterns like QAZXCV and QAWSDF. Pattern matching parameters are configurable, allowing administrators to strike a balance between security and usability.