Windows & .NET Magazine takes a look at Microsoft’s Real-Time Communications (RTC) Server 2003. The RTC Server brings text, audio, and video-based chat capabilities to the enterprise.

Curious why we were down yesterday? We came to work Monday morning to discover that all our home pages had been hacked by what appears to be a programmed attack originating from India. Although the attacker managed to cover his or her tracks relatively well, it appears that FTP was used to load malicious services onto our main Linux server. Because we couldn’t really be sure if there would be any residual hacks buried in the system, we pulled out boot drive and tossed it, put in a brand-new drive, formatted it raw, and installed Linux from fresh, sealed CD-ROMs. We also implemented a more aggressive series of intrusion detection and interdiction programs which will hopefully keep unwanted visitors at bay. Of course, this could have been much more than an inconvenience if we didn’t have backups. Remember: MAKE A BACKUP TODAY! — DG

Dantz Development Corporation announced the immediate availability of Dantz Retrospect 6.5 for Microsoft Windows. Highlights of the major upgrade include full support for large, multi-drive tape libraries, increased performance, comprehensive protection of Exchange Server and SQL Server data, and support for Windows Server 2003.

eIQnetworks announced the release of MailAnalyzer 3.5, a cross-platform, browser based mail server analysis and reporting solution that tracks, analyzes and reports on the movement of email into and from an organization using Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino or SendMail servers.

Here’s an article from The Globe and Mail about why IT won’t let users customize their PCs.

Internet Week has this article about what’s being done to fight spam and how it’s turned into a money-making opportunity. Email vendors such as Microsoft, Lotus, and BlueTie have integrated enhanced anti-spam capabilities into their most current and soon-to-be-shipping email servers that give customers immediate reasons to upgrade.

PC Magazine has this review of Ella, an antispam program from Open Field Software.

GCN.com reports that a bug lives in the latest beta version of Microsoft Outlook 2003, despite two fixes. The Inbox bug systematically deletes email messages throughout networked systems that still have Outlook 2002 installed. Deletion starts when Outlook 2003 receives new emails and doesn’t stop until Outlook 2003 is closed.

Check out our exciting new format! We’re wrapping tips and articles together to give you all sorts of new and exciting content. One thing: the back issues section is a little "kafluey" — we’ll get around to fixing it after we take a nap. Also, you might have noticed the two-tone text ads at the bottom of the page. Click on them! Seriously, the plan is for one color background. That, too will get fixed shortly.

GFI has released a white paper to help network administrators deal with the pressing problem of patch management in an efficient and cost-effective way.