Information Technology Infrastructure Library

Better People. Better Processes. Super Technology.

ManageEngine ITIL solutions help organizations implement industry-accepted best practices easily without burning a hole in the corporate pocket.

• Build friendly processes easily
• Improve your service quality
• Build a proactive approach for your service team
• Reduce implementation and runtime costs

ITIL Solution

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), popularly known as ... documented common sense’, is a framework of best practices to manage IT operations and services.
It equips you with the foundation for building better processes for IT management in your organization. ITIL ... ™s main objective is to align your Information Technology with your business objectives.


What is your call on ITIL?

Are you petrified by all the jargons and need for processes? Or have you already taken the leap and trying to reach your final destination? ManageEngine solutions can help you in your journey, wherever you may be.


Challenges to Effective ITIL Implementation

Successful management of IT services calls for a seamless mesh between the people involved, the underlying processes in place and the technology that enables these two.


Organizations are frequently challenged with some of these issues:

• Under-utilized resources
• Increased number of incidents
• Multiple points of contact
• Lack of systematic processes to manage requests and IT shutdowns
• Random and unplanned changes
• Lack of centralized availability of information
• Reactive approach inside the IT organization
• Unavailability of expected service quality levels

A powerful ITIL solution in place can simplify the organization's IT management, allowing it to focus on its core business.


The ManageEngine ITIL Solution

To get your IT service organization on the path that many successful companies have achieved via ITIL, we have made it easy with ManageEngine ITIL Solutions. We help you with our expertise and unique set of offerings that will help you realize value from day one.

Our offering includes:

• Top-notch software to implement and automate ITIL processes realizing faster implementation cycles and quicker ROI.
• Practical consultancy and implementation services that can get you on the fast lane to IT excellence.
• Systematic training and workshops to ensure your entire team is in sync with the organizational goals.

Immediate advantages you gain from the ManageEngine ITIL Solution includes :

• Proactive approach to the whole IT service organization.
• Decreased number of incidents.
• Centralized database of all assets and services.
• Systematic and planned changes.
• Reduced downtime.
• Assured availability levels.
• Ability to guarantee service quality levels.

Datacenter and Server Management Suite

Optimize datacenter efficiency from a unified portal

DSM Suite helps datacenter administrators manage Servers, Databases and their applications, and guarantee maximum uptime.

• Deliver high application performance
• Manage Servers, Databases and websites
• Secure against internal and external threats
• Ensure business continuity with proactive management

Datacenter and Server Management

Every IT Manager realizes the consequence of the failure of a business critical application. With increasingly heavy investments on datacenters and the servers within them, a break-fix management methodology is no longer sufficient. With troubles right from an over utilized resource causing an application failure, up to a malicious virus threatening data security, the Datacenter manager requires a solution that proves to be proactive as well as business intelligent.


Challenges in Datacenter Management

The process of identifying and optimally using the datacenter resources, guaranteeing maximal device availability and ensuring security across all infrastructure is no simple task. Failed services could lead to unhappy end-users and even cause heavy business losses.


Common concerns in Datacenter Management are:

• Unavailability of Servers, Databases and Applications
• Application-level performance degradation
• Internal security breaches and unauthorized user access
• Malicious traffic, viruses and worms affecting servers
• Optimization of resource allocation

ManageEngine Datacenter and Server Management Suite

What you need in managing your Datacenters is a cost-effective and yet reliable solution that answers your concerns. ManageEngine Datacenter Management Suite provides such a proactive solution by giving you an array of benefits:

• Server CPU, Memory and Disk Utilization
• In-depth Application performance and availability management
• Management across heterogeneous databases
• Monitoring across websites and web transactions
• Service monitoring including Web Services
• Internal Security Management with Windows Eventlogs
• External traffic management with firewall analyzer
• Centralized password management including shared and service accounts
• Specialized MS Exchange Server Monitoring

Desktop Management Solution

Manage, Secure and Support workstations 24X7

DMS helps system and LAN administrators procure, manage, control and secure their desktops and internal infrastructure

• Discover all networked assets
• Manage software and hardware inventories
• Secure infrastructure against hacks and threats
• Provide continuous integrated support

Desktop Management Solution

Business growth is being increasingly tied with reliable IT infrastructure. According to recent surveys by Gartner, organizations pay anything between $7000 and $13000 per year for managing one workstation. With the heavy business dependence on desktops and internal operations, the need for a reliable, cost-effective and easy to use solution has become more important than ever.

Challenges in Desktop Management:

The whole cycle of procuring systems, commissioning them to users and supporting them everyday is a huge challenge to IT. Beyond the immediate need to minimize system downtime, retaining focus on proactive resolution of user problems is also primary for a good management practice. Finally, the constant fire-fighting causes undue stress to IT staff, greatly reducing their productivity.

Some common Desktop Management Concerns are:

• Spread of IT Assets through the organization
• Maintaining up-to-date inventories for audits and management
• Administering and Allocating Assets
• Managing configurations, patches, deployments and upgrades
• Vulnerability Management against hacks and threats

ManageEngine Desktop Management Suite

If your work includes the concerns above, what you need is a proactive and efficient desktop management solution. ManageEngine Desktop Management suite offers a reliable and cost-effective solution that helps you in a number of ways:

• Discover all networked assets including workstations, printers, routers, servers and any other asset with an IP address assigned to it.
• Gain in-depth asset knowledge including ownership history, inventory information etc.
• Manage Software licenses with usage tracking, group licensing and policy definitions
• Control across entire procurement and asset management cycle with Purchase Order and Contract management
• Configure and Manage desktops remotely, from a central point
• Execute custom scripts for deeper control .Support users by managing issues and changes from a central help-desk
• Reduce latency by allowing user self-service ticketing portals
• Detect, assess and remediate vulnerabilities across heterogeneous networked assets
• Automate distribution and management of patches and security hotfixes

Cisco Device Log Analysis

Comprehensive Log Analysis & Reporting For Cisco Devices

Firewall Analyzer can analyze, report, and archive logs received from your Cisco PIX Secure Firewall's (it also supports other firewall's). Firewall Analyzer also supports logs received from other Cisco devices like, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA), Cisco VPN Concentrator, Cisco IOS Firewall's, and also Cisco Firewall Service Module (FWSM) for Cisco Catalyst series.

Cisco PIX firewall's does not create log files like some of other available firewall's, but instead directs log streams to a syslog server, which writes the log information into a file. Firewall Analyzer has an inbuilt syslog server which can receive the Cisco PIX log streams. You need to configure Cisco devices to send the log streams to the Firewall Analyzer syslog server.

Firewall syslogs reveal a lot of information on the nature of traffic coming in and going out of the firewall, allows you to plan your bandwidth requirement based on the bandwidth usage across the firewall's Analyzing these firewall traffic logs is vital to understanding network and bandwidth usage and plays an important role in business risk assessment.

Firewall Analyzer offers many features that help in collecting, analyzing and reporting on firewall logs.

Firewall Analyzer supports the following reports for Cisco PIX firewall's:

• Live Reports
• Traffic Reports
• Protocol Usage Reports
• Web Usage Reports
• Mail Usage Reports
• FTP Usage Reports
• Telnet Usage Reports
• Event Summary Reports
• VPN Usage Reports
• Firewall Rules Report
• Inbound Outbound Reports
• Intranet Reports
• Internet Reports
• Streaming & Chat Sites Reports
• Security Reports
• Attack Reports
• Admin Reports

Check Point Firewall Log Analysis

Comprehensive Log Analysis & Reporting For Check Point Firewall's

Firewall Analyzer can analyze, report, and archive logs from your Check Point Firewall's (it also supports other firewall's). Firewall Analyzer has been OPSEC™ certified by Check Point and has joined the OPSEC Alliance.

You need to configure Check Point firewall's to support the Check Point logs. Firewall Analyzer supports log import from most versions and Log Extraction API (LEA) support for versions R54 and above. Firewall Analyzer lets you add LEA servers to establish connections and retrieve logs from Check Point firewall's. You can add as many LEA servers as needed, and set up authenticated or unauthenticated connections to retrieve firewall logs.

Firewall syslogs reveal a lot of information on the nature of traffic coming in and going out of the firewall, allows you to plan your bandwidth requirement based on the bandwidth usage across the firewall's. Analyzing these firewall traffic logs is vital to understanding network and bandwidth usage and plays an important role in business risk assessment.

Firewall Analyzer offers many features that help in collecting, analyzing and reporting on firewall logs.

Firewall Analyzer supports the following reports for Check Point firewall:

• Live Reports
• Traffic Reports
• Protocol Usage Reports
• Web Usage Reports
• Mail Usage Reports
• FTP Usage Reports
• Telnet Usage Reports
• Event Summary Reports
• VPN Usage Reports
• Firewall Rules Report
• Inbound Outbound Reports
• Intranet Reports
• Internet Reports
• Streaming & Chat Sites Reports
• Security Reports
• Attack Reports

Unique Locks On Microchips

Unique Locks On Microchips Could Reduce Hardware Piracy

Hardware piracy, or making knock-off microchips based on stolen blueprints, is a burgeoning problem in the electronics industry.

Computer engineers at the University of Michigan and Rice University have devised a comprehensive way to head off this costly infringement: Each chip would have its own unique lock and key. The patent holder would hold the keys.

The chip would securely communicate with the patent-holder to unlock itself, and it could operate only after being unlocked.

The technique is called EPIC, short for Ending Piracy of Integrated Circuits. It relies on established cryptography methods and introduces subtle changes into the chip design process. But it does not affect the chips' performance or power consumption.
Michigan computer engineering doctoral student Jarrod Roy will present a paper on EPIC at the Design Automation and Test in Europe conference in Germany on March 13.

Integrated circuit piracy has risen in recent years as U.S. companies started outsourcing production of newer chips with ultra-fine features. Transferring chip blueprints to overseas locations opened new doors for bootleggers who have used the chips to make counterfeit MP3 players, cell phones and computers, among other devices.

This is a very new problem, said Igor Markov, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at U-M and a co-author of the paper.
"Pirated chips are sometimes being sold for pennies, but they are exactly the same as normal chips," Markov said. "They were designed in the United States and usually manufactured overseas, where intellectual property law is more lax. Someone copies the blueprints or manufactures the chips without authorization."

A cutting-edge fabrication facility costs between $3 billion and $4 billion to build in the United States., said Farinaz Koushanfar, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University and a co-author on the paper.
"Therefore, a growing number of semiconductor companies, including Texas Instruments and Freescale (a former division of Motorola), has recently announced that they would cease manufacturing chips with finer features, and outsource production to East Asia. However, even in U.S. facilities, working chips are sometimes reported defective by individual employees and later sold in gray markets," Koushanfar said.

With EPIC protection enabled, each integrated circuit would be manufactured with a few extra switches that behave like a combination lock. Each would also have the ability to produce its own at least 64-bit random identification number that could not be changed. The chips would not be manufactured with an ID number, but instead with the tools needed to produce the number during activation.

In the EPIC framework, chips wouldn't work correctly until they were activated. To activate a chip, the manufacturer would plug it in and let it contact the patent owner over an ordinary phone line or Internet connection.
"All chips are produced from the same blueprint, but differentiate themselves when they are turned on for the first time and generate their ID," Roy said. "Nothing is known about this number before activation."

The chip would transmit its ID securely to the patent owner. The patent owner would record the number, figure out the combination to unlock that particular chip, and respond securely with the key.
The uniqueness of the activation key rules out the possibility that someone could observe it and reuse it without cracking it. Because the key is generated on the fly, it wouldn't make sense to copy it like you could copy software activation keys, which are printed on CD envelopes.
Theoretically, there are ways to illegally copy chips protected by EPIC, Markov said. But EPIC makes this very difficult.

"If someone was really bent on forging and had a hundred million dollars to spend, they could reverse-engineer the entire chip by taking it apart. But the point of piracy is to avoid such costs," he said. "The goal of a practical system like ours is not to make something impossible, but to ensure that buying a license and producing the chip legally is cheaper than forgery."

Adapted from materials provided by University of Michigan.

Modeling How Electric Charges Move

Learning how to control the movement of electrons on the molecular and nanometer scales could help scientists devise small-scale circuits for many applications, including more efficient ways of storing and using solar energy. Marshall Newton, a theoretical chemist at Brookhaven Lab has been researching theoretical techniques used to understand the factors affecting electron movement.

"Electron transfer plays a vital role in numerous biological processes, including nerve cell communication and converting energy from food into useful forms," says Newton. "It's the initial step in photosynthesis, as well, where charges are first separated and the energy is stored for later use - which is one of the concepts behind energy production using solar cells."

Newton will describe how combining electronic quantum mechanical theory with computational techniques has led to a unified, compact way to understand the nature of charge transfer in complex molecular aggregates.

"In essence," he explains, "the research has led to understanding electronic transport in terms of quantitative answers to a few basic mechanistic questions: namely, how far, how efficiently, and by which route (or molecular 'pathway') a charge moves from a 'donor' to an 'acceptor' in the molecular assembly."

The answers come from detailed molecular quantum calculations of the energy gaps separating the relevant electronic states, and the strength of coupling between adjacent molecular units along the "pathways."

"This new approach may yield ways to predict and control electronic transport behavior by 'tuning' the molecular components, resulting in capabilities that can be used to design new solar-based energy schemes," Newton said.

This research was presented at The March 2008 American Physical Society Meeting in New Orleans, La., March 10 -14.

Silent Tiny Cooling Systems

Silent Tiny Cooling Systems Made For Laptop Computers, Other Devices

Engineers harnessing the same physical property that drives silent household air purifiers have created a miniaturized device that is now ready for testing as a silent, ultra-thin, low-power and low maintenance cooling system for laptop computers and other electronic devices.

The compact, solid-state fan, developed with support from NSF's Small Business Innovation Research program, is the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size. It produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan and is one-fourth the size.

Dan Schlitz and Vishal Singhal of Thorrn Micro Technologies, Inc., of Marietta, Ga. will present their RSD5 solid-state fan at the 24th Annual Semiconductor Thermal Measurement, Modeling and Management Symposium (Semi-Therm) in San Jose, Calif., on March 17, 2008. The device is the culmination of six years of research that began while the researchers were NSF-supported graduate students at Purdue University.

"The RSD5 is one of the most significant advancements in electronics cooling since heat pipes. It could change the cooling paradigm for mobile electronics," said Singhal.
The RSD5 incorporates a series of live wires that generate a micro-scale plasma (an ion-rich gas that has free electrons that conduct electricity). The wires lie within un-charged conducting plates that are contoured into half-cylindrical shape to partially envelop the wires.

Within the intense electric field that results, ions push neutral air molecules from the wire to the plate, generating a wind. The phenomenon is called corona wind.
"The technology is a breakthrough in the design and development of semiconductors as it brings an elegant and cost effective solution to the heating problems that have plagued the industry," said Juan Figueroa, the NSF SBIR program officer who oversaw the research.

With the breakthrough of the contoured surface, the researchers were able to control the micro-scale discharge to produce maximum airflow without risk of sparks or electrical arcing. As a result, the new device yields a breeze as swift as 2.4 meters per second, as compared to airflows of 0.7 to 1.7 meters per second from larger, mechanical fans.

The contoured platform is a part of the device heat sink, a trick that enabled Schlitz and Singhal to both eliminate some of the device's bulk and increase the effectiveness of the airflow.
"The technology has the power to cool a 25-watt chip with a device smaller than 1 cubic-cm and can someday be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips," said Schlitz.

This device is also more dust-tolerant than predecessors. While dust attraction is ideal for living-room-scale fans that that provide both air flow and filtration, debris can be a devastating obstacle when the goal is to cool an electrical component.

Brocade MyView

Brocade MyView is a resource access management and reporting solution that provides a personalized view of user access to Windows file resources across the enterprise, improving data security and compliance practices.


Enterprise Data Security Management Challenges

Today's IT organizations face a variety of challenges in managing the security of their unstructured file data, which is expected to grow at a rate of 50 to 75 percent a year. In fact, current data security solutions do not adequately provide security, compliance, or data administrators with a comprehensive view into internal enterprise file data access rights. In addition, users often have difficulty knowing which resources they can access and where those resources are located.


An Innovative Solution

To address these challenges, Brocade MyView provides a comprehensive and personalized view of user access rights to files distributed throughout the enterprise. Organizations can use Brocade MyView to visualize distributed file environments, proactively monitor user access, and quickly respond to critical audit requirements. A key component of Brocade MyView is the global resource access matrix, which gives administrators a central view of user access rights to distributed data as well as detailed reporting capabilities.

The matrix maps thousands of user access rights (including the level of access) to resources across distributed enterprises based on Microsoft Active Directory. Brocade MyView also utilizes industry-leading global namespace technology that provides users with a single, customized view of their resources.


Brocade MyView Benefits the Entire Enterprise

Administrators

• Generates reports indicating enterprise-wide user access and authorization to file resources
• Documents the file resource access model before and after consolidation/migration
• Reduces the administrative time associated with assessing resource access models
• Enables proactive communication to data owners regarding consolidation/migration activities

Data Owners

• Proactively ensures that access rights to resources are accurate
• Provides advance notice of activities that impact access to critical data

Users

• Provides personalized, customized views of accessible file resources

Highlights

• Aggregates data from Microsoft Active Directory to centralize views and reporting of access rights to enterprise resources
• Helps IT administrators proactively map user identities to resource access permissions and report on changes to access
• Improves visibility and management of migrated or consolidated data, as well as the growing amount of unstructured data
• Enables provisioning and management of personalized namespaces, restricting users' views to only authorized resources
• Enhances security and improves file discovery and reporting in File Area Network (FAN) environments

What the Industry Is Saying about Brocade MyView

"Storage, data management, and security are merging into a new discipline. It's no longer just about managing storage, it is about protecting vital corporate information from external, as well as internal threats. MyView is a perfect example of the kind of user-friendly innovation we need to see in order to create information security controls across the infrastructure. The timing for this offering is excellent."

Brad O'Neill, Senior Analyst, Taneja Group

Brocade File Lifecycle Manager (FLM)

Brocade FLM provides a powerful way to create tiers of storage and simplify compliance requirements resulting in lower overall storage costs.

Comprehensive File Lifecycle Management

In most IT environments, the business value of data varies widely-especially as data growth occurs unevenly across the enterprise. This imbalanced growth often results in higher hardware expenditures due to the proliferation of storage devices, increased data management challenges, and more difficult regulatory compliance.
To help overcome these challenges, organizations can proactively manage their data throughout its lifecycle (from creation to disposal) by aligning storage policies with business priorities and regulatory requirements.

A Policy-Based Solution

Brocade FLM is a policy-based data solution that manages the lifecycle of file data in heterogeneous storage systems where the primary device is NetApp. Administrators can reduce the total cost of storage by analyzing, classifying, blocking, moving, organizing, and deleting file data using policies that reflect the business value of the data.

The solution optimizes data management based on attributes and access patterns. Organizations can implement tiers of disk-based storage, making more efficient use of lower-cost secondary storage. In fact, Brocade FLM can result in:

• More than twice the volume capacity as inactive data is automatically moved to secondary storage
• Up to a 50 percent reduction in storage hardware acquisition costs
• Reduced data backup costs as less important data gets transferred to lower-cost storage devices

Highlights

• Enables tiered storage architectures by placing data on different types of disk storage devices based on the relative value of that data
• Facilitates the alignment of data storage policies with business objectives for proactive management of data growth
• Minimizes administration tasks with a variety of automated, reusable data management policies
• Balances capacity utilization to offset increasing demands placed on higher-cost storage and to better utilize lower-cost storage
• Eliminates backup redundancy through appropriate data classification and placement
• Creates an audit trail through sophisticated monitoring and reporting
• Supports compliance requirements through integration with NetApp SnapLock to help ensure data permanence, accuracy, integrity, and security

Security and Compliance

Even though distributed enterprise data continues to grow at a rate of 50 to 75 percent a year, current data management solutions do not always provide adequate security, ensure compliance, or give IT administrators a comprehensive view into internal enterprise file data access rights. In addition, users often have difficulty knowing which resources they can access and where those resources are located.

Ask Permission or Beg Forgiveness?

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of security breaches come from within an enterprise, not from external threats. The lack of adequate file and resource access management tools—along with the fact that most security tools don't focus on internal threats—allows casual users to access confidential data, either accidentally or maliciously.

Set Boundaries for the Entire Enterprise

Ultimately, to improve file data security, a comprehensive file data management solution should provide users with customized views of accessible files and resources, enable IT administrators to establish enterprise-wide policies that streamline access control, and allow auditors to easily generate security permission reports for compliance purposes. What's more, automated provisioning and management of namespaces based on users, groups, and share permissions reduces administrative workload.

Data Management, Security, and Compliance Belong Together

IT organizations are discovering that separate tools for data management, security, and compliance just add layers of complexity that reduce effectiveness in all three areas. However, a file data management solution that incorporates security and compliance gives IT administrators and users a more manageable environment. It also improves productivity by enabling users to view resources in a logical, intuitive manner and allowing administrators to easily control and audit permissions.

Brocade File Services for Security and Compliance

• Brocade File Lifecycle Manger (FLM)
• Brocade MyView

Brocade UNCUpdate

Brocade UNCUpdate helps support non-disruptive storage migration by accurately reporting and updating UNC references in files.

Simplified Migration and Consolidation

Windows consolidations and migrations tend to be disruptive to business operations, because they are complicated by the fact that most users and applications are tied to specific share and file locations via hard-coded Universal Naming Convention (UNC) pathnames. As a result, administrators need to take extra precautions to ensure that such linkages are maintained as part of the migration process.

A Tool for Fast, Non-Disruptive Migration

Brocade UNCUpdate is a reliable tool for reporting on files that contain UNC references to storage resources under consideration for migration. A simplified interface helps administrators migrate data to a new location by scanning directories for files containing UNC paths that might need to be updated to reference items at their new location.
Administrators save time and money through a more proactive approach that automates the link synchronization process. Likewise, Brocade UNCUpdate helps improve user productivity by eliminating potential downtime caused by broken links, shortcuts, and UNC references following a migration.

Highlights

• Simplifies operations by automatically discovering and modifying shortcuts, embedded links, and UNC references
• Streamlines management by minimizing the number of administrative tasks required during Windows migrations
• Helps eliminate potential user downtime from broken links, shortcuts, and UNC references
• Increases flexibility by providing the option to update UNC references to target the storage resource at its new location
• Increases administrator productivity with a simple, easy-to-use interface

What the Industry Is Saying about Brocade UNCUpdate.

"What clients hate is migrating users and data from one machine to a new machine. It's time-consuming manual labor and users hate it as well. UNCUpdate eliminates those problems."

Brocade StorageX

Brocade StorageX is an integrated suite of applications designed to logically aggregate distributed file data across heterogeneous environments, providing administrators with policies to automate data management.

Cost-Effective Data Management

The explosive growth of unstructured data and the associated proliferation of file servers and NAS appliances have resulted in challenges for IT administrators and users alike. In fact, each device that needs to be managed independently greatly increases the administrative costs in distributed file storage environments.
Brocade StorageX is an integrated suite of applications that logically aggregates distributed file data across heterogeneous storage environments and across CIFS- and NFS-based file systems while providing policies to automate data management functions. Brocade StorageX supports key tasks such as:

• Data migration and consolidation
• Cost-effective business continuity
• Remote site data management
• Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)
• Storage optimization
• Data classification and reporting

Because administrators can perform tasks without causing downtime for users, Brocade StorageX helps increase data availability, optimize storage capacity, and simplify management.

Global Namespace for File Transparency

The Brocade StorageX Global Namespace unifies heterogeneous file data by pooling multiple file systems into a single, logical file system. It provides the following key benefits:

• Data management and movement are both transparent and non-disruptive.
• Data changes are automatically updated and require no client reconfiguration.
• Administrators can expand, move, rebalance, and reconfigure storage without affecting how users view and access it.
• Data management and movement require far less administrative effort and time.
• Administrators can manage data on heterogeneous, geographically distributed storage devices through a single console.
• Users have a single, logical view of files with access through a single drive letter. Before Brocade StorageX
  

Highlights

• Provides 24x7 access to data through backups and replicas of the logical data access infrastructure, across multiple globally distributed locations
• Seamlessly expands networked storage, users, and offices by making expansion transparent (non-disruptive) to users
• Increases administrator productivity by automating key data management tasks, including migration, consolidation, failover, and remote site data management
• Improves user productivity by simplifying access to distributed data
• Accommodates hierarchical role-based administration and supports administration of multiple clients
• Centralizes business continuity management in heterogeneous, distributed environments

What the Industry Is Saying about Brocade StorageX"

StorageX is a simple, elegant solution to the complex problem of file system management. It is not obtrusive, over-engineered, or high-risk. It merely rides on top of what is already there. The price is such that a quick, back-of-the envelope ROI calculation should yield a solid multiplier."

Data Consolidation and Migration

Consolidation/Migration in Data Centers and Branch Offices

Data consolidation and migration used to be point-in-time IT projects. However—due to rapid changes in hardware, technology, and capacity demands—this is no longer the case. Ongoing data migration is essential for coping with ever-changing requirements and optimizing available storage assets, but it can also increase client downtime, further stretch already-thin IT resources, and create headaches for IT administrators who must support heterogeneous data infrastructures. Using global namespace technology, migration policies, Wide Area File Services (WAFS), and link synchronization tools, today's organizations can overcome these challenges and slash time-to-ROI.

A Logical Solution for Distributed Data

Data consolidation and migration can be complicated by the fact that most users and applications are tied to specific share and file locations via hard-coded Universal Naming Convention (UNC) pathnames. Migrating legacy data from Microsoft Windows NT4, Novell, and other operating systems to data center-class NAS appliances can also be a challenge. A global namespace is a logical layer that is inserted between clients (users and applications) and file systems to provide a method of viewing and accessing files independent of the physical file locations and UNC pathnames. As a result, IT administrators can use a global namespace to logically arrange and present data to users, irrespective of where the data is located or what operating system supported it.

Automated Migration is the Best Policy

Embracing global namespace technology enables IT organizations to establish automated, policy-driven data migration routines that can dramatically reduce storage TCO, administration, and data lifecycle management time while aligning backup policies and infrastructure investment with the business value of data. Using global namespace technology to create and implement a tiered storage architecture, IT administrators can also develop policies that automatically migrate files based on criteria such as age, usage, and size.

Consolidate Branch Office Control in the Data Center

Managing data across multiple locations presents administrators with the challenge of improving data availability while lowering administrative costs. Most remote sites are connected to the corporate network through suboptimal, low-bandwidth connections—making data transfer, replication, and centralized backup costly and time-consuming. Replicating data for disaster recovery purposes can be especially expensive if an organization has multiple remote sites or maintains a tape backup infrastructure at each location. Managing branch offices from the data center improves IT productivity and file distribution.

Boost Data Availability and User Productivity

Global namespace technology gives administrators a single view of data across multiple locations, enabling them to manage distributed data as a single entity. Combined with replication policies, global namespace technology allows administrators to replicate data to a central location for backup, thereby eliminating the need for a tape backup infrastructure at each remote location. It also improves the reliability of backups, reduces the need for IT personnel at remote locations, and helps organizations reconnect users to their data in the event of a disaster or a server failure. WAFS provides LAN-like read-write access to shared files across WANs—enabling organizations to consolidate their IT assets, unlock significant productivity gains, and better protect their remote data. It also streamlines branch office IT operations, improves operational efficiency, and centralizes data management—essentially giving IT administrators in the data center control over critical branch office IT functions.

Improved Data Access and Reliability, Faster ROI

The promise of centralized data management—reduced TCO of file management, lower server and storage costs, improved user access to critical data, and increased IT efficiencies—can only be realized by understanding the challenges before implementation. IT organizations that plan accordingly can avoid or greatly reduce downtime and help desk calls, as well as the cost of legacy system support and backup media for remote offices.

Brocade File Services for Consolidation and Migration

• Brocade StorageX
• Brocade UNCUpdate

New Technology Protects Internet Advertisers From Click Fraud

Yong Guan had scribbled 12 arrows across his office whiteboard, each black line going from one little box he had drawn to another little box. He had written five long formulas up there, too.

And that was bad news for cyber criminals.

Guan, the Litton Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University, and his students are developing technologies to fight cyber crime and make online activities such as shopping more secure for everyone.

Guan and the Iowa State University Research Foundation have filed a patent on one technology that detects "click fraud" -- falsely driving up hits to ads posted on Web sites. Those false hits result in higher costs for pay-per-click advertising. Guan said the invention will help online advertising companies such as Google and Yahoo reduce click fraud.

He said his research could also help millions of computer users who don't have the time or expertise to protect their machines with the latest security patches and safeguards. "There are a lot of security issues and researchers have worked on them from the early 1980s," Guan said. "And 30 years later we're still working on them.

These are hard problems." In that time the nature of cyber crime has changed considerably, Guan said. It used to be hackers attacked systems for the thrill of it. Since the late 1990s, as more and more commerce happens online, he said money has become the major motivation for cyber crime.

And so Guan and his collaborators are working on several projects to make computing more secure and hold cyber criminals accountable:


Digital forensics

Guan is developing technology and techniques for extracting criminal evidence from computers, network hardware, cell phones and other electronic devices. The work is focused on three projects: Network attack attribution to help investigators find the real origins of cyber criminals and attackers; click fraud detection to protect Internet advertising; and auction fraud technology to quickly identify the people and their accomplices who run bogus Internet auctions.

Guan is working on the projects with James Davis, Iowa State's chief information officer; Doug Jacobson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering; Thomas Daniels, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Julie Dickerson, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. David Baldwin and Todd Zdorkowski, leaders of the Midwest Forensics Resource Center at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory on the Iowa State campus, have also helped establish collaborative relationships with local and state police agencies.

The projects are supported by a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. intelligence community's Disruptive Technology Office, a $220,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and funding from Iowa State. Wireless security Guan is working on three projects to improve the security of working with wireless networks. The first is looking at how a new secure network coding model can be protected from attacks while it transmits network traffic.

The old system sent each individual message hop by hop until it reached its destination. The new way, based on network coding and cooperative relaying schemes, sends and combines messages in groups. Guan said it's like loading up a freight train and sending big loads down the line together. It's a way to increase capacity and save energy. But putting all that network traffic together makes it easier for attackers to hit more targets with a single attack. The second project will develop location-based security systems for wireless technology.

That means a person would have to be working in a specific place before gaining access to documents over a wireless network. That would be useful for government employees who need to work with classified documents over wireless connections. Guan's security system would only allow those documents to be viewed in designated secure rooms.

The third project will help secure wired and wireless multicasts over the Internet by protecting and managing lists of Internet accounts. It could, for example, help a software company limit the delivery of security patches to paying customers. It could also help webcasters manage and limit access to their content.

Working with Guan on the wireless security projects are Ahmed Kamal, a professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Sang Kim, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. The work is supported by a $400,000 early career development grant from the National Science Foundation and another $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

Privacy protection Guan has been working on a project that will help protect the identity of Internet users. One application could protect the identities -- and medical records -- of people who use online pharmacies. Another application could preserve the anonymity of people using an online voting system. And what about all those arrows and formulas covering Guan's office whiteboard? It turns out they're a key to figuring out the reliability of his technology to detect the criminals and their accomplices who run bogus Internet auctions.

Before evidence uncovered by his technology can be used in court, Guan said error rates need to be quantified. Judging by the ink stains Guan has left on the wall next to the whiteboard, he and his students spend a lot of time making those kinds of analyses and calculations. And that's some more bad news for cyber criminals.

Adapted from materials provided by Iowa State University.

Firewall Log Analysis

Comprehensive Analysis of Firewall Logs

Firewall logs reveal a lot of information on the nature of traffic coming in and going out of the firewall, allows you to plan your bandwidth requirement based on the bandwidth usage across the firewalls. Analyzing these firewall traffic logs is vital to understanding network and bandwidth usage and plays an important role in business risk assessment. Firewall Analyzer offers many features that help in collecting, analyzing and reporting on firewall logs.

Firewall Analyzer supports:

• Check Point Log Analysis
• Cisco Device Log Analysis
• CyberGuard Log Analysis
• Fortigate Log Analysis
• Microsoft ISA Log Analysis
• NetScreen Log Analysis
• SonicWALL Log Analysis
• WatchGuard Log Analysis
• and many others

Automatic Firewall Detection

Simply configure your firewall to export logs to Firewall Analyzer. Firewalls are then automatically detected and reports are generated instantly. For all firewalls that support exporting logs in WELF format, this is the best configuration option.


Firewall Log Import

In the case of Squid proxy servers, and firewalls that do not export logs in an acceptable format, you can import log files directly from Firewall Analyzer and generate reports for the same.


Firewall Log Archiving

Logs received from firewalls, squid proxy servers, and Radius servers, are archived at specific intervals. You can load these log archives into the database at any time, and generate reports for specific activity. However, log archiving takes up disk space, so you can disable this option at any time.


Specific Check Point Settings

Firewall Analyzer lets you add LEA servers to establish connections and retrieve logs from Check Point firewalls. You can add as many LEA servers as needed, and set up authenticated or unauthenticated connections to retrieve firewall logs.


Embedded Syslog Server

Firewall Analyzer comes pre-bundled with a syslog server that listens for exported firewall logs at the defined listener ports. You can add more listener ports to this syslog server, in order to collect logs from different firewalls. The syslog server is a part of Firewall Analyzer and does not require a separate installation.

Human Error Puts Online Banking Security At Risk

Using an SMS password as an added security measure for internet banking is no guarantee your money is safe, according to a new Queensland University of Technology study which reveals online customers are not protecting their accounts.

Mohammed AlZomai, from QUT's Information Security Institute, said one in five online transactions was vulnerable to obvious attacks despite added security methods such as SMS passwords being adopted.

Mr AlZomai said the study had found that the security threat had more to do with the usability of the SMS system and human error, rather than any technical security problem.
"In response to the growing threat to online banking security, most banks have implemented special methods for authenticating a transaction," he said."A typical method is sending a one-time-password via SMS to the customer's mobile phone for each transaction.
"This means the customer must manually copy the password from their phone in order to confirm the online transaction."

But Mr AlZomai said customers were failing to notice when the bank account number in the SMS message was not the same as the intended account number. He said if this occurred it was a clear sign hackers had infiltrated the system.

As part of the study, QUT developed a simulated online bank and asked participants to play the role of customers and undertake a number of financial transactions using an SMS authorisation code.
Mr AlZomai said he then simulated two types of attacks - an obvious attack which was where five or more digits in the account number were altered, and a stealthy attack which was where only one digit was changed.

"It is worrisome that obvious attacks were successful in 21 per cent of cases," he said.
"And when transactions faced a stealthy attack, 61 per cent of attacks were successful."
He said this study showed that a significant number of users were unable to identify the attack. "This is a strong indication that the SMS transaction authorisation method is vulnerable," he said.
"According to our study only 79 per cent of users would be able to avoid realistic attacks, which represents an inadequate level of security for online banking."

Mr AlZomai said while this study highlighted the importance for customers to be vigilant when they were banking online, banks also had a responsibility to their customers. "We hope this research will allow online banks and other online service providers to be better prepared for these emerging risks."
Adapted from materials provided by Queensland University of Technology.

Security Loophole Found In Windows Operating System

A group of researchers headed by Dr. Benny Pinkas from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Haifa succeeded in finding a security vulnerability in Microsoft's "Windows 2000" operating system. The significance of the loophole: emails, passwords, credit card numbers, if they were typed into the computer, and actually all correspondence that emanated from a computer using "Windows 2000" is susceptible to tracking. "This is not a theoretical discovery. Anyone who exploits this security loophole can definitely access this information on other computers," remarked Dr. Pinkas.

Various security vulnerabilities in different computer operating systems have been discovered over the years. Previous security breaches have enabled hackers to follow correspondence from a computer from the time of the breach onwards. This newly discovered loophole, exposed by a team of researchers which included, along with Dr. Pinkas, Hebrew University graduate students Zvi Gutterman and Leo Dorrendorf, enables hackers to access information that was sent from the computer prior to the security breach and even information that is no longer stored on the computer.
The researchers found the security loophole in the random number generator of Windows. This is a program which is, among other things, a critical building block for file and email encryption, and for the SSL encryption protocol which is used by all Internet browsers.

For example: in correspondence with a bank or any other website that requires typing in a password, or a credit card number, the random number generator creates a random encryption key, which is used to encrypt the communication so that only the relevant website can read the correspondence. The research team found a way to decipher how the random number generator works and thereby compute previous and future encryption keys used by the computer, and eavesdrop on private communication.

"There is no doubt that hacking into a computer using our method requires advanced planning. On the other hand, simpler security breaches also require planning, and I believe that there is room for concern at large companies, or for people who manage sensitive information using their computers, who should understand that the privacy of their data is at risk," explained Dr. Pinkas.
According to the researchers, who have already notified the Microsoft security response team about their discovery, although they only checked "Windows 2000" (which is currently the third most popular operating system in use) they assume that newer versions of "Windows", XP and Vista, use similar random number generators and may also be vulnerable.

Their conclusion is that Microsoft needs to improve the way it encodes information. They recommend that Microsoft publish the code of their random number generators as well as of other elements of the "Windows" security system to enable computer security experts outside Microsoft to evaluate their effectiveness.

The results of the research are described in a scientific paper entitled "Cryptanalysis of the Windows Random Number Generator", which was presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security which took place in Alexandria.

Gadgets With Built In Digital Cameras Make History

The digital camera is a gadget that has had a huge influence on American life ever since its introduction. After all, no other device has the same ability to capture images and distribute them all over the world as quickly as the digital camera. The digital camera is a gadget that has had a huge influence on American life ever since its introduction. After all, no other device has the same ability to capture images and distribute them all over the world as quickly as the digital camera.

At their most basic, digital cameras are made possible by technology that converts photons into digital data that can be used to recreate a picture. There are several different types of sensors that can be built into digital cameras, but the common ground of being able to capture the photons, recognize the wavelength (color) of a photon, and covert that information into digital information that can be stored in computer memory is the basis for digital photograpy.

Flash memory is another vital technology for digital photography. That's because flash memory provides the compact, energy efficient, and fast type of data storage needed for taking digital photographs. All digital cameras have on board flash memory and most provide the option of adding to that memory with special memory cards and memory sticks.

The variety of gadgets that digital camera technology can be found in varies widely. Web cams, SLR digital cameras, point and shoot digital cameras, digital video cameras, and the digital cameras that are built into mobile phones are all examples of this type of gadget.

The fact that digital cameras are now built into mobile phones has some especially interesting implications both to the technology as well as how people interact with the technology on the social level. For example, the fact that mobile phones are now pretty much ubiquitous, combined with the fact that most mobile phones have built in digital cameras, means that digital cameras are now nearly ubiquitous as well. Thanks to the widespread nature of this type of technology it's now possible to document just about anything photographically.

Criminal acts could theoretically be recorded by astute witnesses with mobile phones. Instead of trying to remember the license plate number of a car driving recklessly, it's now possible to photograph it. Spur of the moment occurrences can also be recorded through the use of digital cameras integrated into mobile gadgets. Having digital cameras built into most mobile phones also enables anyone to capture a unique scene in nature sot htat a moment of perfect lighting can be captured forever and shared with the rest of the world.

Another aspect of mobile phone type gadgets that come with built in digital cameras is that many of them are also capable of recording short amounts of video. This makes all of the possibilities that have already been mentioned possible to capture in the form of video instead of just still photography. Plus, with the fact that some smart phones have storage capacities of eight gigabytes means that a very substantial amount of video can be recorded on them.

Interestingly enough, the integration of digital cameras with other gadgets may mean that stand alone cameras may soon be a thing of the past. In the future it's entirely possible that the digital photography capabilities of mobile phones and smart phones will render stand alone digital cameras completely obsolete to the point where younger people may not even know what a camera is! http://www.newtechnologytalk.com.

Brocade UNCUpdate

Brocade UNCUpdate helps support non-disruptive storage migration by accurately reporting and updating UNC references in files.

Simplified Migration and Consolidation

Windows consolidations and migrations tend to be disruptive to business operations, because they are complicated by the fact that most users and applications are tied to specific share and file locations via hard-coded Universal Naming Convention (UNC) pathnames. As a result, administrators need to take extra precautions to ensure that such linkages are maintained as part of the migration process.

A Tool for Fast, Non-Disruptive Migration

Brocade UNCUpdate is a reliable tool for reporting on files that contain UNC references to storage resources under consideration for migration. A simplified interface helps administrators migrate data to a new location by scanning directories for files containing UNC paths that might need to be updated to reference items at their new location.
Administrators save time and money through a more proactive approach that automates the link synchronization process. Likewise, Brocade UNCUpdate helps improve user productivity by eliminating potential downtime caused by broken links, shortcuts, and UNC references following a migration.

Highlights

• Simplifies operations by automatically discovering and modifying shortcuts, embedded links, and UNC references
• Streamlines management by minimizing the number of administrative tasks required during Windows migrations
• Helps eliminate potential user downtime from broken links, shortcuts, and UNC references
• Increases flexibility by providing the option to update UNC references to target the storage resource at its new location
• Increases administrator productivity with a simple, easy-to-use interface

What the Industry Is Saying about Brocade UNCUpdate.

"What clients hate is migrating users and data from one machine to a new machine. It's time-consuming manual labor and users hate it as well. UNCUpdate eliminates those problems."

New Technology Protects Internet Advertisers From Click Fraud

Gadgets With Built In Digital Cameras Make History

New Technology Held Up By High CostHDTV DVD technology has a lot of potential in the realms of both home theater and computing. After all, this technology makes it possible to store dozens of gigabytes of data on a single optical disc the same size as a normal DVD or CD. There's only one problem with this new technology- it's widespread adoption is being held up by a format war. HDTV DVD technology has a lot of potential in the realms of both home theater and computing. After all, this technology makes it possible to store dozens of gigabytes of data on a single optical disc the same size as a normal DVD or CD. There's only one problem with this new technology- it's widespread adoption is being held up by a format war.

Right now there are two optical disc formats that are capable of delivering a full length movie- plus all of its bonus features- on a single optical disc. They are HD-DVD, which was created by Toshiba, and Blu-ray, which was created by Sony. Both use similar technology to encode data on the discs and to read it back, but unfortunately neither format's players will read discs of the other format.

This situation has led analysts to the conclusion that only one of the two formats will survive. That conclusion has prompted consumers to hold of on purchasing either type of player en mass until the format war sorts itself out. Considering that the format war has been going on for a year now, it seems like there's really no hurry. While Blu-ray is pulling ahead in terms of sales, HD-DVD and its backers (which includes Microsoft), is unwilling to concede defeat.

There is technology that could allow consumers to take matters into their own hands.

This technology comes in the form of dual format HDTV DVD players that are produced by third parties. These devices can play both Blu-ray discs and HD-DVD discs, and the technology presents a solution to the problem of the format war. If everyone buys a dual format High Def DVD player, the format question will essentially become irrelevant. Rather than being a source of anxiety about which technology to choose, the fact that there are two formats will just serve to keep the prices of the discs down. And then if one format does win at some point, it won't matter to consumers because they'll be covered because they'll have the right player either way.

Unfortunately this scenario isn't as idyllic as it may seem. That's because the two models of dual format HDTV DVD players to appear on the market so far are both too expensive to be a realistic option for consumers. In fact, it would be cheaper for consumers to buy both a Blu-ray player and an HD-DVD player than it would be for them to buy a single dual format player! Of course, the cost of electronics goes down after some early adopters have pumped some money into the product, but that probably won't happen when consumers have a cheaper option available to them.

One thing that can give consumers some hope is that dual format high def DVD players will be a solution to anyone who doesn't want to be caught having chose the wrong format. In other words, these devices at their current prices, are perfect for the early adopter who is more interested in being right than he is in saving money. If there are enough people out there, dual format HDTV DVD players may yet have a chance to survive and to relieve consumers from the annoyances of a format war. http://www.newtechnologytalk.com

Intel Graphics Media - 01

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows Vista * 32 (exe).

This driver is written specifically for the Intel® G31, G33, G35, Q33, Q35, G965, Q965, Q963, 946GZ, 945G, and 945GZ Express desktop chipsets and the GM965, 945GT, 945GM, 945GMS, and 940GML Express mobile chipsets, and will not function with any other product. View the README file for installation information and the RELEASE NOTES for driver version details. This driver package contains version 15.7.3 for Windows Vista*.

The software drivers provided on this page are generic versions, and can be used for general purposes. However, computer original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) may have altered the features, incorporated customizations, or made other changes to the software or software packaging they provide.

To avoid any potential installation incompatibilities on your OEM system, Intel recommends that you check with your OEM and use the software provided via your system manufacturer. Intel or the computer original equipment manufacturer (OEM) may not provide technical support for some or all issues that could arise from the usage of this generic version of software drivers.

get

Tips Design Wep Page > Bandwidth - Lesson 03

Use Few Colors In Your GIF's
Minimize the number of colors in your GIF images. GIF's can be stored with a maximum of 256 colors. Minimizing the number of colors to 16, 8 or even 2 dramatically reduces the size of the GIF-file and therefore improves performance. Choose as few colors as possible without ruining the image. You might test both reducing colors with error correction or by selecting the nearest color.

Use High Compression In JPEG
Improve the performance of your site by reducing the size of your JPEG-images. JPEG can be saved with different compression-percentages. A high compression results in a smaller file size but also in a less perfect image. Test several compressions for each image you want to use. For different images the acceptable compressions will differ.

Reserve Space For Images
Generally text arrives more quickly than an image. By reserving space for an image the browser is able to render the text. A visitor can start reading right away. Reserving space is done by defining the attributes vsize and hsize in the tag

Provide Thumbnails For Large Images
In some cases you do need large pictures that take a while to load. I.e. if you're running a website on modern art. In such a case do provide small copies of the original images (thumbnails) that link to the original ones.

Reuse Images
Once images are loaded they are stored in cache. If you use the same image in several webpages the image will be loaded the second time in a breeze. It is necessary to have the image in the same location. Also be sure to use exactly the same filename. Even if a browser can handle differences in uppercase and lowercase, your browser cache can not.

Provide Size Information
If you use large images, videos etc., give an indication of the size before the actual transfer begins.

You Can Not Reference Images From Other Sites
If you use images from another site (i.e. an image archive) do copy them to your own site. Looking up other servers to get the images would introduce overhead and an extended load-time.

You Can Not Use Large Textual Images
Avoid creating images of large pieces of text. It gives you more possibilities but it costs valuable bandwidth. If you do need textual images be sure to reduce the number of colors.

You Can Not Use Word Processors
Don't use word processors to write HTML. They really mess it up. It's not uncommon for a site to double or triple in size because tags are added unnecessarily by a word processor.

Tips Design Wep Page > Design - Lesson 02

Use A Consistent Look And Feel
Your site should stand out as a whole. Use the same look and feel for all the pages at your site. This way your visitors have a sense of recognition when they visit various pages. Using stylesheets makes it much easier to maintain the look and feel of numerous pages.

Use Recurring Visual Elements
Repeat visual elements (images, colors, fonts etc.) on several pages. This will add to a consistent look and feel.

You Can Not Use Dark Backgrounds
Dark backgrounds tend to make text less readable. So avoid dark colors or dark backgroundimages. If you do need them, use a nonserif font for the text (like Arial, Universe, Helvetica) and be sure to not to use a small fontsize.

You Can Not Cram Your Pages
A page with text pushed aside against the border of a table - or an image - looks awful. Don't cram your pages, use colspan and borderspan for tables and vspan and hspan for applets and images.

You Can Not Push Your Table Out Of The Screen
Tables are very flexible. They're able to get almost anything more or less visible on a screen. But by putting large elements in a table cell you might force the cells to become too large. Thus making horizontal scrolling necessary. So limit the number and size of pictures, long words (e.g. long links), predefined text etc.

You Can Not Overuse Frames
Use only a limited number of frames. Always check if the screen doesn't get crammed if a low resolution screen is used.

You Can Not Vertical Align The Content Of Table Cells
You do you use table cells to get your info on the right position? Then be sure to align the content vertically.

You Can Not Mix Horizontal Aligning
Mixing centered text and text that's left aligned makes a mess of your page. If you want to center text do it consistently. Exceptions are centering text of headers or centered text placed in a border.

Tips Design Wep Page > Navigation - Lesson 01

Check yout Link
OK, it's a cliché. But anyone who surfs the web will agree. Check your links frequently. Don't just check them to avoid 404 errors. You might find that an external link still works but that the content behind it has changed.

Use Explicit Addressing
Navigation should be clear. Links like Back, Next, Previous, or clickable images of arrows, do point in an unclear direction. What is 'Back'. The page your visitor came from? The preceding page in your own website? Make navigation clear by supplying links.

Always Supply Textual Links
Supply textual links. Using only clickable images or image maps makes your site unusable for anybody that disables images.

Supply A Link To Home
In the rare case people get lost in your site, a link to home comes in handy. Supply such a link on each page.

Use Navigational Aids At The Top And The Bottom
Supply navigational aids at the top and the bottom of your page. If you do, people probably won't need to scroll to navigate.

Use A Table Of Contents
Do use a table of contents, preferably as a menu. Without it your visitors will get lost.

Create A “What's New” Page
Returning visitors are interested in the latest additions on your site. Create a What's new page to supply that info.

Use Short Routes
Supply short routes to information. Avoid too many menus and submenus, instead use larger menus with more items. People will appreciate it getting to the desired info quickly.

Keep Menu Items Related
Menu items should be related, don't mix them randomly. Try to share comparable items in one menu. You can use a larger menu for more item groups if you separate these groups in a clear way.

You Can Not Change Link
Figure out a good addressing scheme and stick to it. People will create links to your site. Be sure not to break these links.

You Can Not Link To Irrelevant Pages
Use only hyperlinks within the context of your page. People will feel lost if you try to use too many links.

You Can Not Repeat Links Too Often
You shouldn't repeat links in the text. I.e. you have a page about beekeeping and want to link it to to a page that describes different kinds of honey. Then don't link every occurrence of the word honey.
The only exception are links in a menu. You can repeat menulinks, i.e. on the top and on the bottom of your page.

You Can Not Use Ambivalent Navigation
Navigation must be clear. Unless you run some kind of experimental site be sure to avoid experimental buttons that make visitors have to guess what they mean.

You Can Not Create Dead End Pages
A dead end page is a page that is linked to by other pages but itself has no links. A visitor gets trapped in a dead end page and needs his back button to get away. Don't use dead end pages.

You Can Not Make Prisoners
You can imprison your visitors. I.e. by redirecting them to a page without taskbars and icons. But your prisoner will escape eventually and never return.

You Can Not Frame Other Sites
You can load pages from other sites within a frame of your own site.

Web Page w/ MFW > View the MFW HTML File in a Browser - Lesson 10

Now that you’ve examined the exported files, you’re ready to test the web page in a browser.

1. From the Export folder, drag the index.htm file to an open web browser.
2. In the browser, click the buttons you added to test the links, then return to the index.htm file.
3. Test the other features that you added.
4. Most web browsers let you view the source code with a command such as View > Source. Find and execute the command that lets you view the code.
5. Scroll through the source code. If you know HTML and JavaScript, you will recognize the code that Fireworks created for you. If you don’t know HTML and JavaScript, you can appreciate that Fireworks gives you no compelling reason to have to learn either.
   

Web Page w/ MFW > Test the Completed File - Lesson 09

Your files have been exported, so it’s time to check out what you created.

View the list of exported files

First, you’ll examine the list of files that Fireworks exported. The new files created during the export process appear in your Export folder.

1. On your desktop, browse to the Tutorial2/Export folder and open it.
   Fireworks created an HTML file there called index.htm. This is the home page for the Global website. It also created a file called mm_menu.js, which contains the code necessary to display pop-up menus.
2. Open the images subfolder.
   Fireworks also exported graphics files for all your artwork. Each slice in Fireworks exports as its own separate graphic file. There are several GIF files and one JPEG file. The JPEG is the bitmap image you optimized earlier.The file called spacer.gif is the result of the spacing option you selected in the HTML Setup dialog box and will be used to aid in page layout.
   

Web Page w/ MFW > Export the Document to HTML Format > Lesson 08

Your document is now ready for export.

1. Choose File - Export.
   The Export dialog box opens.
2. In the dialog box, navigate to the Tutorial2/Export folder.
3. Ensure that HTML and Images is selected as the file type, and enter index.htm as the filename. Naming the home page index.htm is a common convention used on the web. Many browsers will even automatically display the index.htm page when a URL lists a location but not a page name.
   Additionally, earlier in the tutorial you assigned the Home button a URL of index.htm. Currently there is only a single page in the Global website, so linking this page to itself may not make much sense at this point. But if you create other pages for this site in the future, you can use this navigation bar on all its pages, providing users with a consistent navigation method.
4. Ensure that Export HTML File is chosen in the HTML pop-up menu and Export Slices is chosen in the Slices pop-up menu.
5. Choose the following options, and leave all the others deselected:
   
   #. Include Areas without Slices
   #.Put Images in Subfolder
   
   When you choose Put Images in Subfolder, Fireworks allows you to choose a folder in which to store your exported graphic files. Fireworks creates the folder for you if it doesn’t exist. If you don’t choose a folder, Fireworks chooses a folder named images by default. For this tutorial, accept the default setting.
6. Click Save.
   The files are exported to the location you specified.
7. Choose File - Save to save your Fireworks Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file.

Web Page w/ MFW > Export HTML - Lesson 07

HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is the primary method used on the Internet to create and display web pages. You don’t need to understand HTML to use Fireworks, but it helps to keep in mind that Fireworks slices become cells in an HTML table when exported.

Here you’ll export and view your finished document in a web browser. You’ll also examine the HTML code that Fireworks exports.

Set HTML preferences

Before you export the document, you need to set HTML export preferences.

1. Choose File - HTML Setup.
   The HTML Setup dialog box opens. The options you set in this dialog box will affect all future Fireworks documents you create, except the options on the Document Specific tab.
2. On the General tab,
   choose an HTML style. If you use an HTML editor such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage, choose it from this pop-up menu. Doing so allows you to easily open and edit the exported file in that HTML editor. If you don’t use an HTML editor or you use one that’s not in this list, choose Generic HTML.
3. Choose .htm as the file extension.
4. 4 Click the Table tab.
   The Table tab allows you to change HTML table properties.
5. In the Space With pop-up menu,
   choose 1-Pixel Transparent Spacer. When this option is chosen, Fireworks exports a graphic file called spacer.gif, which is a 1-pixel transparent image. Spacers are used by web designers to aid in page layout. They hold empty HTML table cells open. Without them, empty HTML table cells collapse, altering your intended page layout. You’ll see the spacer.gif file later when you view your exported files. You don’t need to understand spacers, but it’s useful to know about this option if you want to use them in the future.
6. Click the Document Specific tab.
   The Document Specific tab allows you to choose a variety of document-specific preferences, including a customized naming convention for your exported files. Remember that the options you set here apply only to the current Fireworks document.
   
   Tip:
   You can apply the settings on the Document Specific tab to all new documents by clicking the Set Defaults button.
   
   
7. Click OK to accept the settings on the Document Specific tab and close the HTML Setup dialog box.