Network World

Expert's answer

Using an IMAP mail client for Gmail rather than the browser is safer in a couple of ways:

1) Google's instructions for configuring IMAP show that you need to enable SSL for incoming and outgoing mail where the browser interface can work with or without encryption.

2) You get the benefit that IMAP provides a coherent view of your mail from multiple mail clients and supported mobile devices which can save you from the problems that can come from using multiple POP clients with different message downloading settings which can lead to not being able to retrieve a message from Gmail because it got downloaded to a different computer than the one you are currently using.

If your favorite mail client is on Google's supported list you should be able to follow the instructions and be up and running in no time. If you use a mail client that does not yet have precise instructions posted there is a link to general guidelines for getting the parameter settings established for a successful connection.

Expert's answer

The K/W Call Letters in the United States write up by Thomas White provides a pretty comprehensive overview of the call letter assignments and breaks it down state by state. Wikipedia also provides information about the history of the call sign assignments.

Many of the stations with the "wrong" first letter in the call sign are simply old enough to pre-date the creation of the rules in 1912 and/or the shift of the boundary from the Texas-New Mexico border to the Mississippi river in 1923. Some stations obtained their out of place call signs by making special requests. One example of that is WACO FM in Waco, TX. Today new stations are typically required to adhere to the W/K split at the Mississippi.

Expert's answer

I would recommend to start looking at the job boards for positions similar to what you would like your next job to be. Depending on the size of the company your next position will be at, the job might be network admin only, security admin only or maybe a combination of the two. It is good that your current boss is being supportive; not everyone enjoys that kind of situation.

A plan is always a good thing, and can show the right employer your motivation for moving up and improving yourself. I would suggest talking so recruiters/headhunters looking to fill those kinds of positions to see what kind of experience you will need for the positions they are trying to fill. Depending on the particular recruiter and prospective employers he or she is representing, you might just find a company that is will to give you a chance to move into the kind of position you are looking for with a little less experience.

Getting what experience you can now will be good in the long run. Make sure to document that as well as you can. Consider getting a certification or two along the path(s) you are thinking of pursuing. While this won't make up for a lack of hands-on experience, it will show a perspective employer that you have the ability to learn new roles - and show that you have a baseline of knowledge that has been verified either by an independent source (i.e. Comptia in case of Security+) or by a vendor (i.e. Cisco in the case of one of the switches you are working with).

To help make up for a perceived lack of experience in the fields you are looking to move into, you might have to consider a job that pays the same as - or even less than - what you make now and working your way up. It might also be a possibility to take a position where your "new" duties are only a part of your total duties in order to get your foot in the door.

As to your current degrees, I would suggest de-emphasizing the biology one unless you happen to be pursuing a job with a biology-related company. Some companies, right or wrong, could see you with two bachelors degrees as being "over qualified" without even looking at your other qualifications or experiences.

Expert's answer

As with any specialty, the best answer I can give you is that it depends. It depends on where you are in the world, how many other SAP consultants are in the same general area as you are, what their specialties are and what kind of demand there is for SAP where you are.

Several years ago, when I worked for a company that was converting from being a collection of distributorships around the globe to a unified company, the decision was made to go to an SAP-like system. While there were many consultants available for the project, we looked at what we specifically needed from the system that was being implemented, the timeline we needed it implemented in, the countries that would need to use the system, etc. As the list of requirements grew, the available pool of consultants who could implement that system grew shorter.

For starters, without knowing where you are in the world, check the job boards available in your area. CareerBuilder and Dice might be potential sources of information as to pay rates. I don't mention newspapers as this type of technical position is not one that you would expect to see in the paper. You might want to look for SAP user groups as another source of income information.

Expert's answer

The Dell Inspiron 1721 laptop was only delivered with Vista and so getting XP drivers that work can be a bit of a challenge.

There are third party driver CDs available for download that will solve most of the driver issues for the Inspiron 1721. I had a chance to go through this process myself recently and found, like you, that the wireless network driver was one of the more difficult drivers to get installed and working properly.

In the end, it turned out that the XP wireless network driver available from Dell's support site for the Dell Latitude D531 laptop works for XP on the Inspiron 1721. Download the driver package and run the installer, then go into the Device Manager applet under System in the Control panel and remove the broken entry for the wireless driver and restart the system. When prompted for the driver location after restart choose the folder where you unpacked the D531 driver and you should be able to use the wireless interface when the driver installation completes.

Expert's answer

You should always be concerned about something that could have an impact on your company and its operations. Although you say your ISP appears to have patched its servers, it's still a fair question to ask them. If your ISP can't or won't answer that, I would probably start looking for another ISP.

Even if the ISP answers that it's patched the DNS servers, it never hurts to have a plan B or plan C. Hopefully, you have your domain name registered in such a way that you can make a change to it (i.e. changing the IP address of the DNS servers authoritative for your domain) without having to get the ISP to make the change for you. If that isn't the case now, you need to get that done quickly. You should be in control of your domain name, not the ISP. In the event that you need to change ISPs, being the admin and technical contact for your domain will be one less thing to worry about.

I would suggest looking at either at a commercial DNS service or even some of the free ones if you don't have a large number of A records to worry about. If your ISP is taking care of you, there is no reason to make a change, but it is always good to have a backup plan ready. It would be a good thing to have on the list to periodically check the process of switching over to a backup DNS provider so that when you have to do it for real, that you know what to expect and will be at ease in making the change.

There is always the option of managing your own DNS servers - but I'd recommend this only if you have the time and interest to do so. Unless you have making frequent periodic changes to your A and MX records, this may not be worth the time.

Expert's answer

The best place to start is probably the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) web site where you can find all sorts of overview and technical support information about Microsoft server and SQL server products. Network World's own Microsoft Subnet is another resource I would highly recommend.

I would also ask around to see if it is possible to borrow MSCE certification preparation manuals from the company or co-workers where you are interning if you can. Even older manuals will contain a wealth of concept information that will apply to the newer versions of the Windows Server and SQL Server products.

Tek-tips is another web site with Windows Server and SQL Server specific forums. dBforums is a database-centric site with SQL Server specific forums that you may find helpful as well.

If you have a computer available for experimenting with the products you can download trial versions of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 from Microsoft. Older versions are available as well and you can find them by searching on the MSDN site or your favorite search engine. Be sure you download versions appropriate to your hardware.

You might also take a look at the Express edition of MS SQL Server which you can freely use on small servers and desktops without the time limitations of the trial versions of the full fledged MS SQL Server products.

Expert's answer

Your first two questions are best answered by looking at the Ethernet specs documents on the IEEE web site - www.ieee.org.

As for the question about a physical media component that could do your choice of 10, 100 or 1000 speeds on a fiber connection - I haven't seen one and I don't think the market would be there for something like that. Part of the problem would have to be a substantial change in the connectors used for the different fiber connection. 10-Meg fiber connections typically use Stick and Turn connectors, 100 Meg fiber connections typically use SC (rectangular connectors) and 1000 Meg (1 Gig) connections initially used SC and lately have started to move the LC connections, in part to match the change to SFP fiber modules used in newer switches.

To further muddy the waters, you have significant differences in the fiber that needs to be used. I have usually seen MultiMode fiber used for 10, 100 and shorter gig type connections. To keep from having issues on shorter fiber runs for Gig connections, I have seen cases where special fiber conditioning cables needed to be used to keep from overdriving the connection. Using LS/LH type fiber modules in the Cisco gear, you can get away with Multimode fiber. With LH, you should really use Single Mode fiber to get distances in excess of a mile. With the LZ extreme length fiber modules, you don't have a choice but to use Single Mode fiber.

With fiber connections for network gear now in the 10-Gigabit range, I dont know that there would be any motivation for someone to come up with a standard and equipment that would be capable of running in a 10/100/1000 type of connection. For those needing more bandwidth than a single connection can get them, they can build an Etherchannel type of connection to "bond" multiple connections together to increase the speed even more.

Expert's answer

This is a fairly common error with a number of causes and possible solutions. Recently this error message has been documented by people whose default Web browser setting changed when they updated Firefox to version 3. The answer in those cases was to manually reset the default browser setting.

Your situation sounds different since you get the error message when you try to navigate folders on your own computer. This implies that something has changed in the Windows registry. The registry may have been corrupted 'innocently' but it is more likely that you are the victim of a malware infection. Either way you will want to reset the registry settings that define how file and folder navigation is handled to regain control of your computer.

A relatively easy way to do that is to use the FixPolicies tools created by Bill Castner. FixPolicies is a batch file that resets many of the registry values corrupted by common malware programs to their appropriate default values. Download the exe file linked above, run it to extract the FixPolicies.cmd file, and run that. After running FixPolicies you should get enough control of the machine back to scan for malware. I like SpyBotSD, SuperAntiSypware and SDFix. All three are available from this link.

My recommendation is to download them and then run them all in Safe Mode along with a complete virus scan. If you're lucky you will clean out all the crud and be able to get back to using your computer without having to wipe the drive and reinstall everything.

Expert's answer

Mobile broadband connectivity technology is available for small yachts but you will have to check whether it covers the coast of Mozamibique where you will be.

KVH Industries offers broadband "mini-VSAT" service on their TracPhone V7 system that delivers a cable modem experience at sea that covers much of the globe. Other maritime connectivity options that could support streaming or uploading video are Inmarsat Fleet Broadband and BGAN services which cover virtually the entire planet.

www.satsig.net provides a list of African VSAT service providers. Other internet connectivity strategies for boaters utilize marine radio to provide internet connectivity and there are radio based wifi hot spot amplifiers available specifically for marine use from places like Sargent Marine and Radio
Labs but those rely on marina and resort wifi hotspots for internet connectivity.

Another option if you can rely on cell phone coverage while you are sailing is the Airbox cellular router from WAAV. All of these solutions can be made to run on 12 volt power but stowing all the gear on a 16 foot catamaran could be difficult.

I'm assuming that you are traveling with a support boat in which case long range wireless video cameras on the catamaran could send the video stream to the support boat for transmission to the internet. If you are truly going solo it will be difficult to outfit the Hobie Cat for real time internet video streaming from Mozambique without lashing your laptop to the mast and mounting a rather large antenna somewhere but you could certainly record video using a waterproof digital video camcorder like the Sanyo Xacti VPC-E1 Blue or the camera of your choice and a direct to digital storage device like the iRecord and then uploading the video when you do have internet connectivity.

Good luck and sail safe. Perhaps we have sea going readers who could comment.