Introduction
While there has been much excitement around using the latest convergent devices with built-in GPS to navigate the sometimes confusing streets of our cities, there is another use of these devices ‘off road’ – for hiking, biking, cache-hunts, etc.

Topographic maps for the US are available from a number of sources for GPS-enabled PPC’s, but very few carry Canadian maps. (Yes, there’s always Google Earth, but sometimes you need actual maps). Pleasantly, Fugawi’s Global Navigator does, indeed, carry Canadian maps!

Global Navigator is mainly a PC-based product which also includes a subset application for Pocket PC and Palm OS PDAs. While most of the fun stuff (like 3D depiction of terrain) is located in the PC application, this review will focus on features of the PDA version.

Installation
To install the PDA software, you need to install Global Navigator on the desktop/laptop first, run the program, establish an Activesync connection to the PPC, then select a menu item in the PC application. The PPC version is relatively small (approximately 500Kb) and installs quickly. Along with the software a default map of the world is also provided.

Figure 1: The main screen of the PPC version of Global Navigator, with the default World Map loaded.

On my HTC Galaxy, Global Navigator found the built-in GPS receiver without any problems and started communicating right away. I’m not sure if this was because of fortuitous default configuration settings or intelligence built into the software. (I suspect the former) On my Eten X500, it required a bit more work to get things talking to each other, since the X500 uses one COM port for the hardware to talk to the GPS unit, and a different one for programs to receive GPS data. The advantage of the Global Navigator software is that it contains sufficient variety in its available configuration parameters to handle these situations quite easily.

Figure 2: Configuration screen for Global Navigator to talk to the GPS.

To get things working properly, you may have to adjust the baud rate (connection speed) to the GPS unit, as Fugawi defaults to 4800 and many units can handle 9600 or higher. After a bit of experimentation, I was able to get the X500 happily sending data to Fugawi as well (at 56700 baud). Another useful tool provided by Global Navigator to ensure the GPS is working well is the display of the NMEA log.

Figure 3: The NMEA log display (available from the GPS menu. When everything is working properly, you should see some relatively intelligible data running past.

…to be continued…

Source: pocketpcthoughts.com

Pros:

• Able to track position off-road and navigate you back to starting point;
• Has topographic maps of Canada available (one of very few);
• PC application can accept a wide variety of map formats – even scanned in paper maps

Cons:

• Need to run the PC application to load PPC application and to create & download maps;
• PDA maps are raster only, so excessive zooming in will produce pixelization;
• Maps available (topo and streets) are somewhat old;
• Missing trip computer functions in the PDA version.

Summary:
If you’re looking to do some off-road trekking then Fugawi’s Global Navigator can help keep you on track where there are no tracks, and safely get you back home…or at least, back to where you left the car.:) While not quite as full-featured as some of the car navigation systems coming out now, it’s a good companion for those times when the road is left far behind.

to be continued…

Source: pocketpcthoughts.com

Figure 3: Encoder 9’s New Session window

For now, choose the “Convert a file” wizard. Both encoders then display a window asking you for the source file and the output file. Follow the tip that is displayed in the window - always use the highest quality source file. Re-encoding a file that has already been processed in a way that has resulted in some loss of the source data will not be as good as encoding the original source file.
Once you’ve picked your source & output file names, click on the Next button. The encoder then asks you how you want to distribute your file. If you are using Encoder 9, choose “Pocket PC” and click on Next. You will then be asked how you want to encode your audio and video. Leave the video option set to “Pocket PC standard video” but change the audio to “Voice quality audio”. Click on Next.
If you are using Encoder 7.1, choose “File will stream from a Web server or play directly on a computer” and click on Next. You will then be asked which profile you want to use. If you’ve got an old Pocket PC or you want to play safe for now, choose “Video for color PDA devices (150 Kbps)” and click on Next. If you’ve got a newer Pocket PC, you might want to try the other PDA profile (225 Kbps) as this offers 20 frames per second instead of eight, but playback may be choppy if your Pocket PC isn’t fast enough.
If you’ve followed the above steps carefully then, regardless of which encoder you are using, you should be looking at a window that allows you to specify information about the content. This allows you to enter the title, author, copyright, rating and description information. Enter as much or as little information as you like and click on Next.
The wizard will then display a review of the options you have picked. Click on Finish! The encoder window will then be displayed, showing audio bars on the left, with input and output video windows next to them and details of the encoding process underneath.

…to be continued…

Source: pocketpcthoughts.com

Here we are going to focus on using the following:

• A Windows PC
• A Pocket PC with Pocket PC 2002 or 2003
• Windows Media Encoder
• Windows Media Player on the Pocket PC
• A wireless network (optional)

Getting Started

Before your Pocket PC can play audio & video, the material needs to be in the right format. If you are using Windows Media Player, this means Windows Media Audio and Video files. If you’ve already used Windows Media Player to rip a CD onto your home PC, the files on your PC are Windows Media Audio files, so you can just copy the files onto your Pocket PC and start playing them. Video is a bit harder. Luckily Microsoft has a free tool to make life easier for us - Windows Media Encoder. There are two versions of the encoding tool available for download - Encoder 7.1 and Encoder 9. Please note that the latter is, according to Microsoft’s site, only for use with Windows 2000 and XP.
Which one should you use? By preference, you should use Encoder 9 as it is the more up-to-date encoding application but, as noted above, it does require Windows 2000 or XP. Otherwise, use Encoder 7.1 - it does the job just as well even though it isn’t using the latest algorithms from Microsoft and the user interface is a bit awkward compared to Encoder 9.
So what does the encoder software do? It takes your source material and converts it into a format that the Pocket PC can handle. In the case of video, this involves making the picture smaller (e.g. 208×160) and fewer frames per second (e.g. 8 instead of 29.97 for NTSC and 25 for PAL).

The Encoding Process

By this point, you should have downloaded & installed one of the encoding applications. Fire it up - you’ll find it on the Start menu under Windows Media.

Figure 1: The opening choices with Encoder 7.1

Choosing the New Session Wizard and clicking on OK presents you with the available wizards - broadcast a live event, capture audio or video and convert an audio or video file.

Figure 2: Encoder 7.1’s encoding wizards

Encoder 9 takes you straight into the choice of Wizards, making it easier for you to set up the encoding session.

to be continued…

Source: pocketpcthoughts.com

Network administrators gain a simple, effective way to:

• Stop spam. Use eight state-of-the-art anti-spam features to minimize productivity loss and security vulnerability. Stop threats before they reach email servers.
• Prevent phishing. Improve detection with email scanning and url filtering. Our security response team assures updates occur automatically and in real time.
• Block viruses. Achieve unmatched detection rates for known and unknown malware. All traffic (SMTP, POP3, and web) is inspected with three scan engines.
• Encrypt and sign e-mails. Use open OpenPGP and S/MIME standards to communicate safely. No need for client software, everything is handled transparently at the gateway.

Easy Configuration
Astaro Security Gateways seamlessly integrate all Astaro solutions with an award-winning browser-based user interface.

• Simple Setup: Email routing per user and domain, spam and virus filters and key management settings are extremely easy to setup.
• User Self Servicing: Give users access to the included portal that allows for self-management of settings and quarantines – greatly reduces management cost.

Flexible Deployment Options
The Astaro Security Gateway is compatible with any type of network and adjusts well to your small, mid-size or large organization.

Technical Specifications

• Scanning of in- and outbound POP3 , SMTP, and web traffic
• Scanning of encrypted and compressed attachments
• Protection against server exploits with included email IPS
• Bad emails can be market, quarantined, or deleted
• Web portal and daily reports for user self-servicing
• Anti Spam featuring 8 techniques: RBL, Pattern, Heuristics, SPF, BATV, URLs, B/W lists
• Anti Virus with 3 engines featuring over 300,000 patterns and zero-day heuristics
• Clientless Encryption: S/MIME, OpenPGP, and TLS standards
• Multilingual and Multinational character and pattern sets supported

Productivity:

Source: astaro.com

List poisoning
This is poisoning a spammer’s mailing list with spamtraps or invalid email addresses has been a method employed in attempts to thwart spammers.

Once a mailing list has been poisoned with a number of invalid e-mail addresses, the resources required to send a message to this list has increased, even though the number of valid recipients has not. If one can poison a spammer’s mailing list, one can force the spammer to exhaust more resources to send e-mail, in theory costing the spammer money and time.

Poisoning spammer’s mailing lists is usually done by posting invalid email addresses in a Usenet forum or on a web page, where spammers are believed to harvest email addresses for their mailing lists. If using a dynamically generated web site for poisoning, the web site could link to itself infinitely, theoretically causing a spammer’s mailing list to be substantially poisoned.

Vulnerabilities

• Syntactically invalid email addresses used to poison a mailing list could be easily filtered out by the spammers, while using email addresses that are syntactically correct could cause problems for the mail server responsible for the email address.
• Implementations of spam poisoning systems can be avoided, if spammers learn of their location.
• Spammers often steal resources so that the efficiency of a mailing places little financial burden on the spammer.

A spamtrap is a honeypot used to collect spam.

Spamtraps are usually e-mail addresses that are created not for communication, but rather to lure spam. In order to prevent legitimate email from being invited, the e-mail address will typically only be published in a location hidden from view such that an automated e-mail address harvester (used by spammers) can find the email address, but no sender would be encouraged to send messages to the email address for any legitimate purpose. Since no e-mail is solicited by the owner of this spamtrap e-mail address, any e-mail messages sent to this address are immediately considered unsolicited.

The term is composed of the common words “spam” and “trap”, because a spam analyst will lay out spamtraps to catch wild spam in the same way that a fur trapper lays out traps to catch wild animals. Who originally coined this term is unknown, but several competing anti-spam organizations claim trademark over it.

Spamtraps are, by some, considered controversial due to the problems with backscatter of e-mail into the spamtraps. Because many spammers forge the e-mail address of the sender, often based on the same list of e-email address that they send spam to, anyone who sends e-mail back to the claimed “sender” of the spam may be sending to the spamtraps. Many mail servers will do their spam filtering after they have completely accepted e-mail and send bounce messages back when the e-mail is rejected, which can cause backscatter. Instead, these mail servers should reject the e-mail during the sending process, which doesn’t generate backscatter. Some e-mail marketers and mail list administrators do not use the confirmed opt in method to add new users to their mailing list and risk having the list of subscribers becoming poisoned with the spamtraps. Sometimes when a malicious person (a spammer, a competitor, an angry customer, etc.) discovers a spamtrap, they will sign up for a newsletter to poison it. Supporters of spamtraps do not consider list poisoning to be a major concern as most spamtrap administrators view all backscatter to be a problem, whether it is sent to a spam trap, or to an innocent victim who had their e-mail address forged.

…to be continued…

Sources: en.wikipedia.org…AntiSpam,
en.wikipedia.org…List_poisoning, en.wikipedia.org…Spamtrap

• IronMail
  CipherTrust’s anti-spam solution provides unparalleled detection and policy enforcement capabilities, while mitigating the challenges of managing a daily outpouring of spam and unwanted messages. Integral to IronMail’s success have been its best-of-breed tools, gateway-based architecture and multi-faceted approach to spam detection and management. Using IronMail, businesses benefit from enterprise-wide spam management designed to improve detection rates, enhance network manageability, and eliminate blocking legitimate mail (false positives). Key tools in IronMail’s arsenal are the Enterprise Spam Profiler (ESP) system, User Quarantine system, and the CipherTrust Research team.

Main features of the appliance:

• IronMail Secure Platform acts as an e-mail firewall and intrusion prevention system to completely protect e-mail systems
• IronMail’s patent-pending Spam Profiler, correlates the results of multiple detection tools to provide the industry’s highest detection rates with zero false positives
• IronMail Connection Control identifies outbreak behavior to protect enterprise e-mail systems from spam and spam-borne viruses, and gives IronMail the best message-handling performance of any e-mail security solution, contributing to the highest ROI in the industry.
• IronMail Zero-Day Virus Protection utilizes a comprehensive solution to ensure detection of all malicious threats, even rapidly propagating viruses that have not yet been identified applied through CipherTrust’s Threat Response Updates (TRU)
• The IronMail Privacy Architecture protects critical message content by encrypting at the gateway based on corporate policy
• Secure WebMail offers secure access to corporate e-mail systems using a
  standard Web browser
• The IronMail Policy Manager creates and manages a unified policy across the e-mail system
• Heuristics-based Anomaly Detection Engine monitors all e-mail traffic to ensure protection against the next of attacks
• System can be installed and configured in minutes to instantly protect all message traffic
• Hourly updates can be automatically applied through CipherTrust’s Threat Response Updates (TRU)
• Secure, intuitive browser-based administrator access
• End-user reporting and management capabilities offer customization and control

Sources: spamhelp.org, ciphertrust.com