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Microsoft Outlook is a versatile component of the Microsoft Office 2003 for users to manage personal information and to communicate with others. It helps you in managing your email messages, appointments, contacts, and tasks, as well as making reminders and tracking activities. In this article, we will give a very brief introduction on some of the major functions of this software.

What is it?The joint ERP Development Centre Project is funded by the UGC under the Restructuring and Collaboration Fund. It is a joint project of City University of Hong Kong (CityU), Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED) and Lingnan University (LU).

An Internet domain name (e.g., cityu.edu.hk) including all its sub-domain names under it (e.g., cs.cityu.edu.hk) resemble in many ways a trademark, a brand name, or a logo of a company. Thus, like the name of the University, domain names should be considered institutional assets whose use must be properly authorized and protected according to the University rules and regulations. Misuse or misrepresentation can damage the University's reputation and image.

You may be aware of the heightened alerts for computer security measures from recent press reports. Hackers are using all sorts of sophisticated means in order to illegally gain access to computer systems, to capture electronic ID and passwords, to steal electronic data, and/or launch denial of service attacks on a particular system. In our University, extensive services and information are now available electronically.

Currently, University email service to a student or staff will be stopped when the student/staff leaves the University. For students properly graduated from the University, they will be provided with a set of alumni services which include free email. The email address is in the format of EID@alumni.cityu.edu.hk, and the email quota is 2MB. Currently there are about 40,000 alumni enjoying this service.

City University of Hong Kong, together with Feng Chia University and National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, spearheaded the launch of the “Super eBook Consortium” on 14 December 2005.The Consortium, a group of 48 university libraries in Hong Kong and Taiwan, is partnering up with the world’s largest ebook provider, the Online Computer Library Centre (OCLC), to establish the “Super eBook Collection”. Offering over 50,000 volumes of ebooks, the consortium’s ebook collection is the largest and the most comprehensive of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Mobile Computer Service (MCS) is a service provided by the Computing Services Centre (CSC) to allow students to access the campus network and the Internet via the wireless LAN to facilitate their studies. All full-time and part-time students in the main campus are eligible to borrow notebook computers (notebooks) from the MCS Counter for campus use.

Connecting to today's turbulent computing environment is not risk free. How can users survive from unknown virus infection, phishing attacks, software vulnerabilities and zero-day exploit? We have used McAfee's anti-virus software for some years and the ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) since 2002 for virus protection. (See Network Computing, Issue 33- September 2002 for details.) The ePO is a network anti-virus policy management system which has been used to push anti-virus software/virus signature file to client PCs. With these tools and McAfee's change of delivering virus signature files everyday (from Monday to Friday), there are rare reported cases of virus infection. Occasionally, a new and low-risk virus may invade a couple of computers on campus. When we receive such report, we take remedial action immediately by requesting the technical support centre of McAfee to release an extra signature file to remove the virus. So far so good, virus is not an issue on campus.

In response to the rapid changing computing environment and increasing demand for services, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) set up the Help Desk in September 1997 with dedicated human, hardware and software resources to help users resolve their day-to-day usage problems. (see Network Computing, Issue 12 - September 1997 for details). Since its operation in 1997, the Help Desk has been well-received.

What is two-factor authentication? It means users, in addition to their password, need one of the following to log in a system or to access a network service: One form of tokens provided by the service provider (e.g., a key fob or a smart card)The output of one form of biometric scans on finger or irises, or a biometric analysis on voice.Why two-factor authentication?To overcome the following vulnerabilities of using password as the only means for authentication: Users tend to choose passwords that are easy to remember. As a result, these passwords are equally easy to be cracked by brutal force.