Given everything else that’s going on with DST and calendaring, Entourage 2004 is actually fairly straightforward to deal with. However, what if you’re running an older version of Entourage, say Entourage X? Well, MS no longer officially supports that product, so while the default response might be to say “deal with it” or “upgrade to Office 2004, some folks in the Entourage community have put together a workaround to deal with the issue.

It’s worth noting here (they also note this in their posting, but this is important) that this workaround has not been sanctioned or approved by Microsoft, and you do this at your own peril. But it’s actually a fairly straightforward adjustment and has a script developed as well, so compared to the potential damage versus just having all your appointments off by an hour, it’s not too bad. Plus, recovering from a failed modification is easy.

Worth checking out if you’ve got that particular challenge.

I have it on good authority that the Entourage media part number listed in page 430 of the SBS 2003 Unleashed book (Q56-00005) is no longer available from Microsoft. There is a new SKU for Entourage media from MS fulfillment, but it’s been ‘bundled’ as part of the R2 set, and is not yet available.

The new part number is Q56-00232 Entourage Mac 2004 Mac English Disk Kit CD (this is listed on http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/evaluation/faq/prodinfo.mspx). I’ll post an update when I have a better idea that it is actually available. I now have on good authority that not only is the new part number available for order, but someone has actually received their copy of the media. Well, it seems that even though someone was able to order the media, it still has yet to get delivered to that person. Plus another person was having difficulty getting the media ordered. So, it’s back to “I’m not sure what the status is” status on the Entourage media.I received confirmation on 10/23/2006 that the Entourage media is happily in the hands of the person who ordered it in mid-September. I think it’s finally out there…

While I was off galavanting around Amsterdam, several announcements came across that will cause a stir in the Mac community.

Apple released a tool called Boot Camp that will allow the new Intel-based Macs to install Windows directly onto the Mac and boot either into Windows or into Mac OS. This is currently a beta product, but it’s expected to be a free tool available to users of the new Macs. This will allow Macs to run Windows and Windows-based apps directly on the Intel chipset, bypassing any virtualization, which will increase the speed of the Windows side. Reports say that Windows XP on the Mac Intel hardware runs faster than on other Intel-based PCs. The downside is that you cannot run both OSes at the same time. If you boot into Windows, you will not be able to run Mac apps or possibly access the Mac data that’s on the drive.

Parallels has released a beta of their product, Parallels Workstation, which will run Windows on an Intel-based Mac in a virtual session. This will allow you to run both OS platforms at the same time, although neither OS will run quite as fast as if it were the only app running on the system (ala Boot Camp).

The Microsoft Virtual PC product for Mac currently will not run on the Intel-based Macs and I am unaware of any expected updates to the current product to allow that. Possibly in a future release, but with the Parallels Workstation price point of $49, it’ll be hard to beat.

Keep your ears open for more developments on this front…

Just days after spreading information about a new worm that affects the Mac OS platform, another worm is reported by anti-virus vendors. The Inqtana worm spreads between Apple systems through a Bluetooth vulnerability in the OS. Fortunately, that vulnerability was patched by an update released in mid-2005, so Mac users who have been keeping their systems updated with the latest security updates were never at risk of being attacked by this worm.

But it does begin to feel like the sky is beginning to fall for Mac users who have historically been able to virtually ignore virus and other malware threats on the platform. Those who have kept their eyes and ears open for this type of possibility have known all along that it was only a matter of time before threats finally started showing up on OS X systems.

Practicing good malware prevention applies to all platforms .And the rules are fairly simple:

1. Keep your systems up to date with the latest security patches.

2. Don’t open attachments from e-mail messages, especially if you weren’t expecting to receive an attachment from the sender, and even more especially if you don’t know who the sender is.
3. “Free” software is almost never “free.” Be careful what you download and run on your computer.
4. Run antivirus software on your computer and keep it up to date.

Follow these simple rules and you’ll avoid most of the malware threats that are out there, regardless of your platform.

Sophos, Inc., an anti-virus software vendor based in the UK, reports that the first Mac OS X worm has begun to spread. The report, which can be found at http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/02/macosxleap.html?pl_id=9&lang_id=1&lp_keyword=firstosx, details how the worm is spreading through the instant messaging client iChat, disguising itself as a file transfer from another iChat user.

Current estimates are that the spread of this worm is low, according to Symantec. Still, that does not mean that this threat can or should be ignored.

Macintosh users should still employ some level of virus protection, even through the number of Macintosh-specific viruses is small compared to the number of Windows/PC-based threats. Even if virus code cannot be executed on a Macintosh, the Macintosh can still be party to the spreading of a virus or worm by copying infected files from one source to another. For this reason, your Macintosh anti-virus software should be configured to do real time scanning of the disk instead of scanning the disk on a scheudled basis.

This worm will automatically spread itself though the iChat client, so if iChat is not installed on a workstation, it will not be automatically spread. The file could be manually sent to another user via another IM client, or it could be spread by saving the file to a shared file server and run by another Mac user. The iChat client is not required to receive the file containing the worm. The worm can only infect a system if a user opens the file – simply having the file on your system does not mean you are infected.