Windows 7 Release

A release candidate of Windows 7, the next major release of the world's most popular operating system, goes public in trial form in the next week. Microsoft is hoping it can avoid the negative press that surrounded the launch of Vista, the last major Windows release, almost three years ago.
Windows 7 has been designed to be compatible with Vista so users do not have to invest in new hardware.
A commercial release of Windows 7 is expected in the next nine months.
Microsoft's Charlotte Jones demonstrates Windows 7's new features

A test version of Windows 7 will be available to developers from Thursday, while the public can try it out from 5 May. John Curran, Microsoft UK's director, Windows Client Group, told that "shortfalls" in the Vista release had caused problems for some users.
"There were challenges on hardware and application compatibility with Vista in the first couple of months - and that has left a little bit of an aftertaste for a segment of people." When Vista was launched many users expressed frustration that the operating system did not work with all types of existing hardware and peripherals, or programs used commonly on PCs. And a Vista compatibility programme for hardware proved to be confusing and, in some cases, somewhat misleading.

Mr Curran said Microsoft had "learned lessons" and had been working with partner developers to ensure the same mistakes would not be repeated.
Windows 7 will also have "comparable system requirements" to Vista, which should mean that if your PC is capable of running Vista it will also run the new version.
Negative
Mr Curran said Vista had proved to be a success for Microsoft, despite the negative press that surrounds the operating system.
"Vista is the fastest selling operating system of all time and, in percentage terms, enterprise moved to Vista faster than it did to XP [an earlier version of Windows]," he said.
He said satisfaction surveys for Vista showed 90% of people were either satisfied or very satisfied and 85-90% would recommend it to a friend.

Microsoft embarked on a major advertising and marketing mission to improve the image of Vista after the muted reaction around its "The Wow starts now" campaign.
While Vista was released five months after the release candidate was made available, Mr Curran said Windows 7 would only be released when it is ready.
Bottom line
"Obviously in these times everybody is keeping an eye on the bottom line, but we are certainly taking a longer-term perspective here and always have done with Windows franchise.
"The timeline stated all along is that we are targeting Windows 7 within three years of of the launch of Vista and that would be the end of January 2010.
"We feel quite confident we are on trajectory that will deliver on that promise. But the exact timing will be based on quality."
Windows 7 promises a major usability improvement on Vista, and a simplification of security measures which caused frustration for many users.
Mr Curran said Windows 7 would build on the security improvements in Vista, which have seen a fall in the number of malware attacks and critical vulnerabilities identified.
Many beta testers of Windows 7 have reported that it is faster than Vista, especially in terms of start-up and shutdown sequence of the computer.
Mr Curran said that the Microsoft Windows team had been poring over every aspect of the operating system to make improvements.
"We were able to shave 400 milliseconds off the shutdown time by slightly trimming the WAV file shutdown music.
"It's indicative of really the level and detail and scrutiny on Windows 7."
A version of Windows 7 will also be available for netbooks, but with some caveats.
The Windows 7 Starter Edition will have limitations on how many applications can be used concurrently on a machine in order to preserve performance.

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Neural Networks

Traditionally, the term neural network had been used to refer to a network or circuit of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus the term has two distinct usages:

Biological neural networks are made up of real biological neurons that are connected or functionally related in the peripheral nervous system or the central nervous system. In the field of neuroscience, they are often identified as groups of neurons that perform a specific physiological function in laboratory analysis.
Artificial neural networks are made up of interconnecting artificial neurons (programming constructs that mimic the properties of biological neurons). Artificial neural networks may either be used to gain an understanding of biological neural networks, or for solving artificial intelligence problems without necessarily creating a model of a real biological system. The real, biological nervous system is highly complex and includes some features that may seem superfluous based on an understanding of artificial networks.

An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is an information processing paradigm that is inspired by the way biological nervous systems, such as the brain, process information. The key element of this paradigm is the novel structure of the information processing system. It is composed of a large number of highly interconnected processing elements (neurones) working in unison to solve specific problems. ANNs, like people, learn by example. An ANN is configured for a specific application, such as pattern recognition or data classification, through a learning process. Learning in biological systems involves adjustments to the synaptic connections that exist between the neurones. This is true of ANNs as well.

Why use neural networks?
Neural networks, with their remarkable ability to derive meaning from complicated or imprecise data, can be used to extract patterns and detect trends that are too complex to be noticed by either humans or other computer techniques. A trained neural network can be thought of as an "expert" in the category of information it has been given to analyse. This expert can then be used to provide projections given new situations of interest and answer "what if" questions.Other advantages include:

• Adaptive learning: An ability to learn how to do tasks based on the data given for training or initial experience.


• Self-Organisation: An ANN can create its own organisation or representation of the information it receives during learning time.


• Real Time Operation: ANN computations may be carried out in parallel, and special hardware devices are being designed and manufactured which take advantage of this capability.


• Fault Tolerance via Redundant Information Coding: Partial destruction of a network leads to the corresponding degradation of performance. However, some network capabilities may be retained even with major network damage.

A simple neuron
An artificial neuron is a device with many inputs and one output. The neuron has two modes of operation; the training mode and the using mode. In the training mode, the neuron can be trained to fire (or not), for particular input patterns. In the using mode, when a taught input pattern is detected at the input, its associated output becomes the current output. If the input pattern does not belong in the taught list of input patterns, the firing rule is used to determine whether to fire or not.

Networking Commands used in Windows

• net - Used to start, stop, and view many networking operations
  Note: net is just the first part of the command; you'll need to combine it with a second command, for example, net config or net use . Available second commands vary depending on which version of Windows you have. To get a list of available options, enter net ? .



• ipconfig - Displays the IP address and other TCP/IP configuration information for your workstation



• hostname - Displays the Microsoft networking computer name



• lpq - Displays the print queue status of an LPD printer; available only in Windows NT, 2000, and XP



• ping - Verifies existence of remote host (connectivity)



• nbtstat - NetBIOS over TCP/IP; gives statistics and technical NetBIOS information for the TCP/IP layer



• netstat - Returns protocol statistics and current TCP/IP connections



• ipxroute - Displays and modifies IPX routing tables



• route - Manipulates TCP/IP routing information



• tracert - Displays route taken by an ICMP to a remote host



• finger - Displays information about the user; finger is turned off in IU's ADS Domain.



• arp - Displays or modifies information in the ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) cache



• getmac - Lists the MAC (Media Access Control) Address on the computer network interfaces; available in Windows XP and Vista only

In Windows, how do I see all listening network ports?
One of the most revealing signs of a system compromise is new open or listening ports. Therefore, you should be aware of the open ports on your computer. Viewing open ports can help you determine if your computer has been compromised.
In Windows, you can use the netstat.exe program to view all listening network ports. To do so, from a command prompt, type netstat . You can use also use options to get more information, as in the following examples:
netstat -o - Show the process IDs (PIDs) associated with each port
netstat -a - Show all
netstat -n - Show numbers of ports
You can also combine options, e.g., netstat -oan .

April Fool's Day WORM

An April Fool's Day computer worm was launched on Wednesday but so far has not caused problems for the millions of computers that are believed to be infected. This piece of computer code tells the worm to activate on April 1, researchers found.

"I think joke's on us a little bit, which you would have expected with having an April 1 date," said Holly Stewart, threat response manager for IBM's X-Force, a computer security service. However, that doesn't mean the much-talked-about worm, called Conficker.c, is a joke, computer security experts told CNN on Wednesday. "By no means do I think we're in the clear," said Paul Henry, a forensics and security analyst for Lumension Security, based in Phoenix, Arizona. On Wednesday, a master computer gained control of an estimated 5 million "zombie" PCs infected with the worm, experts said. Security experts fear the author of the malicious computer program essentially could do anything with those Windows-based machines. No attempts by the author to upload anything had been noted as of 8 p.m. ET Wednesday, according to Phil Porras, program director at nonprofit research institute SRI International. Conficker's motive is probably financial, security experts said. The worm's author could steal financial information, shut down Web pages, track keystrokes or send spam from infected computers.
"They have full administrative-level rights to run anything they want on all of the infected machines," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for F-Secure, an Internet security company. Experts who spoke to CNN on Wednesday said it's unlikely the program's author will launch any sort of attack Wednesday or Thursday. But they said some sort of issue is likely to arise in coming weeks or months.

Experts urged computer users not to panic. The easiest way for computer users to see if they're infected is to try to access Windows updates from microsoft.com. If you can reach the site and if your system updates are working, it is unlikely your computer is infected, experts said. The worm does not affect Mac computers. A core group of about 40 computer analysts, researchers and policy experts is working to dismantle the worm, said Jose Nazario, manager of security research at Arbor Networks, and a member of the group, which some call the Conficker Cabal. Nazario said the group's unprecedented efforts may be one reason an attack hasn't happened. He said the April 1 launch date for the virus may have been a ploy by the program's author to get attention from the news media. Or it could be a twisted joke. "Either way, it suggests an interesting sense of humor, I guess," he said. The worm allows a master computer to communicate with the infected machines through Web sites the worm generates. That function became active April 1, experts said, and allows Conficker's author or authors to seize control of millions of computers around the world.

Infected machines are generating 50,000 URLs per day, which allows the master to talk with them. A previous version of Conficker created only 250 domain names per day. "What happened now, today, is that the machines started pulling 50,000 domain names in 116 countries around the world -- so that's the change," said Hypponen, another member of the Conficker Cabal. "The Conficker gang realized we could shut down 250 domain names a day, so they upped the ante," he said. Computer experts will continue to try to shut down the Web addresses that let Conficker's author communicate with infected machines, he said. Members of the Conficker Working Group have contacted security officials in all 116 affected countries and have shut down many active domain names, Hypponen said. Stewart, of IBM, said the sophistication of the worm is unprecedented. The situation has played out in the news media as an April Fools' Day joke. On a technology blog, The Washington Post mocked the hype about Conficker. "Londoners woke up to find the iconic clock tower Big Ben stopped at precisely one minute till midnight," Brian Krebs wrote. "The British tabloids blared that the giant timepiece had been felled by the Conficker worm."

The post ends with this statement: "In case you haven't guessed it yet, APRIL FOOLS!!!" Some have compared the situation to New Year's Day in 2000, when many feared the world's computers would crash but few problems were seen. Henry said that comparison doesn't fit. "Y2K was a one-time event," he said. "The update for Conficker has basically prepped it for its future. It now has the ability to gather marching orders in a way that, to date, we haven't found a way to block." Little is know about Conficker's author. A piece of code in a version of the computer worm prevents the program from harming machines in Ukraine, leading some to believe that's where the program's author lives.

Others say that could be a ploy. Many authors of previous computer viruses have come from Eastern Europe outside the jurisdiction of the European Union, experts said. Matt Watchinski, senior director of a research team at Sourcefire, a computer security company, said the author may try to split up pieces of the infected computer network -- called a botnet -- and sell them to bidders. The many unknowns about Conficker are what make it particularly concerning, said Patrick Morganelli, senior vice president of technology for Enigma Software.

"[An attack] could happen today, it could happen April 15, it could happen two months from now," he said.

Henry says an attack will happen sooner or later.

"They'll wait for the hype to subside," he said. "They'll wait for everyone to stop watching, and they'll take it for a test run. They've put together one hell of a botnet here, and they're going to want to exercise it."