US Government Document – Home Networking Security Best Practices

A PDF document created by the United States government on keeping a home network secure is actually a good read:

• NSA: Best Practices for Keeping Your Home Network Secure (PDF Document)

The document goes on to address Apple devices, home network structures and setup, Internet behaviour recommendations, e-mail usage, and more.

It is probably one of the best security documents that we have seen oriented to the home and/or home/office user base as it covers a broad range of devices, operating systems, and awareness of security elements involved with each piece of the home network.

It is worth the read for us as well as our client’s users.

Hat Tip: Ken Hansen

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Excel 2008 Mac Excel 2007 PC Version Weirdness

Probably the one biggest hiccup that happens when working on the same Excel 2007 native (XLSX) spreadsheet at one point on the MacBook Pro and then on the PC is a mysterious margin change.

We have a number of fairly complicated quotation sheets that we have built in Excel on the PC.

When we set up the quote on the PC, then go in and tweak it later on via the MacBook Pro, the MacBook refuses to PDF or print the spreadsheet in the same manner as the PC.

For some really strange reason, the Mac will shift the right margin to the left by two columns (1 Pt each) and thus refuses to print the page out as we would expect.

Here is a screen clip of one of our quote sheets in Print Preview mode on a PC:

Note the fact that there is a border on the right hand side one column to the right of the Amount column. In the above screen clip, the Mac would actually clip off the column to the left of the bold boundary as well as the Amount column.

Go back to the PC though, and we will see the above properly formatted printout in the same worksheet after working on it with the MacBook Pro.

The other bit of weirdness that happens is the intermittent disabling of the auto-calculate feature in the Excel spreadsheet.

While working on this evening’s quote the sheet was mysteriously not updating any changes made. It took a few seconds and a settings check to figure out that the auto-calculate was turned off. This was after the quote was worked on while on the MacBook Pro.

When it comes to a multi-platform setup where both Macs and PCs are used to collaborate on projects, it is a really good idea to be familiar with these types of hiccups between platforms.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

The Mac versus PC Ad thing...

As a passionate PC user, I find the PC versus Mac thing sometimes very funny.

I do believe that Macs have their place in the world, just not mine.

Not after that *#()#! Mac ate my floppy with my third year Psychology paper the evening before it was due. I had been working on that one for a while, and it was quite a frustrating experience as both the the U. Support staff were unable to help, and the stupid machine refused to release my disk. U. Support came down the next morning when the lab was open to reboot the Macs to get them back, and I got my floppy finally...but no paper. :*P

That had happened before, but not leaving me disk-less, and with no damage to the contents.

I swore off Macs after that. At least I could manually remove my floppy from the PC machine behind me, and I would have had options for recovering the data from it too.

Yes, my PC machine was temperamental too, but I had the knowledge and capability to deal with those eccentricities and work with or around them. And I could backup my work.

Recently, Apple has had those PC and Mac commercials. Not being much of a TV watcher, I haven't really seen too many of them.

But, I certainly have heard about them from both PC and Mac camp friends and acquaintances.

Charlie Brooker has a great take on those commercials in his article, "I hate Macs". It is a good read, and quite funny.

And, btw, I do show my bias for liking this particular article! :D

Thanks to Vlad for pointing out this great read.

Happy PCing,

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists