As emailed to GARonin@Aol.com...

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To start my first IO report of what will hopefully be a long and productive tenure as the EH Internet Officer, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those who congratulated me for finally making it to IO. I would like to especially thank the Grand Admiral, for choosing me to fill a command staff post that has been neglected many previous Internet Officers, and having faith in me, that I will not let that trend continue any further. Now I'll get onto official Internet Office business.

The Internet Office Staff at this current time is:

IO/AD AbsoluteK/CS-5/SSSD Sovereign (io@absolutek.com)
CA:IO/VA Darwin Matir/CA-5/SSSD Sovereign (starwars@cosmicsys.com)
CMDR-IOA/CPT Quake/Spear/Wing IX/ISD Relentless (guyquake@btinternet.com)

Both the CA:IO, and IOA will be staying with the Internet Office, so there is no need to apply for either position. Those who violate this request will be sent to my friends at the HCI for some torture sessions (just kidding).

I spent most of this week updating the Internet Office website at http://www.ehnet.org. I have updated the links, and contact emails on the EH Main Links page and the EH Main Contacts page respectively. I'm still waiting on a couple updated links to come in from respective webmasters around fleet, so that is why there are several EH websites with “TBA” in the place where the link would normally be placed. I also updated the EH SOTW archive on the IO website with the SOTW’s that GA Ronin chose while Turtle was inactive.

For those of you who use ICQ, I have added a box to the left side of the IO website that will allow you to see the online status of the IO Staff (IO AbsoluteK, CA:IO Darwin Matir, and IOA Quake), and to add and/or message them with ICQ if you need to.

Now that I’m IO, I fully plan to finish two of the major IO projects that Turtle started, but never did anything with. I'd referring to the EH Greeting Cards Centre, and the EH Links Directory/Database. IOA Quake has informed me that the EH Greeting Cards Centre is nearing completion, so expect to see it before Christmas. The EH Links Directory/Database is in initial planning stages right now. Right now, I'd envisioning something similar to a Yahoo! style categorized links database. I would like to hear the comments, suggestions and/or ideas from EH members, on what they think would be beneficial to this project. You can email me at io@absolutek.com with anything you have to say on the upcoming EH Links Directory/Database project.

The new general manager, and the program director of WEHR have been finally chosen this week. Please welcome back RA Slicer who was the original founder of WEHR and will again, assume the position of general manager. COL Devin will fill the position of program director. I’m hopefully that working together, Slicer, and Devin will take WEHR in new, and improved directions and to increase its popularity among the fleet. Also on the topic of WEHR, IOA/CPT Quake has done two sessions for WEHR complete with his witty British humour. Quake’s WEHR Sessions are available on the IO website in Real Audio and Mpeg Layer 3 formats. My session of WEHR: The Imperial Voice 8 done last Saturday is also available on the IO website.

Since becoming IO, I've had good deal of people bugging me for CoE's, and wanting to know what it would take to get a CoE. In cases like these, I think that people should use available EH Resources, and browse the OPS Manual, which contains a full description of the CoE (and every other official EH medal). Here is a short excerpt from the EH Operations Manual:

"Commendation of Excellence - The Commendation of Excellence is awarded by the Internet Officer for consistent support, maintenance, and creation of Official Emperor's Hammer web pages and websites."

There are three main things that you need to achieve to get a CoE: "consistent support", "maintenance of", and "the creation of" official EH websites. Simply creating a website isn't good enough. You have to support it, and keep it up to date making sure all news and links are up to date. You also have to take care to make sure there are no browser incompatibilities that make it impossible for users of one or the other major browsers to functionally view/use your website. As well, your site must be well balanced (i.e. no excessive graphics, java, and uncomplementary colours), and must be nice to look at :-)

While being SOTW doesn't automatically give you a CoE, it does raise your chances significantly, since it means a definitely know about your site. I want to give out more CoE's in the future, but it will be to qualified recipients only. If you have done an EH website that qualifies for a CoE, please nominate it for a SOTW on the IO Website on the SOTW nomination page.

I’ve been telling people this for a while now, but it seems not that many people are really listening to me. On about the 15th of December 2000, my server here at college will go offline. I will be transferring only the websites that have requested hosting on the new server, which has only 500MB of space off of which to host websites. The same goes for email address, and email lists. To request your email account, email list, and/or website account to be transferred to the new server, please go to http://www.absolutek.com, and fill out the appropriate forms there. Doing so will save both you, and me time when it comes to make the big switch.

This week I’ve had to post an email worm warning on the IO website thanks to an alert from HA Astatine. It has to do with a malicious VBScript worm called JS/Kak@M, more information about this virus can be found at the McAfee Website. Please note, that this worm would most likely only affect users of MS Outlook Express and MS Outlook, since they are to my knowledge the only email clients that have ability to do the inline execution of VBScript contained in emails. The IO does not recommend usage of either MS Outlook Express, or MS Outlook. Despite what you may think, this is not based in any part on a hatred of Microsoft products. The Outlook series of email clients have a very long history of security holes, and bugs that have caused many serious problems. Most notoriously, the "ILOVEYOU", and "Melissa" worms. The IO highly recommends that you use either Eudora or Netscape Messenger. for your email. Both are very good email clients, and despite what you may think of Netscape Navigator (the browser), Netscape does make a very good email client for their Communicator software suite. If you foolishly insist upon using an Outlook client for your email, please set your Internet Security settings at the highest they can go, and make sure you have an up to date virus scanner installed.

As many of you have heard by now, the Obiwan game project at LucasArts Entertainment Company has been cancelled. To view the full reason from LEC, please visit http://www.lucasarts.com/products/obiwan. There is a petition setup that will be sent to LEC, to help try and convince them that the fans really want the game to be completed. You can sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/ob1pc.

Lastly, this weeks Site Of The Week (SOTW), is (drum roll), the website Senator Crix Madine of Sahare at http://crix.ehsenate.org. Congrats to the Senator on a very nice, simple, yet very elegant website.

Respectfully submitted,

IO/AD AbsoluteK/CS-5/SSSD Sovereign
IC/GS/SS/BS/PC/ISMx7/MoI/LoCx2/CoE/OV-[LANC]
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