Computer Beginner Guide

The federation of networks that became the Internet consisted of a relatively small community of users by the 1980s, primarily in the research and academic communities. Because it was rather difficult to get access to these systems and the user communities were rather closely knit, security was not much of a concern. The main objective of connecting these various networks together was to share information, not keep it locked away. Technologies such as the UNIX operating system and the TCP/IP networking protocols that were designed for this environment reflected this lack of security concern; security was simply viewed as unnecessary. By the early 1990s, however, commercial interest in the Internet grew. These commercial interests had very different perspectives on security, often in opposition to those of academia. Commercial information had value, and access to it had to be limited to specifically authorized people. UNIX,TCP/IP, and connections to the Internet became ave

It is not easy to define what a trusted network consists of, or what comprises a trusted network even within a single corporation or entity, since the concept of “trust” doesn’t apply equally even within a single company—you’ll still want to control access to sensitive information such as payroll or HR information. The old concept of firewalls and networking dictated that we have an Internet connection coming into a firewall from a single point, and this firewall would protect our inside networks from all attackers. Today, the idea of the network perimeter is expanding and shifting; many technologies make this previous definition outdated. Today we are remotely accessing our network via mobile phones, VPN clients from a personal DSL connection in our homes; we are also providing access to our network for our employees, and often for our suppliers and customers. The idea of perimeter security is disappearing because of the prevalence of wireless and home-based high-speed I

DMZ design, like security design, is always a work in progress. As in security planning and analysis, we find DMZ design carries great flexibility and change potential to keep the protection levels we put in place in an effective state. The ongoing work is required so that the system’s security is always as high as we can make it within the constraints of time and budget, while still allowing appropriate users and visitors to access the information and services we provide for their use. You will find that the time and funds spent in the design process and preparation for the implementation are very good investments if the process is focused and effective; this will lead to a high level of success and a good level of protection for the network you are protecting. Design of the DMZ is critically important to the overall protection of your internal network—and the success of your firewall and DMZ deployment.The DMZ design can incorporate sections that isolate incoming VPN tr

Before developing your security policy, determine whether you will need to have different policies for different locations or if you will have only one. If you have a single security policy , you can enforce the same policy on all firewalls and other security devices, usually from a single management station. Otherwise, you will have to maintain a different policy for different locations. Although for business reasons this might be necessary, it can add a level of complexity to your environment that could decrease your overall effective security. If it is necessary, make sure it is thoroughly documented. Some different types of organizations that may have differing access requirements include: SOHO - The Small-Office-Home-Office network is often more concerned with accessibility than security, since these organizations often do not have dedicated IT professionals on hand, or may have an “IT person” who is doing double-duty while performing accounting or other admini

Writing a security policy is a logical progression of steps. Briefly, the structure of the policy should include the following: Introduction. In this section, you should state the purpose of this policy. What is the objective of the policy? Why it is important to the organization? Guidelines. In this section, you should detail guidelines for choosing controls to meet the objectives of the policy. These are the basic requirements. Typically, you will see the word should in these statements. Standards. In this section, you should detail the standards for implementing and deploying the selected controls. For example, this section will state the initial configuration or firewall architecture. This section tends to detail the requirements given in the meeting with the interested departments and business units. This section is written with the words such as, “It is the policy that… .” Procedures. In this section, you should detail the procedures for ma

You just received the task to define a network security policy for your network. You need to think about several topics before defining your new network security policy. A good way to start is to think about your organization. How well do you know your organization’s business processes, both as an individual company and the needs and requirements of its industry as a whole? Sometimes, when an information security engineer or a consultant is asked to design a network security policy, he or she realizes that it is imperative to develop a better understanding of the organization before beginning. To be able to design a useful network security policy, you need to know what the network is designed for. You need to design and deploy a network security policy that secures a company’s resources, while still allowing people to do their jobs. Therefore, think about the department, the business, what the company produces or sells, whether the business is seasonal or cyclical, or if i

Deploying a network security policy is a significant and serious undertaking. Making good decisions in this matter will save a great deal of money and prevent many future security issues on your network, while making incorrect or hasty decisions will lay the foundation for an insecure network infrastructure. Creating a network security policy will affect your organization in a number of ways, including (but not limited to): Financial. A new network security policy may require you to purchase new equipment and software, such as firewalls, IPS (intrusion protection/prevention system), anti-virus software, new routers, and more. You’ll likely also incur additional salary costs for security personnel trained to manage the new hardware and software. Network availability. You may have to install new hardware and software on your network to comply with a new network security policy, which may impact your overall network availability as you install and configure thi

Scripting is the most powerful feature in Adobe® InDesign® CS3. No other feature can save you as much time, trouble, and money as scripting. Almost anything you can do with the user interface; you can do with a script. You can draw frames, enter and format text, place graphics, and print or export the pages of the document. Any action that can change a document or its contents can be scripted. There even are a few things you can do in scripting that you cannot do using the user interface. Scripts can create menus, add menu items, create and display dialog boxes and panels, and respond to user-interface selections. Scripts can read and write text files, parse XML data, and communicate with other applications. Scripts can do everything from very small tasks (like setting a tab stop at the location of the text cursor) to providing complete features (InDesign’s XHTML export feature is provided by a script). You can start with simple scripts that do only one thing and move on t

To edit efficiently in the Timeline window, you should be familiar with all of its features. You need to be able to navigate your way through the Timeline window and zoom in to see close-up views of frames. In this section, you tour the Timeline window and learn how to navigate and master it. The best place to start touring the Timeline window is at the top, where the Work Area Band appears. This band simply shows you the entire working area of Premiere. The yellow bar within the Work Area Band is called the Work Area Bar. The Work Area Bar determines the area that is rendered by Premiere in a preview. The Work Area Markers appear at either end of the Work Area Bar. By clicking and dragging the left and right markers, you can change the area onscreen that will be previewed or exported. Below the Work Area Bar is the Timeline Ruler for the project. Above the Timeline Ruler appears the Timeline Marker. You click and drag the Timeline Marker to view different parts of your proj

Before you begin editing video in Premiere, you need a basic idea of different techniques that you can use to edit a digital video production. Premiere provides two main areas for editing clips and assembling them: the Timeline window and the Monitor window. The Timeline provides a visual overview of your project. You can begin creating a rough edit by simply dragging clips from the Project window into the Timeline. Using the selection tools in the Timeline, you begin arranging the clips in a logical order. As you work, you can fine-tune your production by performing edits in the Monitor window. When you edit in the monitor window you can set up the Source view to show you a clip that isn’t in the Timeline, while the Program view shows you a clip that is already in the Timeline. Using controls in the Monitor window, you can insert the source clip into the clip that’s already in the Timeline, or overlay the source clip so it replaces a portion of the clip that’s in the Time

Before you get started capturing video and audio, it’s important to understand that many settings in Premiere depend upon the actual equipment you have installed in your computer. It’s also important to understand that the dialog boxes that appear when capturing change depending upon the hardware and software installed in your computer. The dialog boxes that appear in may vary from what you see on your computer, but the general steps for capturing video and audio are pretty much the same. However, if you have a capture board that digitizes analog video, the setup process is different than if you have a FireWire port installed in your computer. Whether you are capturing digital video or digitizing analog video, one of your first steps should be to ensure that Premiere’s scratch disk is set up properly. The scratch disk is the disk used to actually perform the capture. You want to make sure that the scratch disk is the fastest one connected to your computer, and that the ha

The quality of video clips in a Premiere project can often mean the difference between a production that attracts viewers and firmly holds their attention, or one that sends them looking for other sources of information or entertainment. Undoubtedly, one of the primary factors in determining the quality of source material is how the video is captured on a computer hard disk. If you have a capture board that digitizes analog video, you may be able to access the capture board directly from Premiere to digitize video. If you have a FireWire (IEEE1394) DV port, you may also be able to use Premiere’s Capture window to transfer clips directly from your DV video camera. Depending upon the sophistication of your equipment, and the quality requirements of your production, you may be able to capture all of your video source material by using Premiere. Before you get started capturing video for a production, you should first realize that the quality of the final captured footage dep

Once you have a basic understanding of frame rate, frame size, and compression, you can better choose settings when you create a project in Premiere. If you choose your project settings well, you’ll produce the best quality video. You first choose Project settings when you create a new project. The Load Project Settings dialog box shown in below appears when you first load Premiere, or when you choose File » New Project. The creators of Premiere have streamlined the process of choosing project settings. To get started, you simply need to click on one of the available presets. Notice that Premiere provides DV (Digital Video format presets) for NTSC television and the PAL standard. For Web and CD-ROM work, Premiere supplies Multimedia presets. Clicking one of the presets displays the prechosen settings for compression, frame size, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and bit depth, as well as for audio settings. Although the project settings provide an excellent starting point, y

Before you begin creating a digital video project, it’s important to understand some basic terminology. Terms such as frame rate, compression, and frame size abundantly populate Premiere’s dialog boxes. Understanding these terms will help you to make the right decisions as you create new projects and export them to videotape or to disk. Video frame rates If you take a strip of motion picture film in your hand and hold it up to the light, you’ll see the individual picture frames that comprise the production. If you look closely, you’ll see how motion is created—each frame is slightly different than the previous frame. A change in the visual information in each frame creates the illusion of motion. If you hold up a piece of videotape to light, you won’t see any frames. However, the video camera does electronically store the picture data into individual video frames. The standard frame rate in video is approximately 30 frames per second. (The standard frame rate of film is

In the past few years, the term digital video has taken on a variety of new meanings. To the consumer, digital video might simply mean shooting video with the latest video camera from Canon, Sony, or JVC. A digital video camera is named as such because the picture information is stored as a digital signal. The camera can translate the picture data into digital signals—saving it on tape in much the same way that your computer saves data to a hard disk. Older systems that don’t store data digitally to tape, store the information in an analog format on tape. In analog format, information is sent in waves rather than as specific individual bits of data. For video clips, stills, and audio information to be used by Premiere, they must be converted to digital format. Video and audio information stored in digital format from digital video cameras can be transferred directly to the computer (provided you have an IEEE1394 port. Apple’s IEEE port is called FireWire). Because the dat

Many people confuse authentication and authorization, and some even think they are the same thing, which they aren’t. To understand the differences consider the following example. When you want to visit a foreign country what do you need? A passport and a visa. The passport is a document that authenticates you to the foreign country. It tells them that you are really who you claim to be. So, when you present your passport, you are authenticating yourself to the foreign officials. Next, you must show proof that you are allowed (that is, authorized) to enter the foreign country. This is the visa document. Now, in computer terms, the authentication typically involves submitting a username and password. A successful submission and acceptance of a username and password states that you are who you claim to be. In other words, you have authenticated yourself. A given resource that you are trying to access may require authorization in addition to authentication. For example, if y