Track who is sending you email-Gmail/Yahoo/hotmail

When you receive an email, you receive more than just the message. The email comes with headers that carry important information that can tell where the email was sent from and possibly who sent it. For that, you would need to find the IP address of the sender. The tutorial below can help you find the IP address of the sender. Note that this will not work if the sender uses anonymous proxy servers.

First of all, the IP address is generally found in the headers enclosed beween square brackets, for instance, [129.130.1.1]

Finding IP address in Gmail

1. Log into your Gmail account with your username and password.
2. Open the mail.
3. To display the email headers,
* Click on the inverted triangle beside Reply. Select Show Orginal.
4. manually find the IP address, proceed to 5.
5. Look for Received: from followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ].

Received: from [69.138.30.1] by web4587.mail.***.yahoo.com

6. If you find more than one Received: from patterns, select the last one.
7. Track the IP address of the sender

Finding IP address in Yahoo! Mail

1. Log into your Yahoo! mail with your username and password.
2. Click on Inbox or whichever folder you have stored your mail.
3. Open the mail.
4. If you do not see the headers above the mail message, your headers are not displayed. To display the headers,
* Click on Options on the top-right corner
* In the Mail Options page, click on General Preferences
* Scroll down to Messages where you have the Headers option
* Make sure that Show all headers on incoming messages is selected
* Click on the Save button
* Go back to the mails and open that mail
5. You should see similar headers like this:

Or if you want to manually find the IP address, proceed to 7.
7. Look for Received: from followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ]. Here, it is 202.65.138.109.
That is be the IP address of the sender.
If there are many instances of Received: from with the IP address, select the IP address in the last pattern. If there are no instances of Received: from with the IP address, select the first IP address in X-Originating-IP.
8. Track the IP address of the sender

Finding IP address in Hotmail

1. Log into your Hotmail account with your username and password.
2. Click on the Mail tab on the top.
3. Open the mail.
4. If you do not see the headers above the mail message, your headers are not displayed. To display the headers,
* Click on Options on the top-right corner
* In the Mail Options page, click on Mail Display Settings
* In Message Headers, make sure Advanced option is checked
* Click on Ok button
* Go back to the mails and open that mail
5. You should see the email headers now.
6. manually find the IP address, proceed to 7.
7. If you find a header with X-Originating-IP: followed by an IP address, that is the sender's IP address

Hotmail headers

In this case the IP address of the sender is [68.34.60.59]. Jump to step 9.
8. If you find a header with Received: from followed by a Gmail proxy like this


Hotmail headers

Look for Received: from followed by IP address within square brackets[
In this case, the IP address of the sender is [69.140.7.58]. Jump to step 9.
9. Or else if you have headers like this

Hotmail headers

Look for Received: from followed by IP address within square brackets[].
In this case, the IP address of the sender is [61.83.145.129] (Spam mail). Jump to step 9.
10. * If you have multiple Received: from headers, eliminate the ones that have proxy.anyknownserver.com.
11. Track the IP address of the sender.

Remove 'Orkut is Banned you fool' virus!!!

Many of my NITW pal must be suffering from this 'Orkut is banned you fool,Muhaaa haha bla bla....." then herezz this post fior you....

Virus Code:

ifwinactive ahk_class IEFrame
{

ControlGetText,ed,edit1,ahk_class IEFrame
ifinstring,ed,orkut
{
winclose ahk_class IEFrame
soundplay,C:\heap41a\2.mp3
msgbox,262160,ORKUT IS BANNED,Orkut is banned you fool`,The
administrators didnt write this program guess who did??
`r`r MUHAHAHA!!,30
return
}
ControlGetText,ed,edit2,ahk_class IEFrame
ifinstring,ed,orkut
{
winclose ahk_class IEFrame
soundplay,C:\heap41a\2.mp3
msgbox,262160,ORKUT IS BANNED,Orkut is banned you fool`,The
administrators didnt write this program guess who did??
`r`r MUHAHAHA!!,30
return
}
ControlGetText,ed,edit3,ahk_class IEFrame
ifinstring,ed,orkut
{
winclose ahk_class IEFrame
soundplay,C:\heap41a\2.mp3
msgbox,262160,ORKUT IS BANNED,Orkut is banned you fool`,The
administrators didnt write this program guess who did??
`r`r MUHAHAHA!!,30
return
}
ControlGetText,ed,edit4,ahk_class IEFrame
ifinstring,ed,orkut
{

It is the source code of a virus that blocks Orkut, Youtube and Firefox and shows a message as under,if you try to open either of the two websites :

"ORKUT IS BANNED,Orkut is banned you fool`,The administrators didnt write this program guess who did?? MUHAHAHA!!"

It makes a folder named heap41a in the C:\ drive with attributes S (System file) and H (Hidden file).If your pc is infected by this virus then just boot it in safe mode,goto cmd prompt and at C:\> type attrib -S -H heap41a to make this folder visible and then just delete this folder.Now use a registry cleaner to delete the registry keys made by this

Easy Method to delete the virus.

open task manager>process tab>there if you find svchost.exe before your user name (remember also system will use svchost.exe don't end that) just give end process for that then go to run and type C://heap41a and delete all files of that folder.. now you are done Enjoy orkut..

What is the Registry???

The Registry is the central core registrar for Windows NT. Each NT workstation for server has its own Registry, and each one contains info on the hardware and software of the computer it resides on. For example, com port definitions, Ethernet card settings, desktop setting and profiles, and what a particular user can and cannot do are stored in the Registry. Remember those ugly system INI files in Windows 3.1? Well, they are all included with even more fun stuff into one big database called the Registry in NT.

Always make sure that you know what you are doing when changing the registry or else just one little mistake can crash the whole system. That's why it's always good to back it up!


Backup and Restore:
Even with Windows 98, and Windows 95 you can not just backup the registry when you back up files. What you would need to do is run either: regedit32.exe (for NT) or regedit.exe and then click the registry menu, then click export registry. The next step is to click all, then pick the drive to back up onto (usually a removable drive like tape, floppy, cd, zip drive, jazz drive etc.) and then hit "ok". To restore a registry from a backed up version, enter the registry program the same way, click import registry and click the drive and path where the backup is and hit "ok". It will restore it back to the previous backed up settings and may require a reboot.
Note: registry backups are saved as .reg files, and they are associated with regedit as default. This means that once you double-click a .reg file, it's contents will be inserted into your own registry.

What is SAM?
SAM is short for Security Accounts Manager, which is located on the PDC and has information on all user accounts and passwords. Most of the time while the PDC is running, it is being accessed or used.


What do I do with a copy of SAM?


You get passwords. First use a copy of SAMDUMP.EXE to extract the user info out of it. You do not need to import this data into the Registry of your home machine to play with it. You can simply load it up into one of the many applications for cracking passwords, such as L0phtCrack, which is available from: http://www.L0phtCrack.com



Of interest to hackers is the fact that all access control and assorted parameters are located in the Registry. The Registry contains thousands of individual items of data, and is grouped together into "keys" or some type of optional value. These keys are grouped together into subtrees -- placing like keys together and making copies of others into separate trees for more convenient system access.

The Registry is divided into four separate subtrees. These subtrees are called

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
HKEY_USERS
We'll go through them from most important to the hacker to least important to the hacker.


First and foremost is the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree. It contains five different keys. These keys are as follows:

SAM and SECURITY - These keys contain the info such as user rights, user and group info for the domain (or workgroup if there is no domain), and passwords. In the NT hacker game of capture the flag, this is the flag. Bag this and all bets are off.
The keys are binary data only (for security reasons) and are typically not accessible unless you are an Administrator or in the Administrators group. It is easier to copy the data and play with it offline than to work on directly.


HARDWARE - this is a storage database of throw-away data that describes the hardware components of the computer. Device drivers and applications build this database during boot and update it during runtime (although most of the database is updated during the boot process). When the computer is rebooted, the data is built again from scratch. It is not recommended to directly edit this particular database unless you can read hex easily.
There are three subkeys under HARDWARE, these are the Description key, the DeviceMap key, and the ResourceMap key. The Description key has describes each hardware resource, the DeviceMap key has data in it specific to individual groups of drivers, and the ResourceMap key tells which driver goes with which resource.

SYSTEM - This key contains basic operating stuff like what happens at startup, what device drivers are loaded, what services are in use, etc. These are split into ControlSets which have unique system configurations (some bootable, some not), with each ControlSet containing service data and OS components for that ControlSet. Ever had to boot from the "Last Known Good" configuration because something got hosed? That is a ControlSet stored here.
SOFTWARE - This key has info on software loaded locally. File associations, OLE info, and some miscellaneous configuration data is located here.


The second most important main key is HKEY_USERS. It contains a subkey for each local user who accesses the system, either locally or remotely. If the server is a part of a domain and logs in across the network, their subkey is not stored here, but on a Domain Controller. Things such as Desktop settings and user profiles are stored here.

The third and fourth main keys, HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, contain copies of portions of HKEY_USERS and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE respectively. HKEY_CURRENT_USER contains exactly would you would expect a copy of the subkey from HKEY_USERS of the currently logged in user. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT contains a part of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, specifically from the SOFTWARE subkey. File associations, OLE configuration and dependency information.

What are hives?
Hives are the major subdivisions of all of these subtrees, keys, subkeys, and values that make up the Registry. They contain "related" data.

All hives are stored in %systemroot%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG. The major hives and their files are as follows:

Hive File Backup File
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE SOFTWARE SOFTWARE.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM SYSTEM SYSTEM.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM SAM SAM.LOG
HKEY_CURRENT_USER USERxxx
ADMINxxx USERxxx.LOG
ADMINxxx.LOG
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT DEFAULT DEFAULT.LOG

Hackers should look for the SAM file, with the SAM.LOG file as a secondary target. This contains the password info.

Hive File Backup File
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE SOFTWARE SOFTWARE.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM SYSTEM SYSTEM.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM SAM SAM.LOG
HKEY_CURRENT_USER USERxxx
ADMINxxx USERxxx.LOG
ADMINxxx.LOG
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT DEFAULT DEFAULT.LOG

Hackers should look for the SAM file, with the SAM.LOG file as a secondary target. This contains the password info.

For ease of use, the Registry is divided into five separate structures that represent the Registry database in its entirety. These five groups are known as Keys, and are discussed below:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER
This registry key contains the configuration information for the user that is currently logged in. The users folders, screen colors, and control panel settings are stored here. This information is known as a User Profile.

HKEY_USERS
In windowsNT 3.5x, user profiles were stored locally (by default) in the systemroot\system32\config directory. In NT4.0, they are stored in the systemroot\profiles directory. User-Specific information is kept there, as well as common, system wide user information.

This change in storage location has been brought about to parallel the way in which Windows95 handles its user profiles. In earlier releases of NT, the user profile was stored as a single file - either locally in the \config directory or centrally on a server. In windowsNT 4, the single user profile has been broken up into a number of subdirectories located below the \profiles directory. The reason for this is mainly due to the way in which the Win95 and WinNT4 operating systems use the underlying directory structure to form part of their new user interface.



HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
This key contains configuration information particular to the computer. This information is stored in the systemroot\system32\config directory as persistent operating system files, with the exception of the volatile hardware key.

The information gleaned from this configuration data is used by applications, device drivers, and the WindowsNT 4 operating system. The latter usage determines what system configuration data to use, without respect to the user currently logged on. For this reason the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE regsitry key is of specific importance to administrators who want to support and troubleshoot NT 4.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is probably the most important key in the registry and it contains five subkeys:

Hardware: Database that describes the physical hardware in the computer, the way device drivers use that hardware, and mappings and related data that link kernel-mode drivers with various user-mode code. All data in this sub-tree is re-created everytime the system is started.
SAM: The security accounts manager. Security information for user and group accounts and for the domains in NT 4 server.
Security: Database that contains the local security policy, such as specific user rights. This key is used only by the NT 4 security subsystem.
Software: Pre-computer software database. This key contains data about software installed on the local computer, as well as configuration information.
System: Database that controls system start-up, device driver loading, NT 4 services and OS behavior.


Information about the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM Key
This subtree contains the user and group accounts in the SAM database for the local computer. For a computer that is running NT 4, this subtree also contains security information for the domain. The information contained within the SAM registry key is what appears in the user interface of the User Manager utility, as well as in the lists of users and groups that appear when you make use of the Security menu commands in NT4 explorer.

Information about the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security key
This subtree contains security information for the local computer. This includes aspects such as assigning user rights, establishing password policies, and the membership of local groups, which are configurable in User Manager.


HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
The information stored here is used to open the correct application when a file is opened by using Explorer and for Object Linking and Embedding. It is actually a window that reflects information from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software subkey.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
The information contained in this key is to configure settings such as the software and device drivers to load or the display resolution to use. This key has a software and system subkeys, which keep track of configuration information.






Understanding Hives
The registry is divided into parts called hives. These hives are mapped to a single file and a .LOG file. These files are in the systemroot\system32\config directory.

Registry Hive File Name
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM SAM and SAM.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY Security and Security.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE Software and Software.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM System and System.ALT



Checkout these sites for more info:

NT registry Hacks: http://www.jsiinc.com/default.htm?/reghack.htm
Unofficial NT Hack: http://www.nmrc.org/faqs/nt/index.html
Rhino9: The Windows NT Security Research Team: http://www.xtreme.abyss.com/techvoodoo/rhino9
Regedit.com - cool registry tricks: http://www.regedit.com

Also please checkout: www.windows2000test.com and give it your best shot because Microsoft wants you to test their operating system's security flaws for them. They are challenging all hackers to hack that site.

MAKING WINDOWS XP GENUINE THE EASY WAY

Download jellybean keyfinder from this website
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

Now open keyfinder.exe
Click on options and click "change windows key"
Now enter this key and you're done.
*****************************
V2C47-MK7JD-3R89F-D2KXW-VPK3J
*****************************

P.S: this works on windows xp sp2 only......

ppl u can try this out...
this might sound silly but it works perfectly...

TRY INSTALLING IE7 OR MEDIA PLAYER11.

How to block or unblock a website?

FOR BLOCKING

Do The Following :

For eg you want to block www.xyz.com !


* Open the folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

* There you will find a file named HOSTS

* Click on the file and press SHIFT and now right click on it .

* From the right click menu select Open with .

* Now, select Notepad to open the file from the list !

* Now, in the file under the line 127.0.0.1 localhost add another line as 127.0.0.2 www.xyz.com.

* Now, File>>Save !

For unblocking just follow the same procedure vice versa...!!!!!

Everything You wanted to know about FIREWALLS..!!

A firewall is basically something that protects the network from the Internet. It is derived from the concept of firewalls used in vehicles which is a barrier made of fire resistant material protecting the vehicle in case of fire. Anyway a firewall is best described as a software or hardware or both Hardware and Software packet filter that allows only selected packets to pass through from the Internet to your private internal network. A firewall is a system or a group of systems which guard a trusted network( The Internal Private Network from the untrusted network (the Internet.) To understand how a firewall works, firstly we need to understand how exactly data is transferred on the Internet.

The TCP\IP suite is responsible for successful transfer of data across a network both the Internet and the Intranet. The TCP\IP suite is a collection of protocols which are inter-related and interdependent and act as a set of rules according to which data is transferred across the network. A protocol can be defined as a language or a standard which is followed while transfer of data takes place.

A firewall relies on the source and destination IP and also the ports to control the packet transfer between the untrusted network and the trusted network. Firewalls can be classified into 3 types:

1. Packet Filter Firewalls
2. Application proxy Firewalls
3. Packet Inspection Firewalls

Packet Filter Firewalls
They are the earliest and the most criticized firewalls, which nowadays are not easily found. They are usually Hardware based i.e. Router Based (a router is a piece of device which connects two
networks together.) Whenever a Packet Filter Firewall receives a packet for permission to pass through, it compares the header information i.e. the source and destination IP address, and port number with a table of predefined access control rules If the header information matches, then the packet is allowed to pass else the packet is direct contact between the untrusted system and the trusted private system.
Such Firewalls can be fooled by using techniques like IP Spoofing in which we can change the source IP such that the firewall thinks that the packet has come from a trusted system which is among the list of systems which have access through the firewall.

Application proxy Firewalls
The shortcomings of the packet filter firewalls are addressed by the new type of firewalls developed by the DARPA. It was widely believed that the earlier type of firewalls were not secure enough as they allowed the untrusted systems to have a direct connection with the trusted systems. This problem was solved with the use of Proxy servers as firewalls. A proxy server which is used as a firewall are called application proxy servers. This kind of a proxy firewall examines what application or service (running on ports) a packet is meant for and if that particular service is available only then is the packet allowed to pass through and if the service is unavailable then the packet is discarded or dropped by the firewall.

Packet Inspection Firewalls
It can be also known as an extension of the Packet Filter Firewall. It not only verifies the source and
destination IP's and ports, it also takes into consideration or verifies that content of the data before passing it through. There are two ways in which this kind of a firewall verifies the data to
be passed:
State and Session.
In case of state inspection, an incoming packet is allowed to pass through only if there is a matching outward bound request for this packet. This means that the incoming packet is allowed to pass through only if the trusted server had requested for it or had sent an invitation for it.
In case of session filtering, the data of the incoming is not verified, but instead the network activity is traced and once a trusted system ends the session, no further packets from that system pertaining to that session are allowed to pass through.


All along you will come across many Firewalls on various systems, basically a
firewall can be established
or setup in two ways:

1. Dual-homed gateway
2. Demilitarized zone (DMZ)

In a dual homed gateway firewall, there is a single firewall with 2 connections, one for the trusted network and the other for the untrusted network.
In the case of a Demilitarized Firewall or a DMZ there are two firewalls, each with two connections, but there is a slight difference in the case of a DMZ setup.
In the case of a DMZ setup, there are two firewalls, the first having two connections, one leading to the untrusted network and the other leading to the host systems like the email server or the FTP server etc.
In the case of a Dual Homed Gateway the untrusted network is connected to the host systems (email and FTP servers etc) through a firewall and these host systems are connected to the internal private network. There is no second firewall between the host systems and the internal
private trusted network.
The basic structure of the DMZ setup declares it to be a more secure system as even if an attacker gets through the first firewall, he just reaches the host systems, while the internal network is protected by another firewall.

Opinion: iPod touch is a business tool, too

Apple’s new iPod touch is a revolutionary device, much like its iPhone cousin. It offers in one svelte package a host of cool features, everything from Web browsing over Wi-Fi to VPN access and a host of enterprise-useful apps. Sure, you can listen to music, but there's also a practical side, the side that makes it a perfect tool for business. (I know what a lot of you are thinking: In your dreams. Just stick with me a minute.)

Having spent some time with Apple’s latest iPod, which hit the market in September and starts at $299, I think there’s a lot of on-the-job use you can get from this little guy—so much so that you might even be able to expense it at work. Not only does it arrive out of the box with useful software, but apps that can be added to it with a little tweaking make it feature-filled enough to keep almost any road warrior happy.

Not convinced? Let me break these down by application, and feel free to file this list away for any future iPod touch purchase order justification. That way, when you sit down with the CFO to explain why you want, er, need one, you’ll have a ready-made checklist handy.

The Web

First and foremost, the iPod touch has a darn good almost-full-featured Web browser—not just a mobile browser, but a real browser. Safari on the iPod Touch is much better than anything else out there. The scrolling, panning and zooming around that’s possible put it in a usability league with far larger devices like tablet PCs.

While it doesn’t do Java or Flash (yet), it will still handle 90 percent of the business Web apps out there. And you can open up eight or more different Web windows at a time. That’s great for multitasking productivity.

Mobility

It sounds obvious, but it’s worth repeating: The iPod touch can go with you everywhere—in the conference room, at a client’s office, in the car, tucked away in your shirt pocket, even in the bathroom. It weighs just over 4 ounces and is 4.3 inches long, 2.4 inches wide and less than one-third of an inch thick. And it still boasts the best 3.5-inch screen I’ve ever seen.

VPN

As more office apps move to the Web, the browsing functions make this device more valuable. It’s not just for public Web apps, either. For companies with a VPN, Apple has included some of the most widely used VPN software out there—Cisco notwithstanding—to allow you to connect to Windows and Mac VPN servers. Once connected, you’ll have access to all of your internal Web applications. Talk about an ultraportable office!

Contacts

A few years back, companies bought contact books for their employees. As the digital age progressed, those contacts got rolled into laptops and smart phones.

The iPod offers yet another extension of that evolution, allowing users to browse through contacts on a large but mobile screen. With touch-screen ease, just tap, flick, tap again and your contact info is staring you in the face. It is also easier to add contacts from a business card to the iPod touch than to a typical phone because of the iPod's QWERTY keyboard, large screen and large tapping area.

Clock and Calculator

The world clock is extremely useful when traveling across time zones, crucial for the jet-setting international exec. The same is true for the built-in alarm clock.

And while it’s as simple as they come, the Calculator application works just as you’d expect, whether calculating mileage reimbursement costs or figuring out the tip on that two-martini business lunch. Everyone needs one once in awhile—the calculator, not the martini.

Photos, videos and music

The iPod includes a great photo viewer for finding and quickly displaying image files for clients. It also offers relatively high-resolution playback of videos, whether commercial, instructional, artistic or just plain fun.

And the music software is great for listening to audiobooks and language tapes—being a recent Paris transplant, I can attest to this—and frankly, there’s a lot of learning that can take place during the inevitable downtime between business meetings or flights.

Calendar

While Apple handed iPod users a major blow by disabling the write functionality in its calendar app—you’ll need an iPhone for that—the scaled-back software on the iPod Touch is still a useful tool for taking your desktop timetable on the road—even if you can’t edit or sync it on the fly.

Hacking the iPod

That limited functionality brings me to my next point: This gadget could be so much better if Apple just let us play with it a little bit. And while the company has announced plans to offer a software development kit for the iPhone and iPod touch next year, there’s nothing out yet, at least not officially. I decided it would be fun to see how much more business functionality I could get out of the iPod touch after applying a few much-touted hacks.

Note: If you have to tell the CFO you plan to hack your iPod, you’re not likely to get an OK. And besides, why risk invalidating your warranty? So don’t try this at home. All I’m pointing out is how much potential the device has, and how much more value it will offer, once new apps are created. And they will be created.

Having a hacked iPhone, I lifted a lot of the applications I already own directly from that device and transferred them to the iPod Touch. Some preferences files and bundles needed to be moved as well. Once installer.app was on my iPod, hacking it took only a few minutes. Here’s a sampler of what I added, which should give you an idea of how powerful this device could grow to be.

The first thing I added was the Notes application from my iPhone. This is a simple, yet extremely elegant program that allows you to take notes using the keyboard on the iPod. It will also sync with the Notes in Leopard. Apple should have included it in the iPod Touch as a default application.

Next, I added the Maps app. While it is of little use in the car without AT&T’s EDGE Network—which is what the iPhone uses when a Wi-Fi connection isn’t available—Maps is great for plotting out trips beforehand and works just as well as it does on the iPhone. Think of it as Google Earth in your pocket.

The most important thing for me is having an offline mail client. What better than Apple’s mobile Mail app for the iPhone? It works fantastically well on the iPod with four concurrent IMAP clients. My only gripe is that you can’t set the frequency for checking the e-mail servers to less than five minutes. However, because you can write offline and sync when you hit a wireless access point, it is a natural fit. Why Apple chose not to include it is beyond me, unless it wants to upsell users to the iPhone.

The Weather app—another iPhone fav of mine—is great for quickly checking forecasts in your favorite destinations. It also caches this information for offline use, making it another good fit.

Apple’s iPhone applications aren’t the only ones that work well with the iPod Touch; hacked third-party apps work pretty well, too.

The first one I tried was VNSea.app, a VNC remote desktop client. The installation was painless, it connected to my Mac OS X and Windows servers quickly, and the remote functionality worked well.

The only downside is the obviously small screen, which doesn’t have the ability to pan. That means you only control the upper 320-by-480-pixel portion of your screen. I found that if I put my important apps up top, I was in pretty good shape. It also makes a great Wi-Fi remote control for your Mac mini media center.

Next, I added the Apollo IM client. Although I prefer the interface of another mobile application, MobileChat, Apollo lets me connect to my corporate MSN network as well. So for my purposes, it gets the nod. This is a perfect example of an application the iPod Touch needs. If Apple won’t add it, then it should at least let others do so.

Another biggie for me is RSS feeds. Google Reader on mobile Safari is great, but again, it’s not very helpful when offline. Thankfully, the hacker community has stepped in with RSS.app. It works exactly as an offline RSS reader should. Add in the feeds you want, and it polls them at regular intervals. Whenever you have a little downtime on the road, use it to catch up on your favorite news.

Perhaps the most glaring hole in the iPhone/iPod software lineup is the lack of GPS. That’s where Navizon’s Soft GPS application comes in handy. It makes a great companion to the mobile Maps application, and while not always accurate to the precise street or neighborhood, it makes a great starting point. On the iPod touch, Soft GPS uses data about your Wi-Fi IP address, leaving a lot of room for error. (The iPhone version uses cellular radio tower triangulation and is much more accurate.)

Also missing from the iPod—and from the iPhone, for that matter—are offline reference libraries and e-book readers. I installed weDict.app and Books.app. The weDict application allows you to install a number of offline encyclopedias, and there are more than 20 available online.

Books.app is an e-book reader. Apple is missing a huge market by not putting these types of applications on its mobile devices. The iPod touch screen, like the one on the iPhone, is amazingly bright, and the fonts are smooth and easy to read. Text-centric apps are a natural.

So where does this leave the intrepid business traveler about to make his case to the finance folks at the office? It’s a pretty simple message: Apple has created a fantastic device with some amazing software that makes it a competitive piece of business hardware right now—and opens the door for even more advances down the road.

Sure, it looks as though the marketing gurus at Apple decided to differentiate and delineate the iPhone and iPod as, respectively, “iPro” and “iToy” devices. Be that as it may, the iPod touch offers a number of useful tools for business users already. Spell that out to the CFO and he might just agree. Heck, the CFO might suddenly see the need for an iPod touch, too.

[Seth Weintraub is a global IT management consultant specializing in the technology needs of creative organizations, including The Paris Times, Omnicom and WPP Group. He has set up and managed cross-platform networks on four continents and is an expert in Active Directory/Open Directory PC and Macintosh integration.]