Welcome to February!

From the desk of Leah Calnan, Director of Metro Property Management...

This month is a month of planning for the future and to start it all off we as a team are having a day focused on building each staff member’s skill set, chatting about ideas to build Metro as a trusted brand and ideas for the day to day running of the business as a whole. I am always inspired and driven by what ideas my team have and I always like to have a ‘get together’ to see what we as a team and as individuals can get out of 2012. We learn and grow as a company by putting forth our ideas in meetings like this so I’m really excited about the ideas that will spring forth, so keep your eyes peeled for little changes you might see here and there. Speaking of changes and additions, this month also brings a few exciting staff additions and role changes.

Tamasan Freyer joined us last month as our new receptionist and has a keen interest in the Property Management industry, she loves a challenge and is enjoying being the ‘first point of contact’ for Metro and we feel she is doing a great job so far. Emma Racky has also joined our team this past month as Assistant Property Manager and she is quickly learning the fast pace of the industry as well as enjoying learning the ins and outs that come with Property Management. Emma has a strong retail management background, her customer service skills will assist her in her communications with owners, tenants and tradespeople alike. Welcome aboard Tamasan & Emma! 

In other news our Senior Leasing Specialist, Samantha Taylor has recently been promoted to New Business Manager and is ‘taking the bull by both horns’. Already Samantha has taken to her new role well and I have every confidence that our new owners and investor groups will absolutely appreciate the level of service and experience in leasing that Samantha brings to the table. Well done Samantha. 

Well as always February brings with it Valentine’s Day, like it or loathe it it comes around every February and I myself was interested as to how it came about...so I consulted the wonderfully useful ‘Wikipedia’...

Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February 14 honouring one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. It was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.

Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards. (Source: www.wikipedia.com )

Isn’t it funny how it has lasted and changed throughout the years.

 Well a Happy Saint Valentine’s and a Happy February to you all.

Until next time....

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2012 Here We Come!!!

From the desk of Leah Calnan, Director of Metro Property Management...

Welcome to 2012 everyone, and boy this New Years Eve (as it was last year) was certainly warm, as was the first few days of 2012. In fact, the hottest day reaching 40 degrees (Monday 2nd January) here in Melbourne. I hope you all celebrated the New Year by doing something special, in Australia that normally means a few celebratory drinks, perhaps a BBQ and watching the fireworks in our respective cities. When it comes to the rest of the world and their celebrations...some of these traditions are a little different.

In the USA of course we have all seen and heard about the famous Time Square in New York and the many people that pack the square to ‘ring in’ the New Year however we have discovered other popular new year traditions in the USA include, watching football games, crowded streets taking part in a special food called Hoppin' John, along with enjoying cakes and champagne for luck and prosperity. In India, Hindu New Year is the time of celebration. This is the time to meet and greet people, share gifts and sweets. Hindus will decorate and paint their homes, and create a beautiful atmosphere with lamps and candles in the evening. Some of the traditions followed in Hindu New Year celebrations include: buying and gifting new clothes, giving gifts of sweets to friends & relatives and worshiping Lord Ganesha and Goddess Laxmi, who are believed to bring in wealth and prosperity. In Greece the 1st day of the New Year is also known as St Basil’s Day known as one of the Greek Orthodox churches’ forefathers. Special New Year bread is also baked whereby a coin is buried in the dough which when found is considered great luck and fortune for the New Year to the owner. Now back to the land of Oz, and in case you weren’t aware, the Cricket season has begun.

Many of you will be enjoying this years ‘Vodafone Test Series’ Australia vs India, as always if you enjoy your cricket you will be appreciating the 4 test matches being held this month that began with the 1st test at the MCG (26th – 29th Dec) with Australia winning by 122 runs. The 2nd test runs 3-7th January in Sydney, 3rd test will be in Perth from 13th-17th Jan with the 4th and final test being played in Adelaide on the 24th – 28th Jan 2012. Let’s hope that Australia can come through with a win. In other team news, non-sport related we have added a new member to our Metro team.

We would like to introduce you to Emma Racky. Emma joins the team this month as Assistant Property Manager. With a strong background in customer service and retail management Emma has a passion for Real Estate and Property Management that she feels that working at Metro Property Management can provide, and we think so too. Welcome aboard Emma.

Well that is it from us this month.

Until next time…

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Metro's Monthly Movie Review

Each month a team member of Metro will be writing a movie review to share with you. And this month team member Erin Cheasley has reviewed 'Immortals'. Director – Tarsem Singh, Starring: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, John Hurt & Stephen Dorff.

The first thing that comes to mind when you see the trailer for the movie is that it is another 300 movie take off, apart from both being the sword and sandals genre and shirts were optional the director for ‘Immortals’ had a lot more visual tricks up his sleeve and took another approach with the Greek Myth concept, quite a comparison to 300.

Immortals definitely portrays a storyline of a battle between good and evil. Evil King Hyperion is leading his army of murderous mask wearing villains across Greece searching for the magical bow that will free the imprisoned Titans so they can attack the gods. Whilst the hero Theseus who is displeased by King Hyperion’s attack is going on the quest to obtain the magical bow himself, and in the end finding courage and leadership abilities within him to lead his forces of good against evil, which eventually wraps up into one big battle. A highlight of the movie are the action sequences, the Director really captured a level of gore and violence that will have anyone’s jaws drop using slow motion action, it will not only give you chills but have you at the edge of your seat.

This is an age of myth, a world where the gods are real, people have visions of the future and magic exists so this movie is allowed to look weird, mystical and over the top. If Greek mythology tickles your fancy then this is a movie I would recommend. Having a keen interest for Greek mythology and the way this movie used every aspect of what Greek mythology is, I found the movie Immortals to be a worth look (and so to the shirtless men) and it maybe even better than the movie 300.

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Metro's Monthly Movie Review

Each month a team member of Metro will be writing a movie review to share with you. And this month team member Merryn Schmidt has reviewed 'The Cup'. Director – Simon Wincer, Starring - Stephen Curry, Brendan Gleeson, Shaun Micallef & Daniel MacPherson.

'The Cup' is based on the true story of champion jockey Damien Oliver and his inspirational ride to win the 2002 Melbourne Cup. Damien (Stephen Curry) crosses the finish line onboard horse 'Media Puzzle', and salutes the heavens as a gesture to his older bother, Jason, who died tragically less then a week prior, in a track accident.

Unfortunately, ‘The Cup’ is not going to stop the nation as the actual race does, but it is certainly an entertaining and enjoyable flick. As the film is set in Melbourne, I appreciated the familiarity of locations such as the Yarra River and Flemington Race Course and the infusion of original photographs and film footage of the Melbourne Cup history over decades.

'The Cup' is a little slow ‘out of the gates’ and moves slowly to give an insight to the danger, the early starts, the half starving themselves, and the dedication jockeys, trainers, strappers and the like give to their careers, all so we can be enchanted by these majestic animals as the thunder down the track for our entertainment.

Released with perfect timing, during the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival, ‘The Cup’ may attract good odds, but I have to say it is not a must see on the big screen. When you do see this film be warned you will require a tissue or two.

- by Merryn Schmidt

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Advanced SSL configuration on IBM Http Server – Restrict unused HTTP methods and Verbose HTTP headers

Restricting unused HTTP methods

The HTTP method is supplied in the request line and specifies the operation that the client has requested. Browsers will generally just use two methods to access and interact with web sites; GET for queries that can be safely repeated and POST for operations that may have side effects. This means, we need to disable unused http methods. some of them are:(PUT|DELETE|TRACE|TRACK|COPY|MOVE|LOCK|UNLOCK|PROPFIND|PROPPATCH|SEARCH|MKCOL). Check with the application teams, if they need any of these methods for the application to work, before disabling them.

Testing before limiting http methods:

telnet josephamrithraj.mp 80
Trying xx.xx.xx.xx…
Connected to josephamrithraj.mp.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
OPTIONS / HTTP/1.1
Host: josephamrithraj.mp

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2010 00:11:57 GMT
Server: Apache Web Server
Content-Length: 0
Allow: GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, CONNECT, OPTIONS, PATCH, PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, MKCOL, COPY, MOVE, LOCK, UNLOCK, TRACE

Connection closed by foreign host.

your IBM http servers configuration file [httpd.conf] has 2 sections named main and virtualhost sections. you need to add the following code at both the places. I am explaining this task using mod_rewrite module. So, first make sure that… mod_rewrite is enabled. then, add the following lines to your http.conf files main and virtualhost sections.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(PUT|DELETE|TRACE|TRACK|COPY|MOVE|LOCK|UNLOCK|PROPFIND|PROPPATCH|SEARCH|MKCOL)
RewriteRule .* – [F]

Restart the web server after adding the above lines.


Now, when someone tried to use one of these http methods, they will get forbidden response since we specified [F] in the rewrite rule.

Testing after adding and restarting web server

telnet josephamrithraj.mp 80
Trying xx.xx.xx.xx...
Connected to josephamrithraj.mp.
Escape character is '^]'.
OPTIONS / HTTP/1.1
Host: josephamrithraj.mp

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2010 00:15:44 GMT
Server: Apache Web Server
Content-Length: 0
Allow: GET, POST
Connection closed by foreign host.
Testing TRACE methods

telnet josephamrithraj.mp 80
Trying xx.xx.xx.xx...
Connected josephamrithraj.mp
Escape character is '^]'.
TRACE / HTTP/1.0
Host: josephamrithraj.mp
testing... <- ENTER twice HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2010 00:18:31 GMT Server: Apache Web Server Content-Length: 320 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Connection closed by foreign host.
Disable verbose HTTP headers:


you might have seen this … when the web server [apache or ibm http server] throws errors page, sometimes it might show the information related to its version, build, modules etc. This is a security issue since you are giving away the details about your web server. for example, take a look at this:

Server: Apache/2.0.53 (Ubuntu) PHP/4.3.10-10ubuntu4 Server at xx.xx.xx.xx Port 80
The line in the server header expose important version and variant information about the Linux operating system and Apache software used on the machine, indirectly expose the possible security holes that are existed to the hackers, or at least make malicious attackers easier to identify your system for available attack points.
To ensure that the Apache HTTP web server does not broadcast this message to the whole world publicly and fix possible security issue, modify these two directives ServerTokes and ServerSignature in httpd.conf configuration file.

ServerTokens

This directive configures what you return as the Server HTTP response Header. The built-in default is ‘Full’ which sends information about the OS-type and compiled in modules. The recommended value is ‘Prod’ which sends the least information.

Options: Full | OS | Minor | Minimal | Major | Prod

“ServerTokens Prod”

This configures Apache to return only Apache as product in the server response header on very page request, suppressing OS, major and minor version info.

ServerSignature

This directive lets you add a line containing the server version and virtual host name to server-generated pages. It is recommended to set it to OFF and Set to "EMail" to also include a mailto: link to the ServerAdmin.

Options: On | Off | EMail

“ServerSignature Off”

This instructs Apache not to display a trailing footer line under server-generated documents, which displays server version number, ServerName of the serving virtual host, email setting etc..


Courtesy:http://josephamrithraj.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/advanced-ssl-configuration-on-ibm-http-server-restrict-unused-http-methods-and-verbose-http-headers/

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