Seagate, WinMagic Team for Enterprise-Level Data Security - The new security solution will be comprised of the companies' top technologies

Seagate Technology has teamed up with encryption specialist WinMagic in order to provide enterprise-class security solutions for data-at-rest. The two companies will base the new security solution on
their best technologies.

Seagate's Secure disk drive technology is a hardware-based full disk encryption system with bundled data security, that can be controlled via a programmatic interface. Moreover, it allows the user add its own software security applications to the ones already implemented. WinMagic's SecureDoc technology allows Seagate Secure-enabled disk drives to deliver additional data protection layers, while preserving flexibility and transparency.

"With a rapidly-growing enterprise commitment to data protection, customers are demanding management solutions that support a broad range of security-enabled endpoints," said Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO of WinMagic Inc. "It is simply not feasible for large organizations to administer a discrete management system for each end-point security solution they deploy," Nguyen-Huu continued.

The upcoming security solutions will be first implemented into Seagate's Momentus 5400 FDE.2 notebook hard drive. All the security-related aspects will be managed via WinMagic’s centralized application interface, called SecureDoc Enterprise Server (SES). It will also offer enterprise-class functions such as ‘silent’ software installation or interoperability with Active Directory.

"The combined Seagate and WinMagic offering will provide custodians of sensitive information with a highly secure, manageable data protection solution," said John Bedrick, Senior Director of IT Security, New Business Initiatives at Seagate. "While software-based encryption has some practical applications, hardware-based encryption and security provides a level of trust and performance not achievable by software alone. By teaming with WinMagic and other software vendors, we are able to offer to the market very robust data protection solution that is scalable and highly manageable. Our combined goal is to reduce or eliminate the risks associated with unnecessary data loss or data exposure from unprotected desktops, notebooks and other portable storage media."

Strong encryption is a key factor in a digital world ruled by mobile devices. More and more government agencies and health institutions report missing, lost or stolen notebooks with critical data stored in plain.

Must Have Free Software from Microsoft - DreamSpark - For students

Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition – free. Expression Studio – free. Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition – free. It does sound too good to be true, but this is the exception that confirms the rule. Microsoft DreamSpark is an initiative from the Redmond company designed to "inspire success, make a difference," while at the same time "ignite the imaginations and careers of today’s students." Via DreamSpark Microsoft is offering students around the world access to professional-grade software developer and designer resources. Initially, the program will be made available to 35 million college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.

"We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with
the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems and catalyze economic growth," Gates said. "Microsoft DreamSpark provides professional-level tools that we hope will inspire students to explore the power of software and encourage them to forge the next wave of software-driven breakthroughs."

But the Redmond company is by no means limiting itself to 35 million students. According to Microsoft, DreamSpark will slowly open up to students from additional markets across 2008 Australia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Japan, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and the remaining countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe. By the third quarter of 2008, Microsoft will also permit access to high school students to DreamSpark.

The DreamSpark program will include Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition; Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition; XNA Game Studio 2.0; 12-month free Academic membership in the XNA Creators Club; Expression Web; Expression Blend; Expression Design; Expression Media; SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition.

"Student identity is verified by both institutions that subscribe to public ID systems or even partners who work directly with Microsoft to connect the verification process. They transmit a simple binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’ concerning eligibility. The important thing is that students and universities retain total control over the transaction. Microsoft is not privy to any personal information about students - safeguarding their privacy is of paramount concern to us. Once we receive verification of their eligibility they can bypass the verification process on future visits to the DreamSpark download site," stated Joe Wilson, Microsoft’s Senior Director of Academic Initiatives.

The Linux Foundation Announced Linux Standard Base 3.2 - This update brings support for interpreted languages

The Former LSB 3.1 Logo

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has announced today an update to the Linux Standard Base, also known as LSB. The update – LSB 3.2 – brings new features for interpreted languages, printing and multimedia, and more, thus enabling developers to easily support Linux.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation,
stated: "The LSB meets the increasing demands of ISVs that want to build portable applications for Linux. With the inclusion of interpreted languages, printing support, and a variety of other requested features, this release provides the functionality that ISVs need to deliver their sophisticated applications in a portable, cross-distribution format."

The LSB offers interoperability and compatibility between applications and the Linux operating system, which allows software developers to target multiple versions of it with only one software package. Linux distributions like Debian, Mandriva, Red Hat, Ubuntu and Xandros, have already certified to LSB's standards.

The most important features of the new LSB 3.2 include support for interpreted programming languages Perl and Python, enabling developers to ensure that their applications will work on a large majority of Linux systems. The LSB team and the Linux Foundation's OpenPrinting Workgroup have joined forces to add printing interfaces to the Standard Base and support for portable printer drivers. Here are some other features of LSB 3.2:

• New "trial use" modules, replacing the former "optional" modules. This will allow the LSB to add new modules more quickly, yet not lock certifiers into supporting modules not yet ready.
• Several freedesktop.org standards, including menus and icon themes, making it easier for developers to write applications for the desktop
• Promotion of Qt 4 to a required part of the standard, and deprecation of Qt 3
• FreeType support, through both FreeType and the Xft X extension
• XRender support

The Linux Standard Base 3.2 specification, test suite and developer tools can be found on the Linux Foundation's web site.

Dell to Rethink Its Customer Support Strategy - The company is struggling to keep its market share

Dell is reported to rethink its customer support service offering, as the current services can not keep up with the increased number of sold personal computers and server systems. Dell will introduce two new
support services, called Dell ProSupport for IT and ProSupport for End-Users.

The PC vendor has been criticized in the past for its defective support service. The new support strategy will consolidate support for both enterprise users and end-users. The "ProSupport for IT" service will make it easier for IT divisions located at the customers' facilities to access the relevant support staff rather than following the hierarchic, tree-like structure. The average end-users will still be able to get the proper assistance for their products.

Dell refused to disclose the number of additional employees the company has brought into the support sector. However, according to Brian Goff, Dell Australia's enterprise technical manager, there are "more staff than last year".

It seems that the main reason for all the secrecy is the company's upcoming profit report that will arrive in February 28. Although Dell has increased the tech support personnel, the company is still recruiting staff to fill in the vacant positions. Goff also claimed that all the current customers that have already subscribed to Dell's Gold Technical Support package will get the extra advantage of the ProSupport program at no extra charge.

The improved support service is a welcome addition, but at the same time, it is more of a marketing strategy. The support service has never been the brightest feature of the company, and the improved support comes at a time when Dell is struggling to face harsh market competition from the other industry players, such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun, IBM or Acer and Lenovo on the notebook sector.

"Services is a big part of IT. Hardware is increasingly underappreciated, so it comes down to other factors like price or services," stated Intelligent Business Research Services analyst Kevin McIsaac.

iAno Turns Your iPhone into a Genuine Piano - Full 88-key piano keyboard that reacts to your touch (visually too)

No wonder Apple is keen on letting programmers run loose on its iPhone! All this web, audio, video, and gaming potential in one nicely crafted device... It's overwhelming, I tell you. Today, we're here to talk about the latest and coolest iPhone app: the iAno. Spanish iPhone users, don't freak out! A patch is on its way for you from Mister Aardvark to fix the offensive meaning of the app's name in your language.

So, here's how it works. You need a jailbroken phone for starters
(since it's the only way to run third party applications on it). Installing the app is as easy as adding the "ModMyiFone.com" repository to your Installer, clicking on the Installer icon and going through a few more steps from there.

Before you know it, you'll have animated piano keys reacting to your touch – "full 88 key piano keyboard with each key individually sampled in stereo from a grand piano," as Mister Aardvark himself informs.

The sound engine will be modified, in order to give a local volume setting, and potentially deaden the sound on key-up, allowing for note playback with varying lengths of sustain, according to the resourceful developer.

You'll be able to switch through other Instruments too, particularly other piano types, such as "honky tonk". However, if you want non-piano sounds, your task is a bit more difficult as they are going to be part of a separate app, according to the iAno developer. So, here's the full breakdown:

- A complete four octave keyboard;
- Multi-touch. Up to 5 keys can be pressed at once allowing complex chords;
- Sounds like a real piano with realistic piano multi-samples;
- Animated piano keys react to your touch;
- Play along to all your MP3s;
- On-screen keyboard navigation allows you to easily move up and down by octaves or "part octaves" (i.e. left-most key is a C or an F).

As far as the Spanish patch for iAno is concerned.... well, I'll just let Mr. Aardvark do the talking from here: "I've had a lot of emails from Spanish people saying that "Ano" is a rude word in Spanish. The funny thing is that I didn't know this when I wrote the app and yet these people think nothing of emailing me with a word that they know is rude in my language. :) Anyhow, I'm going to produce a patch for iAno that will replace the title page and the application title text with something a little less offensive."

The developer also claims that nice performances (by you) will be linked to his website. A drum pad application called "iThm," that allows drum samples to be triggered in real time, is also on its way from Mr. Aardvark, so stay tuned.

Be advised that hacking/jailbreaking your iPhone phone is bad! Softpedia doesn't encourage it.

Obsessed With Cleaning? Try the Thanko USB Vacuum Mouse - It's really good at taking crumbs out of your keyboard

There are a whole lot of mice on the market, but there's no one that sucks as much as the one I will talk about in this article. If you suddenly decide that it's no avail in reading about a mouse that's
so bad, rest at ease, it literally sucks – it is world's first device born from the union of a mouse with a vacuum cleaner.

The Vacuum mouse connects to the computer via an USB 1.1 port, although an USB 2.0 is also supported. The USB-based oddity does not excel like a mouse, given the fact that it comes with an 800 dots-per-inch (DPI) sensor. This is enough for performing common tasks such as file and folder navigation or browsing the Internet, but gaming is out of discussion. On a second thought, I don't think that any sane gamer would ever try to give it's best shot (pun intended) with a household appliance.

The mouse has three buttons as well as the common scroll wheel, but there is an additional button that makes it different from its rodent kins. The little switch on the side turns on the (useless) vacuum cleaner. The vacuum mouse is oddly-shaped and I bet that it's not suitable for prolonged use either, given the fact that its shape suggests anything but comfort.

Thanko's mouse seems to have failed both as pointing device and as vacuum cleaner. Its reduced size won't deliver the necessary vacuum to clean more than some pizza crumbs on a plain surface, say, desktop. Instead, it manages to deliver a considerable amount of noise that will surely upset your co-workers if you plan to use it at work. And if you think it's suitable for sucking up the food leftovers from beneath your keycaps, you'd rather take a regular mouse and keep your desk clean.