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The action means that companies and other organizations eventually could run their own domains. For example, IBM could run the domain .ibm, and Microsoft could run the domain .microsoft. Currently, the endings of top-level domain names are limited to a few which include .com, .net and .org, as well as country codes such as .ca for Canada or .uk for the United Kingdom.

Prices to register the new domain names, expected to be anywhere from $150,000 to $500,000, would most likely prohibit individuals from applying for new domain names. ICANN said the high fees would allow it to recoup the approximately $20 million it expects to spend on implementation of the new policy.

Groups applying for new top-level domain names must also either prove they are technically able to operate Web sites or contract with a company that does. According to ICANN, new domain name will probably start appearing by the end of 2009.

• 66% involved data the victim did not know was on the system
• 75% of breaches were not discovered by the victim
• 83% of attacks were not highly difficult
• 85% of breaches were the result of opportunistic attacks
• 87% were considered avoidable through reasonable controls

Some of the cases were caught, thanks to Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage or Office Genuine Advantage programs in which the copy of the Windows operating system or Office suite on a user's computer is electronically authenticated online. Microsoft began rolling out Windows Genuine Advantage in April 2006.

Others lawsuits were sparked by calls to Microsoft's antipiracy hot line, the company said.

Almost all the lawsuits concerned Windows XP or consumer versions of Office. Only two suits alleged piracy of an enterprise version of the software, and Windows Vista was not the subject of an allegation in any filing, according to information from Microsoft.

Among the companies against which lawsuits were filed were several that had been previously been accused by Microsoft of software piracy and had settled with the company, it said.

The lawsuits were filed in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Oregon, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois and Washington.

According to a recent report published by the Business Software Alliance, an antipiracy group funded by software makers, the U.S. had a piracy rate of 20% -- the lowest in the survey. Although because of the size of the market, losses from piracy in the U.S. were estimated at $8 billion, which is higher than any other single country.

Echoes (version 1) - Microsoft's services platform for telco providers that is due out this summer - Microsoft plans to synchronize contacts. With Live Messenger contacts will appear in a mobile user's address book (if the carrier is using Echoes).

Messenger contacts will automatically appear in users' phone address book, so that even if they  donÂ’t know one of their Live Messenger contact's phone number, they still will be able to call it. Numbers will be able to ring simultaneously on multiple devices/systems. On the flip side, Echoes will help insure instant-messaging-to-SMS continuity. A user can send an IM to any mobile contact, and the contact can respond via a text message.

• Echoes will assign a local mobile number to each Windows Live contact
• Via its Address Book sync capabilities, Echoes will push these new new contacts into any mobile phone (no client required)
• The user will be able to compose a text message or place a voice call to these contacts
• Echoes will ensure text messages are delivered to contacts as chat conversations, and replies will be sent back
• Voice calls can be connected through Echoes directly from the mobile to the Windows Live Messenger user's PC
• As the mobile user will appear always "online" to friends (using Echoes client emulation server), conversations also will be able to start from the Windows Live cloud, pushed to the  mobile
  

Without adding any special software to Office, users will be able to open documents sent to them in the open source Open Document Format (ODF), the company said. As well, users will be able to edit and save documents in that format.

Microsoft is going to be providing support for three new file formats directly in the Office product.  In addition to ODF, Microsoft will also support the Adobe PDF fixed format and Microsoft's competitor to PDF, known as XPS.

Microsoft offers support for ODF in its current version of Office but only if additional software is downloaded separately and installed.  The company did not address concerns expressed earlier this month by a British government agency, BECTA that Microsoft's existing ODF software does not work very well.

BECTA has complained to competition authorities in London and Brussels that the ODF translator software has limited functionality and is poorly integrated, compared with Microsoft's own products.

• SEC 17a
• FINRA 3010
• FDIC Advisory
• Investment Advisors Act of 1940 (hedge funds)
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
• IDA 29.7
• FDA 21 CFR Part 11
• OCC Advisory
• HIPAA
• Financial Modernization Act 1999
• Medicare Conditions of Participation
• Fair Labor Standards Act
• Americans with Disabilities Act
• Toxic Substances Control Act
• UK Data Protection Act
• UK Companies Act
• UK Company Law Reform Bill - Electronic Communications
• UK Combined Code on Corporate Governance 2003
• UK Human Rights Act
• UK Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
• Basel II
• Markets in Financial Instruments Directive

Although many records retention requirements do not impose specific requirements on email or instant messages, Janco has found that approximately 80% of enterprises use email for closing orders or performing other types of business transactions. As a result, email is housing a greater proportion of corporate and other records and so increasingly is subject to statutory records retention requirements.

Salary competition from offshore outsourcing, companies posting ads that expressly favor H-1B visa holders to the exclusion of U.S. workers, the fear for job safety that comes in a recession year and the constant pressure to keep skills up to date have worn some tech professionals out to a point that they would consider alternative careers.

• Ability to manage employee turnover costs and prevent hassles by using the best hiring and interviewing techniques.
• Unify employees into a smooth-running, productive team, despite differences in personality, background, and age.
• Find the delicate balance necessary to effectively supervise friends and former peers.
• Establish supervisor-subordinate relationship boundaries that are understood and respected.
• Identify difficult employees and handle them easily, appropriately, and swiftly.
• Give constructive criticism that is not taken personally-  by even the most sensitive employee.
• Originate project plans and set goals that your team and management will support.
• Control absenteeism and tardiness.
• Know when to take corrective action or firing an employee; and know the legal implications of your decisions.

Sonys Blu-ray high-definition optical disc format way have won the so-called high-def format war when Toshiba threw in the towel on its competing HD DVD format back in February but, so far, Blu-ray sales do not show it. New sales figures from market research firm NPD show that sales of Blu-ray standalone players dropped a stunning 40 percent between January and February (presumably as many potential customers were waiting out the high-def war), but rose only 2 percent from February to March once Toshiba gave up on HD DVD. And the sales figures are still so low that NPD refused to publish specific numbers because it might be too easy to identify specific retailers from the figures.

The general wisdom was that once the high-definition disc field was winnowed down to one technology, consumers would embrace it in droves, particularly as conflicting marketing messages vanished and the library of compatible movie titles grew.

However, instead, consumers appear to be bypassing Blu-ray media in favor of high-definition downloadable content or embracing inexpensive standard DVD players that can upscale content to 1080p resolution. Where Blu-ray players are still priced over $300, upconverting DVD players can be had for around $50, and they're compatible with consumer's existing DVD collections. In fact, upconverting DVD players have seen a five percent increase in sales during the first quarter of 2008, compared to the same quarter in 2007.

Some industry watchers project that Blu-ray player prices will drop below $200 in time for the end-of-year holidays, and consumers will begin adopting the technology at that point. However, ABI Research forecasts it will take even longer for Blu-ray to gain significant market share, with the market only embracing Blu-ray in another 12 to 18 months, perhaps just in time for the 2009 end-of-year holiday season.

ACTE filed an Amicus brief contending that a travellers laptop was essentially intellectual property and not the same as luggage nor freight, the ACTE Global Executive Director, said. The court has disagreed and this decision will have significant impact on business travellers who have no idea their data is subject to search and seizure.

The association also argued there were no published guidelines as to what might trigger a secondary inspection, or the seizure of data or possibly the entire computer. According to Gurley, the expectation of privacy at the border is considerably less than one can expect in their home or office.

A 2008 ACTE survey indicated that 81 percent of responding travel managers were unaware that laptops and other electronic devices that were seized could be held indefinitely. Sixty-five percent of respondents stated that their companies have now instituted a policy restricting the amount of sensitive or proprietary data that could be carried on a laptop. That number is expected to grow in the wake of this ruling.

ACTEs advice to business travellers states:

• That you should not carry any confidential, personal information that you do not want examined by third parties on your computer – or other electronic devices. This includes financial data, photographs, and email stored on computers, wireless phones, Blackberries, or iPod-type devices.
• That you should limit the amount of proprietary business information you carry on your computer, and that it be transmitted before crossing the border so you have access to it in the event your unit is seized.
• If your laptop also serves as your major home computer, get another one for travel purposes.
• The Association of Corporate Travel Executives is not advising travellers to hide data from U.S. border authorities, but to take steps to minimize the impact of its loss, or the inability to access it, in the event it is seized.

The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which had granted a motion seeking to suppress evidence gathered from such a search in a case involving child pornography. In arriving at that decision, the district court ruled that customs officers indeed did need to have reasonable or particularized suspicion for searching through laptops at U.S. borders.

They seemed absolutely blithe about making the 10 million number, said an analyst at Technology Business Research Inc., referring to comments made by Apple executives during the earnings conference call. And I get the funny sense that ultimately the whole idea of locked iPhones and the revenue almost does not interest them.

Several times during the call the Apple chief operating officer, and the company's chief financial officer, stood by the 10 million iPhone goal.

According to the sales figures Apple released for the first three months of 2008 -- its second fiscal quarter -- the company sold 1.7 million iPhones worldwide, leaving 8.3 million more to go if it is to reach its iPhone sales goal.

• Encryption Software
• Password Protection
• Biometric Authentication
• VPN 
• Client AntiVirus
• Firewall Hardware
• Firewall Software
• Monitoring & Reporting
  Security Policies

In May 2006, Jeanson James Ancheta became the first hacker successfully prosecuted for the creation and use of a botnet. Ancheta wrote a worm that infected unprotected computers with a Remote Access Trojan (RAT). The RAT listened for instructions over an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel, essentially turning the compromised system into a bot. At its peak, AnchetaÂ’s network of bots included more than 400,000 systems. On command, all of them could be used to launch denial-of-service attacks or download adware (Ancheta was charging clients for this service).

(CIO Insight) What is the essence of the CIOs role? It is an important question because the definition of the CIO is morphing and fracturing. Our surveys say fewer than half of CIOs report to CEOs while more report to CFOs. Does that mean the CIO role has been downgraded, or that Sarbanes-Oxley is changing the CFOs role? In our April 2007 CIO Role survey, three quarters of CIOs say helping set their companys strategy will be one of their most important responsibilities in the future, yet just one-third say their role is creating business strategy.

Defining the CIOs role has never been simple.

• The Cyclical CIO When a CEO believes the IT organization needs a shakeup, he or she hires a CIO who thrives on radical visions and changes. When the shakeup is over, out goes the visionary and in comes a chief information offier with a more operational bent. Repeat ad infinitum
• The Band-Aid CIO Sometimes job No. 1 is fixing what your predecessor broke. Couldn't deliver projects on time? Get a project manager. IT out of alignment? Put in someone with more business experience.
• The Rotational CIO Some companies believe potential CEOs need to be well rounded. The CIO job can be just a stop on the Grand Tour.
• The Multitasking CIO CIOs frequently run other functions besides IT, such as strategy, administration and e-commerce. What a mish-mash. Try making a Myers Briggs-style categorization scheme out of this and you'll wind up with scores of possible roles.

• How do you know who can access this folder with financial/customer/sensitive data in it?
• Who authorized a user to have access permission to a file and how?
• If a key file was deleted, how would you know it happened, or who did it?
• Who were the last people to access a critical folder, and what did they do?
• How do you make sure that the right people have access to your data?

If your organization still spends hours trying to get answers to seemingly simple questions about file access settings and activity, you are not alone. IT managers are challenged to find a consistent way to quickly account for the activities of users and other IT personnel when it comes to unstructured data access.

How do you develop a good business case?

A key takeaway from the Citigroup analysts: In February, clicks on Google's U.S. search ads grew 3.1% year-on-year. Considering that February had 29 days, the growth rate would probably have been flat without the extra day, Mahaney and Samford wrote.

Coupled with a 0.3% year-on-year decline in January, also per comScore, a trend is emerging that Google's pay-per-click (PPC) ad business may be losing steam, after powering the search company to mindblowing levels of revenue and profit growth for years.