Articles by Jack M. Germain

Google released on Tuesday a plug-in to its Google Apps arsenal thatcould be the last push needed to nudge some businesses into fully adoptingits cloud computing services The product, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, works withthe Premier version of Google apps, which costs US$50 per business user per year,as well as the free educational ver...

Trend Micro on Monday announced LeakProof 5.0, designed toreduce the complexity and cost often associated with the discovery,monitoring and blocking of sensitive enterprise data. New features are builtaround the Active Update service andlanguage-independent fingerprinting technology the company calls "DataDNA." Leakproof 5.0 will be available June...

The end of mainstream support by Microsoft for Windows XP ended onApril 14. That deadline came and left with barely an audiblegroan from the minions of enterprise, small business and consumerusers of the decade-old operating system The steadfast legions of corporate Windows XP users -- and theMicrosoft Office 2003 suite that also is no longer suppo...

Think of the ideal software asset management (SAM) system as a monitor that displays what exactly drivesyour business operations. It provides a readout of all the softwareinstalled throughout the company's computer systems, andmuch more SAM programs also help IT departments rein in duplicate or redundantsoftware applications. Software budget overru...

Google is now field testing its PowerMeter software with over 10million customers of eight large utility partners in threecountries Google on Wednesday announced it's lining up energy companies so it canenlist the utilities' customers to start using the home energyconsumption software. PowerMeter helps consumers monitor their energyuse through data...

A new wave of phishing and spamming attacks is hitting Facebook users as scammers attempt to get hold of their passwords, the social networking site acknowledged in a statement. Similar phishing and spamming scams -- in which messages supposedly from their friends lure victims to a malicious Web site -- have been occurring with greaterintensity si...

With the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committeetaking a fresh look at the privacy and security risks posed byusing LimeWire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing applications, nowis a good time for both home and office users of these services toreassess the safety of their own sensitive data Committee members last month directed Mark...

Google launched on Tuesday a series of new search features that letusers integrate options for displaying and analyzing their searchresults beyond the traditional listing of keyword hits ranked byassumed relevance The new services are part of a platform of additional features Googleis developing and will make live in the future, though it offered n...

It seemed like a simple enough idea when FixYa.com CEO and founderYaniv Bensadon sought a solution for consumers caught in the maze oftech support that encompassed nearly every piece of consumerelectronics equipment and household appliance on the market. Why not offer acommunity-based service, not unlike Google Forums or eBay, so consumerscould fi...

Over a dozen technology companies announced Thursday their participationin the Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) Alliance, an organization formed toestablish a unified specification for 60 gigahertz (GHz) wirelesstechnology. The new wireless alliance has been working behind closeddoors for more than a year The collection of semiconductor makers and digital ...

Virtualization and cloud computing specialist Citrix wants to do for its IT customers what Apple does for users of its App Store. Instead of selling programs like games or restaurant finders for the iPhone or iPod touch, however, Citrix's new Dazzle service will provide on-demand business applications Citrix announced its Dazzle online storefront s...

Panda Security on Wednesday released a cloud-based antivirus solution in beta Panda Cloud Antivirus is based on a new protection model thatutilizes a thin-client agent and server architecture to process andblock malware. The product provides full protection from viruses,spyware and rootkits for free, according to the company, and does so with 50 pe...

Microsoft has begun a limited private beta test of an emergencysocial networking service that provides subscribers with aTwitter-like messaging system to track family, friends or specialgroups Microsoft Vine is a downloadable application that collects newsreports related to a specific area when disasters strike -- hurricanes,earthquakes pandemics, ...

The concept of five nines availability has its roots inserver deployment. That standard demands that the IT department orthe service provider hired by an enterprise deliver access toapplications and data 99.999 percent of the time Even with today's migration to cloud storage and SaaS (Software as aService) product delivery, much can happen to exten...

Moving a company into cloud computing changes a lot more than just where the servers happen to be located. For instance, tech support might move out the door as well In some cases, tech support workers may still have their desks, but they will nolonger be their company's go-to guys when a problem develops. Instead,they will have to talk to their ow...

The Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee hasreopened hearings on possible privacy and security risks posed byusing LimeWire and similar peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications The committee on Monday sent letters to Mark Gorton, chairman of TheLime Group, which owns LimeWire; U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; and Jon...

The older bits of the world's accumulated knowledge, bound together in volumes of printedbooks and magazines, are slowly disappearing. Out-of-print renditionsoften disappear forever. Libraries with limited shelf space oftenreplace seldom-used titles with newer tomes. A far smaller portion ofprinted matter makes it to page-scanning processes for preservationin digital form...

The global economy is changing. For many consumers, the credit card crunch is crumbling their ability to buy things online. In many countries outside the U.S., consumers do not have credit cards but rely instead on smart cards to swipe transactions directly through their banks.

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a publicbeta version of Microsoft Exchange 2010 This next version of Microsoft's email server will ship later thisyear, Microsoft said.

Is software truly open source if you pay for additional features? Youranswer may depend on whether you side with the purists or the, ah,not-so-pure A recent trend entering the debate involves the marketing of so-calledopen core software. This morphed business model is not what manyopen source supporters consider "pure" open source. However, open co...