Spam was becoming a big problem everywhere, not just at work. Some users only got one or two spam messages a day while others got dozens. People wanted a solution. This article is another in Nancy Hand’s popular Those Amazing Users series and it’s worth a giggle or two.

Read this DominoPower article.

IBM systems account for 240 of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world and more than half the total processing power according to the just-released TOP500 Supercomputer Sites list. IBM’s Blue Gene/L developed and installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory tops the list with an unprecedented sustained performance of 280.6 Teraflops, or trillions of floating point calculations per second.

RedHat, Suse, Ubuntu and other Linux distribution users can now run Windows applications seamlessly on their desktop with 2X ApplicationServer’s Linux client. Until now, Linux users could only run Windows applications using Windows simulation software (e.g. WINE). This type of software is typically difficult to configure and only works with a limited number of applications. In addition, this generally would only support older versions. With 2X ApplicationServer however, any Windows application can be tunneled via RDP onto a Linux desktop.

Eyeing the multibillion-dollar software support business, SourceLabs has created an automated system for giving tech help to corporations that use open-source products. The company is expected to give details of the SourceLabs Continuous Support System, a set of software programs designed to speed up resolution of problems stemming from open-source Java middleware. SourceLabs is one of a handful of companies dedicated to providing testing and certification services to businesses that use open-source software. Its products focus on open-source Java development software and a software "stack" composed of the Linux operating system, the MySQL database and the Apache Web server.

Police in London, acting in conjunction with Finnish law enforcement authorities, arrested three suspected virus writers on Tuesday. A 63-year-old man in Suffolk, a 28-year-old man in Scotland, and a 19-year-old man in Finland were arrested in connection with "an international conspiracy to infect computers using viruses attached to unsolicited commercial email," a representative for the Metropolitan Police said.

IBM later this summer plans to release an overhauled version of its Sametime instant-messaging software that’s designed to integrate closely with Microsoft Office applications. Sametime 7.5, which will be available in about two months, will allow people to use instant-messaging features without having to leave Office applications.

PCs are lasting longer without a part going wrong, according to new research from Gartner. There has been a 25 percent decrease in annual failure rates for PC hardware over the last two years, the research firm said in a report published last week. It also found that notebooks have seen a significant improvement, even if they haven’t caught up in reliability with desktops.

Oracle announced the release of PeopleSoft Enterprise 9, making good on its promise to continue supporting and enhancing PeopleSoft products. PeopleSoft 9, a series of three application modules, marks one of Oracle’s three major 2006 initiatives following its acquisitions of PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems and a host of smaller software makers. Oracle aims to reassure PeopleSoft users who were concerned that the software giant would force them to switch to Oracle’s own set of applications.

MessageLabs announced the launch of version 2.0 of its Web Security Services. The new services have been developed on a proprietary MessageLabs Web scanning architecture and feature full integration with MessageLabs existing email and IM services and address the key business issues surrounding Internet use in the workplace: security, organizational compliance, and policy control.

The steady stream of data breaches that started with ChoicePoint in February 2005 has left more than 88 million Americans at risk for identity fraud, according to a list tallied by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The latest incidents, which have not yet made it onto the PRC’s list, involve Visa USA and Equifax.