TAMPA, Fla.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--TeamViewer, one of the world’s most popular providers of remote control and online presentation software, today announced TeamViewer 7 for Linux. The new version incorporates a host of new features for remote computer support and introduces for the first time the ability to participate in online meetings of up to 25 people conducted with TeamViewer 7.

“Whether you are an IT professional with clients across the globe or simply want to collaborate with colleagues, the new version makes it easy to interact with anyone on any platform.”

The new software builds upon both the traditional features enjoyed by Linux users for remote control and the advanced features like instant chat and collaboration. Single click remote support for Linux, PC and Mac OS operating systems, as well as iPhone, iPad and Android apps all allow users to control any computer just as if they were sitting right in front of it.

New advances in remote access technology

TeamViewer 7 for Linux expands and improves upon an already strong remote access feature set. Developments include:

A new “Computers & Contacts” list where connection settings like resolution, quality and scaling of each individual partner can be saved
Improvements in general documentation and a new screenshot capability that allows a user to keep track of what occurs during a remote session
Easy sharing of documents with new file box

New online meeting features

TeamViewer 7 for Linux also makes it very easy to collaborate and participate in online meetings of up to 25 people. The desktop sharing functionality lets attendees share everything from a file to an entire computer desktop, and Linux users can now join meetings organized by PC users. Additionally, Linux users will have access to the following advanced features:

Easy sharing of documents with new file box
Users can view and chat within meetings
Presenters can pause, stop and record meeting sessions
Participants can even join from iPhone, iPad and Android devices

“TeamViewer 7 takes Linux users to the next level by adding a valuable new set of features,” notes Holger Felgner, General Manager at TeamViewer. “Whether you are an IT professional with clients across the globe or simply want to collaborate with colleagues, the new version makes it easy to interact with anyone on any platform.”

As with all TeamViewer solutions, every communication between the viewer and the viewed computer or computers is encrypted with AES 256-bit encoding, providing the highest security standard. Additionally, in the standard configuration, a random password changes after each start of TeamViewer.

Pricing and availability

TeamViewer 7 for Linux is now available for download at www.teamviewer.com/download.

TeamViewer licenses start at US $749. The end-user licenses are lifetime licenses, including minor version updates and an unlimited number of sessions. For further information, please visit www.teamviewer.com/licensing. For private users, who use TeamViewer for non-commercial purposes, TeamViewer is free of charge.

TeamViewer for Linux supports Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and several other Linux operating systems.

Other supported platforms include Windows and Mac. There are TeamViewer apps available for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPhone touch) and Android devices.

About TeamViewer

Founded in 2005, TeamViewer is fully focused on the development and distribution of high-end solutions for online communication and collaboration. Available in over 30 languages, TeamViewer is one of the world’s most popular providers of remote control and online meetings software. More information: www.teamviewer.com

© 2012 TeamViewer GmbH. All rights reserved.
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Android is a trademark of Google Inc.

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Megaupload.com, one of the world's most popular sources of online piracy, has been shut down by a federal indictment issued Thursday, which seized and charged seven people connected with it with running an international enterprise based on internet piracy. Online piracy by the two companies - Megaupload Ltd and Vestor Ltd - generated more than $ 175 million in criminal proceeds and caused more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners.

Hacking group Anonymous said Thursday it knocked out the websites of the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice, and several entertainment industry sites as retribution for anti-piracy efforts by both the government and the entertainment industry. Anonymous said it was "the largest attack ever," with 5,635 participants involved in bringing down the sites. The two government sites were up and running again after several hours.

Megaupload stood as one of the most popular file storage services on the internet, allowing users to upload and share files that included movies and music, among other media. With a timeliness that borders on satirical, public uproars over antipiracy bills SOPA and PIPA in Congress ran in tandem with the arrests and seizure.Anonymous have compiled and published a dossier containing personal information about employees of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and US Democratic party leaders and their families.

Megaupload has preemptively defended these charges with the following assertion:

Mega has over 150 million registered users and over 50 million daily unique visitors. Employees of over 70% of the world’s Fortune 500 companies have accounts with us. We have become the de-facto standard for sending files that are too big to email. We are the most popular hard disk in the cloud. We host more backups than any other company. If Mega is a rogue operator as we have been unfairly labelled by the MPAA and RIAA, then what about Google? What about Yahoo? And every single ISP? At any given time, they all host pirated, illegal or even criminal content for which they are not liable nor legally obliged to prevent their users from posting. They are, like Megaupload, online service providers who are in no position to monitor or restrict their users’ activities. There are technical, practical and legal reasons why these entities as a whole enjoy safe harbor protection all over the world. Service providers like Megaupload are simply better off focusing on providing a better service to their customers than fending off lawsuits from third parties unhappy about content.

That said, all service providers have to deal with the challenge of online piracy, just like us. Google probably hosts the world’s largest index of pirated content and yet no one has characterized them as rogue. Why not sue the manufacturers of external USB hard drives or burnable DVDs? They can be used for illegal purposes, too. Microsoft’s Windows operating system is the world’s largest enabler of piracy. Windows is used to transfer and consume pirated content on a massive scale every day. And yet Microsoft is not rogue. This double standard should not be imposed on Megaupload since it finds no basis in either logic or the law. All we want is equal treatment.

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If you’re wondering whether it works or not, it surely seems to. Walking around CES 2012, I saw the HzO display with some devices sitting… underneath falling water, still fully functional, like it was nothing. People were using the phones, playing music, just like normal. Even with SIM card and battery exposed, an Android phone remained fully functional. There appeared to be zero damage to any of the electronics.

Again, there’s no way to know if Apple will ever use something like this for the iPhone, but we sure hope they do.

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Also Security researchers from Kaspersky Labs have intercepted a scareware variant targeting Android users, distributed as an Opera Virus Scanner. If the user clicks on the link, they’ll be asked to download VirusScanner.apk, which is currently detected as Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.Scavir. If the user is using a non-Android device, they’ll be asked to download VirusScanner.jar currently detected as Trojan-SMS.J2ME.Agent.ij.

Perhaps it’s the 90’s and 80’s mindset that has us still thinking that cell phones are dumb single purpose devices, that causes us to not care about the security of our mobile devices.A wake up call to just how vulnerable cell phones are was recently raised when Google had to remove about 21 malicious apps from the market that were found to be nabbing user’s data. Go ! Get one Best Security Product for your Android from abo, If you really love your Phone ;-)

With this in mind, check out the 5 most popular Antivirus apps for Android phones:

1.) Lookout Security & Antivirus: Lookout Security & Antivirus is arguably the most popular security and anti-virus for Android around. A free account lets you scan your phone for malware, back up and restore your data online, and use GPS to locate your phone should it ever get lost or stolen.
2.) Avast Free Mobile Security: Avast Free Mobile Security supports a number of features that are usually available only in paid-for Android security software. These include privacy reports, call and SMS filtering, SIM-card change notifications, firewall and application management.
3.) Kaspersky Mobile Security: Kaspersky Lab released a free security application to keep your contacts, email and banking information from falling into the wrong hands. Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite can also remotely delete all personal data from the device including contacts, addresses, calendars, text messages and email preventing sensitive information from being illegally used or stolen.
4.) Norton Mobile Security Beta: Norton lends its anti-malware, anti virus, and security expertise to mobile. Smartphones hold a lot of valuable data: Text messages, e-mail, and even credit card numbers can reside on the device, where they're easily accessed.
5.) Mobile Security 6.0: NQ Mobile released Mobile Security 6.0 for Android as a free download. It etects and deletes viruses, malicious URLs, and other threats before you even know they exist with newly enhanced features including GPS-based anti-loss/theft features, backup and restore tools for your contacts, complete privacy protection, traffic monitoring, and more.

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DNS (Domain Name System) is an extremely integral part of web browsing; always working in the background every time we connect to a website.  DNS translates the readable website addresses we all know and love into the sites’ computer readable IP addresses.  For instance, when you type “www.google.com” into your address bar, believe it or not, the computer doesn’t know where the letters “www.google.com” points to so it has to “ask” a DNS server for www.google.com’s IP address.  A server computer at your ISP performs a quick lookup and decides that when you asked for google.com, what you really meant was 74.125.53.100(Google’s IP Address) and connects you to Google through that numerical IP address.

In most situations, your ISP automatically specifies address to its own DNS Servers and your computer, by default, will use them to resolve web addresses.  Unfortunately, their DNS servers can often run slowly or crash; sometimes hindering your ability to surf the web.  We, here at Atlanta IT Service, have looked into an alternative solution to these issues in a company called OpenDNS.

OpenDNS came up with the great idea to provide a FREE, fast, reliable, and (did we mention) FREE alternative DNS service that works, in many ways, better than your standard Internet Service Providers’.  OpenDNS offers many additional features without requiring you to buy any hardware or install any software on your coumputer. They provide their DNS server addresses on their site for free, so in order to set up and start using OpenDNS, all you’d have to do is change your router’s DNS address settings to point to theirs. This process will enable you to tryout and take advantage all the features have they offer, which are quite suitable for both home users as well as businesses.

One of OpenDNS’s “claims to fame” is also their reliability.  In their 5+ year history, they claim that their DNS computers have had zero downtime.  They’ve built a self proclaimed; “self-healing” network across three continents that they say can withstand tremendous disruption to their infrastructure without ever causing disruption to their users.

OpenDNS blocks phishing websites from loading on your computer.  It uses a database from Phishtank, a community site that is also used by Yahoo! mail, to determine if some particular website is part of any online phishing scam. OpenDNS will intercept and bock your efforts (accidental or intentional) to visit these “flagged”, malicious websites.

OpenDNS also takes care of any typos that you commit while keying in the name of popular websites. For instance, if you type www.gogle.com, omitting the additional “o” by mistake, OpenDNS will open the main www.google.com site automatically. Through OpenDNS, you can also set up webpage shortcuts that will work in any web browser you use. For example, you’d only have to type the letters “atl” to resolve a longer web address such as http://www.atlantaitservice.com/cms/technews.

One of the main reasons why our interest focuses on OpenDNS, lies is in their Web Filtering Solutions.  If you’re a parent worried about kids visiting inappropriate websites, you can configure OpenDNS to block any of these sites from loading on the computer.  In fact, more and more businesses are using OpenDNS to do the same, while also blocking social sites like Twitter and Facebook on employee computers.  Through the OpenDNS website, you can access an easy-to-use, Web-based administration console which allows you to set up and manage customized internet access policies on your home or office network.  Restricting access to “questionable” websites is a great way to avoid computer viruses and other harmful malware infecting your network.  

In our opinion, OpenDNS seems to be one of the great “freebies” of the Web and it certainly calls for serious consideration.  It manages to pull off offering, at no charge, incredible utility and speed to the masses while still finding inoffensive ways to make money (e.g. no pop up ads or upgrade notification services). Even if you use only one or all of its features, you’ll find that OpenDNS may make your Web life a little better.

You can sign up and find out more at http://www.opendns.com

1) Opera Mini – The Blackberry does come pre-loaded with a web browser but we find is lacking in several category’s. Opera seems to address all our mobile browsing issues and with that resolved we now have a powerful tool to get things on-line accomplished. No business professional should be with out access to a website simply because the built in browser was unable to get the job done.

2) Poynt – Think of Poynt as your own personal assistant, this app allows you to get phone numbers or street address of most business and retailers. You can search via cell tower location or GPS for nearby restaurants or stores. Very handy if you are trying to track down an item, you can simply call each nearby location to see if what you are looking for is in stock with out having to drive all over the place looking for it. It even allows you to search for the lowest nearby gas prices, movie schedules, local events and make reservations.

3) BeWeather – BeWeather is a visually stunning weather application for your BlackBerry. If you are running multible projects or crews and weather can be a factor it is nice to preset these locations and quickly be able to scan through each location to see what is going on. A must have when packing and making plans for your next out of town presentation. There is also a paid for version that allows you to see animated radar maps (US Only), track your location via GPS/cell and get access to instant weather advisory notifications via PUSH technology (US only). 

4) AP Mobile – AP Mobile is a multimedia news portal developed by The Associated Press that provides anytime access to international, national and local news. In addition to AP’s own worldwide coverage of breaking news, sports, entertainment, politics and business, more than 1,000 AP members and third-party sources provide content for AP news wire and AP mobile news app gives you access to all of it. 

5) Printing App – Finding a great printer app that is compatible with your printer might be worth the hassle. Once setup you can send emails and other content right to your printer from your Blackberry. We have tried a few printing apps and have had nice success with Breezy and Google Cloud.  A great app if you frequently require printing from you hand held, otherwise it may not be worth the hassle to setup. These printing apps can be a great asset for those who will use them often but all of the ones we tested can be a bit laborious during the initial setup.

Jim Whitehurst, CEO of the Raleigh-based Linux software company, told Investor's Business Daily in a recent interview that the company plans to add at least 1,000 workers in 2012 -- which would boost its worldwide employment by more than 20 percent. Last month the company reported that it had 4,350 workers, including more than 700 in Raleigh.

In its fiscal third quarter that ended Nov. 30, Red Hat added 250 workers globally, the most it's ever added in a three-month period. Adding at least 1,000 workers this year would average 250 workers per quarter.

Booming business is fueling the appetite for additional workers. Red Hat's $290 million in revenue in the latest quarter was 23 percent higher than a year ago.

Red Hat currently is based at N.C. State University's Centennial Campus, but it plans to move to a downtown office tower being vacated by Progress Energy as a result of the utility's planned merger with Duke Energy.

Red Hat is eligible to receive more than $15 million in state incentives if it creates 540 new high-paying jobs over the next nine years. Last month Wake County commissioners approved an extra $675,000 in incentives for the company.

Whitehurst also said that he doesn't expect companies to curtail their investment in information technology this year even though businesses often slow their spending in a presidential election year.

"We are finally starting to see significant productivity gains with information technology," Whitehurst said. "I think most companies are investing in IT to continue their double-digit earnings growth."

You can read Whitehurst's interview here.

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The announcement of these players have a twist, though. They're rumored to have tablets in the works based on Intel's "Clover Trail" processor, which isn't expected to be released until June at the earliest.

By being added to the Win 8 tab list by DigiTimes, the Far East follower of firms in the upstream supply chain, the computer makers join compatriots Dell and Hewlett-Packard as well as Nokia, as manufacturers apparently ready to mount yet another challenge to the iPad, which currently owns about 70 percent of the tablet market.

Intel is expected to soon pull the wraps off its "Medfield" chip, which is designed to improve the performance of Android tablets. Early indicators are that the processor -- Intel's first "system on a chip" -- can outperform its competitors, racking up a 10500 score in Android benchmarking tests, compared to 7500 for the Nvidia Tegra 2 chip, 8000 for the Qualcomm Snapdragon and 8500 for the Samsung Exynos.

PC makers, though, are looking for more horsepower for their Windows 8 tablets and think they can get it with "Clover Trail."

So far, PC makers haven't been able to garner much success with their Android slates. Tablet wins aside from the iPad have gone to content providers -- Amazon with its Kindle line and Barnes & Noble with its Nook family -- who can afford to sell their hardware at close to the cost of making it because they expect to sell lots of content for it.

Moreover, the success of the content providers has soured some hardware makers on the Android market, especially those  who jealously eye the margins Apple gets on its products. They see Windows 8 as a chance to get fresh traction in the tablet arena.

While some PC makers have produced tablets running Windows 7, the real push for the operating system into the market won't be until Windows 8 arrives on the scene. That's because it has been designed with tablet use in mind and has tablet-friendly characteristics from Microsoft's mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7.

Since, in the minds of some observers, Microsoft is getting to the tablet party late, slates based on Windows 8 could find it even more  difficult to gain traction in the market than its Android counterparts.

Indeed, one analyst firm, Forrester, found consumer interest in Windows tablets rapidly fading. In the first quarter of 2011, 46 percent of consumers surveyed by the firm said they were interested in a Windows tablet. But by the third quarter of the year, only 25 percent had such an interest.

Those poll numbers, though, might be the equivalent of poll results for a presidential candidate today and one taken next October. Even Forrester acknowledged that Windows 8 hadn't yet entered the consciousness of the participants in the survey.

In addition, the early-bird-gets-the-market rule isn't inviolate. Phones based on Android entered the market after the iPhone was introduced and yet, according to the latest Comcast numbers, 47 percent of all smartphone subscribers in the United States are Android users, while only 29 percent are in the iPhone fold.  

What's more, Windows 8 will be promising users something that no other mobile platform can provide: a uniform experience across mobile, tablet, and computing devices that is enjoyable to use. If Microsoft can deliver on that promise, then many of the challenges that come with late entry into a market will fall by the wayside.

Follow freelance technology writer John P. Mello Jr. and Today@PCWorld on Twitter.

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During 2011, the Western World learned to appreciate the increasing power of hackers, groups like LulzSec and Anonymous and others intent on putting forward their brand of social justice.

Large corporations, like Sony, weren't immune to this and the biggest coup for hackers in 2011 was the devastating attack on Sony's PlayStation Network and its Online Entertainment network, which saw the online services shut down for weeks and hackers compromise the accounts of millions of gamers.

It was no doubt a harsh lesson for Sony, and indeed the CIOs of other corporations and government bodies.

It was also the year that saw cyber warfare take an insidious new twist. The Stuxnet attack which focused on disabling SCADA systems usually found in utility companies began as a virus (believed to have originated in Israel) that set out to disable the Iranian nuclear programme. However, variants of the virus began to spring up around the world targeting utility firms but also water supply networks in the US.

Indeed, the very pervasiveness of the internet in our lives and its impact on the established order began to manifest in a variety of Big Brother ways. High-profile attacks on Wall Street earlier in the year and of course the unease felt by governments like the US at the spate of revelations brought about by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks led to murmurings about the prospect of an internet kill switch.

Indeed, governments like the US and UK made it very clear that they regarded any cyber attack on their servers and networks to be an attack on their very sovereign soil and would meet such attacks with whatever force, including physical warfare, they deemed necessary.

Hackers leave Blueshirts red-faced

Fine Gael also had an unfortunate series of brushes with hackers this year. The year began during the run-up to the elections, with the defacement of the Fine Gael website. The logo of the Anonymous hacktivist collective was put in place of the political party's messages on the homepage.

The amended text read: "Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech yet they censor your voice. WAKE UP!"

But it didn't end there. Within days, it emerged an Evening Herald journalist claimed he was sent data of 2,000 users of the site after the hack occurred.

Kevin Doyle, an Evening Herald journalist, claimed the commissioner was informed the data of 2,000 users of the site was stolen by those who attacked it. He previously said it was almost 4,000, however, this was due to repeat posters on the database. Doyle also said the database he received of the site's users contained phone numbers, IP addresses and email addresses.

Two teenagers were arrested in September in connection with the attacks. The Computer Crime Investigation Unit attached to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation carried out searches at two houses in Birr, Co Offaly, and in Galway. Computers and portable storage media were seized and removed for forensic examination.

Don't forget the threat from within

If you think you need to worry about hackers outside your company trying to steal information, think again. The threat can also come from within the company. A former IT manager who hacked into the presentation of his former company's CEO and replaced it with pornography was sentenced to two years in prison.

Walter Powell (52) worked for the Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems in Baltimore, Maryland. The company fired him in 2009.

He began hacking into the company's computer network, which includes an incident where he replaced a presentation to the board of directors with porn, a release from the city state's attorney's office says.

This case only serves to remind organisations of the importance of IT security, and having a proper process in place when staff leave a company, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, in the Naked Security blog.

There were red faces at Trinity College, too, this year, because of internal hacker hijinks. In what is believed to also have been an inside job, a prankster posted an academic profile of fictional character Conan the Barbarian on the college's website. The profile featured a photo of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as the barbarian, whom Schwarzenegger played in his first film role.

The site summed up 'Prof Barbarian' as "Long Room Hub Associate Professor in Hyborian Studies and Tryant Slaying".

The profile also referenced the 1982 movie that starred Schwarzenegger, and stated Conan had been preparing for academic life since being "ripped from his mother's womb." His PhD thesis is titled 'To Hear the Lamentation of Their Women: Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Zamoran Literature'. This title refers to a line from the film, when Conan is asked what is best in life. "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women," he replied.

The parody faculty listing claimed Conan landed his job with the School of English "after successfully decapitating his predecessor during a bloody battle which will long be remembered in legend and song."

Conan's upcoming courses included "Vengeance for Beginners" and students who cheated or showed weakness face crucifixion.
The fake profile was quickly taken down upon its discovery, but reportedly not before many people archived the profile.

Lightning never strikes twice

While Dublin's data centre scene continues to grow and grow, there was mystery surrounding an alleged lightning strike that caused a service outage at one of Amazon's data centres in the city in August.

In the hours following the incident, Amazon originally blamed a lightning strike and an explosion which knocked out a generator leading to loss of power, which disrupted service for Amazon customers for up to 48 hours in some cases.

Electricity provider ESB Networks has provided a different version of events. A spokesperson told Siliconrepublic.com that the problem was due to a fault in one of its substations at Citywest and that power would have been available from an alternate source within a millisecond.

ESB Networks said an outage occurred which lasted less than a second. "In relation to Amazon, it would have experienced less than a second (of downtime) when the centre would have been switched to an alternate supply," the spokesperson said. The cause was a fault in a substation in Citywest and there was no report of an explosion or fire.

Moreover, the Met Office has no record of a lightning strike in the Dublin area at the time when Amazon claims its centre was taken offline. The wording of Amazon's initial statement clearly implied cause and effect between the lightning strike and an explosion which prevented its backup generators from providing power which they ordinarily should have done.

Amazon did not return emails seeking comment.

Government database issues will emerge in 2012

The year ended with the dreaded Budget in Ireland and imposition of new charges, including a €100 household charge on property owners across the land.

Debates around the rights and wrongs of such a new charge, however, revealed that the Government intends to scour the databases of the ESB, the Revenue Commissioners, the Private Residential Tenancies Board and potentially others to ensure everyone paid the new tax.

This is likely to throw up new debates in 2012 around data protection and the right of the State to mine databases into which people provide information, believing it would be protected and used in a particular way. Interesting times.

John Kennedy | |

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