But we’ve found help, and it’s all free. Here are ten no cost pieces of downloadable software that will solve your synchronisation, battery, Wi-Fi and USB woes. They’ll make it easier and more fun to get your work done, too.

Synchronisation Tools
If you own a desktop in addition to a laptop, you constantly have to deal with synchronising files and folders between them. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up working on older files on one computer while the newer versions sit on the other. Worse yet, when copying files between the machines, you might accidentally overwrite a newer version with an older one. The following three freebies solve those problems for you. They can synchronise your files automatically, and they can even synchronise between PCs and Macs.

SugarSync Free

This excellent software does double duty as a synchronisation tool and as an automated backup program. Exceedingly simple to use, it offers 2GB of free online backup space, takes up little RAM and few system resources, and works with Macs as well as PCs. All that, and it’s free.

Simply install the software on your computers and indicate which folders to synchronise. SugarSync Free then works in the background. If the computer to which you wish to sync is not online, the files will sync to it when it returns. In addition to syncing the files, SugarSync Free backs them up online.

You can do a lot more, too, such as sharing files and folders with other people. The software also keeps older versions of your file online so that you can revert to any of them.

The free edition of the software will synchronise only two computers, and it has a limit of 2GB of online storage space. For-pay versions let you synchronise among multiple PCs and offer faster upload speeds; prices range from $5 per month to $25 per month.

Download SugarSync Free | Price: Free

Windows Live Sync

What if you want to synchronise your laptop with more than one other desktop or laptop, but you don’t want to spend the money that SugarSync charges for it? Give the free Windows Live Sync a try. With this tool, you can sync folders on as many computers as you want, and you don’t have to pay a penny. Keep in mind, however, that this software doesn’t include online backup; it only synchronises folders from computer to computer.

Using Windows Live Sync is even easier than working with SugarSync Free. The method of adding and removing folders is more straightforward. Since you manage everything from a website, you can set up your synchronisation options in a single step rather than multiple ones.

Like SugarSync, Windows Live Sync works with Macs as well as PCs. However, I have been unable to get the software to work with Snow Leopard, the newest version of Mac OS X. If you want to synchronise with a Snow Leopard Mac, you may run into problems.

Download Windows Live Sync | Price: Free

Xmarks

Here’s a common problem for laptop owners who also have another machine: How do you keep your Favorites and bookmarks synchronised among all your computers? Let’s say that you browse the web on your laptop, adding a few bookmarks and deleting a few. The next day you use your desktop, but of course it doesn’t have the latest bookmark changes you made. Trying to make the corresponding additions and deletions on the desktop’s web browser can be time consuming, and that’s assuming you even remember them all.

Xmarks solves the problem neatly. It synchronises the bookmarks on multiple PCs, and better yet, it does so between browsers as well: With its help, you can keep Internet Explorer bookmarks on one PC synchronised with Firefox bookmarks on another. The tool even works on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The software used to be known as Foxmarks. Since then, its creators have updated it with additional features, including the ability to offer information about sites when you conduct searches. The extras are useful, but you’ll really want this software for its synchronisation of the bookmarks on all your PCs.

Download Xmarks | Price: Free

Laptop Battery Managers
Ah, batteries, the bane of every laptop owner’s existence. They never seem to have enough power, and they run out far too quickly. These downloads will help you manage your laptop’s battery life, and they can even help you get more juice out of a single charge.

BattCursor

You have work to do, but you know that your battery is starting to run out. So you keep checking the laptop’s battery icon to see how much power is left and every time you check, you waste precious time. Sound familiar?

This clever, free program shows your laptop’s remaining battery life on your mouse cursor. The app can display the information on your desktop, as well.

You can have the cursor text’s color and transparency level change, depending on the power level. For example, you can set the program to keep the text transparent in cases when your laptop is connected to a power source, but visible if the portable is unplugged and below a certain power level. BattCursor has a lot of extras, too, such as ways to improve your notebook’s battery life.

Download BattCursor | Price: Free

BatteryBar

Want to check battery life, but don’t like the idea of having your mouse pointer display the text? Here’s another alternative. BatteryBar shows, on your taskbar, exactly how much juice you’ve already used and how much you have left. You can set the app to display remaining battery life either as a percentage or as an amount of time.

Hover your mouse over BatteryBar, and you’ll see even more information, including the total battery capacity, the discharge rate, the battery wear, and how much total capacity your battery has in terms of time per full charge.

When you first run the program, it won’t appear to work. You’ll need to configure your taskbar to display it. Right click the taskbar, and select Toolbars, Taskbar. Once you do that, the program will appear.

Download BatteryBar | Price: Free

Wireless Networking Utilities
One of the main reasons to use a laptop is that you can connect wirelessly when you’re away from your home or office. But finding a connection, and keeping safe when you are connected, can be problematic. Here are two downloads that can help.

Hotspot Shield

When you use your laptop to connect to a hotspot at a public location such as a coffee shop or airport, you put yourself at risk. Hackers may be able to sniff your data packets, invade your PC and steal your username and password when you log in to websites.

Here’s a freebie that promises to keep you safe by encrypting your connection when you’re at a hotspot so that no one else can read the information you send. The program is extremely easy to use. Install it and it logs you in to a virtual private network (VPN) that performs the encryption.

A few installation notes: If you don’t want various toolbars to install too, make sure to uncheck the boxes next to the toolbar items during installation. And if you don’t want your home page and search engine to be changed, uncheck those options as well.

Download Hotspot Shield | Price: Free

WeFi

If you’re a laptop owner and a fan of social networking, you can combine the two with WeFi. Not only does this program find hotspots so that you can connect to them, but it also finds people to whom you can connect as well. After you install WeFi, the app lists nearby hotspots along with information about each, such as the signal strength and whether the hotspot is encrypted. To connect to one, double click it. You can also go to a web page that displays a map of where you are and shows nearby hotspots.

To see people who are connected to hotspots near you, click the People tab. You can then see more information about any of them, and get in touch with them via the software.

WeFi also includes a feature that will warn you away from suspicious web pages. If you prefer, however, you can turn it off during the installation process: Uncheck the box next to Include Wi-Fi Secure Browsing.

Note that this program will make WeFi Search your home page, establish WeFi Search as your default search, and install a toolbar. If you prefer that it not do that, during the installation process select Custom and uncheck the boxes for Toolbar, Make WeFi Search my default search engine, and Make WeFi Search my homepage. Also, during installation, WeFi will ask you to install a variety of additional software. To be safe, uncheck the boxes next to those items.

Download WeFi | Price: Free

USB Flash Drive Programs
USB flash drives are designed to be portable, just like your laptop. But they can be problematic. For one thing, how can you make sure that your files aren’t compromised in the event that you lose your drive? We have a few downloads to help with that, and more.

PortableApps

If your laptop or netbook has only a modest hard drive, you may not be able to fit all of your applications on it. Microsoft Office, for example, can occupy plenty of hard disk space and leave you little room for anything else.

With PortableApps, you won’t have that problem. In this download you get a full suite of free applications, including OpenOffice.org, which has a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation program, a database, and a drawing program. You’ll also find an antivirus utility, a slimmed down version of Firefox, and more. In addition to the applications, you get backup software, plus a menu that makes accessing all of the programs easy.

The Light version takes up just 150MB installed, and the more full featured Standard version consumes 355MB. You can install the software on your laptop or netbook of course, but to save space you can install the programs on a USB drive and even run them from there. You can store your data on the USB drive as well. No matter how little storage space your laptop or netbook has, you’ll be set.

Download PortableApps Standard | Price: Free

Download PortableApps Light | Price: Free

TrueCrypt

USB drives are a great way to carry work with you when you travel. They’re light, they’re cheap, and they have enough capacity to handle large image files, hefty documents, and entire presentations. But you can easily lose or misplace them, a serious problem if your files are personal or sensitive.

The free TrueCrypt does an excellent job of keeping your files safe from prying eyes, even if your USB drive falls into the wrong hands. You get a choice of many different encryption algorithms, including the powerful 256-bit AES and 448-bit Blowfish methods. The program will not just encrypt the files and folders, but also hide them so that no one but you knows that they are there.

This isn’t the most intuitive of programs to work with, so take some time to read the manual and be sure to use the program’s built-in wizards.

Download TrueCrypt | Price: Free

Windows 7 improves on Vista with a friendlier UAC mechanism, the ability to encrypt removable media and hard drive volumes, broader support for strong cryptographic ciphers, hassle-free secure remote access, and sophisticated protection against Trojan malware in the form of AppLocker, to name just a few.

In this guide, I’ll run through these and other significant security enhancements in Windows 7, and provide my recommendations for configuring and using them. I’ll pay especially close attention to the new AppLocker application control feature, which may be a Windows shop’s most practical and affordable way to combat socially engineered Trojan malware.

New and improved

Windows 7 has literally hundreds of security changes and additions, far too many to cover in one fell swoop. While this guide focuses on the ones that most organizations will be interested in, keep in mind that plenty of others may deserve your attention. A few the biggies not discussed here are built-in support for smart cards and biometrics, the ability to force the use of Kerberos in a feature called Restrict NTLM, and support for the new DNSSec standards, which are becoming essential to prevent DNS exploitation attacks. Also noteworthy is a new feature called Extended Protection for Authentication, which prevents many sophisticated man-in-the-middle attacks that can strike at some of our most trusted security protocols (such as SSL and TLS).

User Account Control

A Windows Vista feature that users loved to hate, User Account Control has been significantly improved to be both less intrusive and smarter at distinguishing between legitimate and potentially malicious activities in Windows 7. However, depending on whether you are logged on as administrator or a standard user, some installs of Windows 7 may have a default UAC security setting that’s one level lower than some experts (including yours truly) recommend. Standard users have UAC security default to the most secure setting, while administrator accounts reside a notch below the highest setting, which is potentially riskier.

Note too that, although UAC provides a much-needed mechanism to prevent the misuse of administrator privileges, it can be bypassed. If you need high security, users should not log on with an elevated user account until they need it.

Your domain environment should already be at the highest and most secure level (“Always notify”). If it isn’t, make it so. That way, users will be prompted to input their passwords to perform high risk administrative actions. No matter what else, UAC should be enabled.

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New Home Secretary Theresa May gave Gary McKinnon a glimmer of hope earlier yesterday when she agreed his case should be delayed.

Mr McKinnon’s lawyers have fought a long-running series of court battles, and this was expected to be his last-ditch bid to avoid extradition. Mr McKinnon’s legal team had been due at the High Court next Tuesday for a judicial review, where a judge was expected to decide if their latest challenge should go to a full hearing.

A Home Office spokesman said yesterday: “The Home Secretary considered the proposal from Gary McKinnon’s legal team and agreed an adjournment should be sought. An application was sent to the court today. The High Court has confirmed it has granted an adjournment.”

His lawyer Karen Todner earlier said the Home Secretary was examining medical evidence supporting their case against extradition.

Mr McKinnon was accused in 2002 in the wake of September 11 of using his computer to hack into 97 American military and Nasa computers, causing damage the US government claims will cost more than $700,000 (£425,000) to repair.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/computer-hacker-gary-mckinnon-wins-more-time-to-fight-us-extradition-14814140.html?#ixzz0ovQv7yFw

Apple was initially unimpressed by Nitesh Dhanjani’s work developing what’s known as a “carpet bomb” attack, the security researcher said in an interview Monday. “I told Apple about it two years ago, and they responded back, saying it was more of an annoyance than anything else.”

That turned out to be the wrong assessment. Soon after Dhanjani went public with the flaw in May 2008, another security researcher showed how carpet bombing could be combined with another Windows attack to run unauthorized software on a Windows PC. Apple then shipped a fix for Safari on Windows, but not for Safari on Mac OS X.

Nobody has shown how to do this on the Mac OS X version of Safari, but Dhanjani still thinks Apple should fix the issue on both platforms.

In a carpet bomb attack, the victim visits a malicious Web site, which then starts downloading unauthorized files to the victim’s computer without any sort of approval.

“[W]hile most sane Web browsers warn the end user and ask for explicit permission before saving a file locally, Safari goes ahead and saves the file into the default download location without asking the user,” he said in a blog posting, “even if hundreds of files are served up by the malicious website simultaneously.”

Without conducting another attack, hackers still have no way to run the files on the victim’s computer, but these unauthorized downloads still represent a security risk, Dhanjani said. “In this day and age … the site shouldn’t be able to drop anything it wants into my downloads folder.”

Not everyone agrees, however. Noted Apple hacker Charlie Miller said that Dhanjani’s bug is not serious because there is no second Mac OS X bug that causes downloaded files to be executed. “So basically, a Web site can start to download a bunch of files to your Downloads directory. This isn’t an ideal situation, but then again, I don’t see a lot of harm that comes from it,” he said in an e-mail interview. “Especially, if the alternative is for the browser to nag me every time I want to download something.”

Dhanjani believes Apple hasn’t fixed the issue because it might annoy Mac users. “They’re going after usability,” he said. “Apple wants to make everything so seamless that they don’t want the user to have to go through this extra process.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. The company typically does not comment on security issues.

In a May 2008 e-mail message to Dhanjani, viewed by the IDG News Service, Apple’s security team said it would consider adding an “Ask me before downloading anything” preference to Safari. “This will require a review with the Human Interface team,” Apple told the researcher. “We want to set your expectations that this could take quite a while, if it ever gets incorporated.”

ARM dominates the mobile phone chip design market and has since 2008 been trying to get into the subnotebook market as well. The plan was to do so through Linux-based, ARM-powered ‘smartbooks’ that would provide an instant-on, longer-life alternative to x86-based netbooks but, according to ARM’s marketing vice president, Ian Drew, events have conspired to stall this plan.

“We thought [smartbooks] would be launched by now, but they’re not,” Drew told ZDNet UK on Tuesday. “I think one reason is to do with software maturity. We’ve seen things like Adobe slip — we’d originally scheduled for something like 2009.”

ARM and Adobe signed a partnership in late 2008 that was intended to see Flash Player 10 and Air — both rich web platforms — optimised for ARM-based systems. That work is only likely to come to fruition in the second half of this year, when an optimised version of Flash comes out for Android smartphones. As Apple’s Steve Jobs recently pointed out, Flash was originally supposed to ship for smartphones in early 2009.

“Our target is mostly internet machines — it becomes sort of a requirement that they run the internet,” Drew said. “[The delay in optimising] Flash has stalled it”.

Drew suggested that solving the issue of Flash optimisation had involved “lots of heavy lifting” but once the new version of Adobe’s rich media software is in place for smartbooks, that would be “very powerful” for ARM.

In March, another ARM executive suggested that more than 50 ARM-based tablets would be released later this year. According to Drew, the sudden explosion of interest in the tablet form factor had “confused” some manufacturers that had been considering ARM-based smartbooks, which tend to resemble laptops, thus further delaying smartbooks’ advent.

“Some of it is also related to there not being many Linux [netbooks] out there either,” Drew added, pointing out that ARM’s architecture cannot support x86-based applications from the PC. “We’ve only got Linux. If you look at forecasts for Linux netbook sales last year, not as many were sold.”

However, Drew said he was “far from disappointed” with ARM’s smartbook development experience thus far. “I actually think we’re a lot stronger because of it,” he said. “We now know what we didn’t know two years ago. It has taught us a lot about how we work with software companies.”

“I am disappointed that you can’t go down to PC World and buy a smartbook at the moment, but I’m convinced something will happen,” Drew said.

Asked if the smartbook delays had anything to do with performance relative to Intel’s netbook-dominating Atom chipset, Drew said he had “not seen that one come up once” in discussion with manufacturers.

Drew’s comments came as Intel detailed its Moorestown chipset, a version of Atom that is tailored for smartphones and tablets. Moorestown’s arrival later this year — around the same time as smartbooks hit the market — will ensure competition between ARM and Intel in each company’s stronghold: respectively, the smartphone and the subnotebook.

In McAfee’s 2010 Threat Predictions, it anticipated that attacks on social networks by password-stealing Trojans and other malware would increase in 2010, and during the current quarter it has seen several examples of that prediction in action. The most prominent of this is the Zeus family, which it usually observes as PWS-Zbot and Spy-Agent.bw, and is the pre-eminent password-stealing Trojan malware, according to its threat report for the first quarter of 2010.

The report said: “Zeus is just one of the key tools of cyber criminals, who often tie password stealers with other types of illegal online material. In this quarter we saw all kind of goodies being installed with Zeus. And whom do you imagine was the prime target for these attacks? Facebook users.”

The most common attack sees an attacker launch a large scam campaign, using a fake password-reset message to get their victims’ attention, in most of the cases. The attached document will usually contain a variant of the Bredolab or Pushdo Trojan, which works as an installer for the Zeus family and requires no user interaction.

The report said: “Facebook users suffered not only from Zeus and fake security attacks but also from new variants of the W32/Koobface worm. In March, more than 150 websites were discovered hosting malicious files in the folder .sys, which is hidden on Unix systems.”

It also claimed that the Zeus family was the cause of one of the biggest increases it had seen in malicious URLs and websites, given its ease of use for and prevalence among cyber criminals.

The report said: “We have seen distinct shifts during the quarter to truly malicious servers using automated domain registration practices and fast flux IPs. Once we find one Zeus machine it is easy to find dozens more. One Zeus command server we identified yielded another 160 malicious domains carrying on everything from social networking and media sharing infections to IRS and other credential phishing.”

Despite these attacks, McAfee also found that spam volumes remained relatively unchanged between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the current quarter, increasing only about five per cent. Between January and March, spam traffic averaged approximately 139 billion messages per day, or 89 per cent of all email traffic. In the prior quarter spam accounted for 133 billion email messages per day.

Mike Gallagher, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Global Threat Intelligence for McAfee, said: “Our latest threat report verifies that trends in malware and spam continue to grow at our predicted rates. Previously emerging trends, such as AutoRun malware, are now at the forefront. We were also surprised to find some of geographic difference in spam related topics, such as the volume of diploma spam coming out of China.”

Just 24 hours after Symantec bought VeriSign’s identity and authentication business, the deal will see Secerno’s heterogeneous database firewall added to Oracle’s database security solutions, and gives it another step into the security market.

Oracle claimed that Secerno’s solution adds a critical defensive layer of security around databases, which blocks unauthorised activity in real-time. The company claimed that Secerno’s products are expected to augment Oracle’s portfolio of database security solutions, including Oracle Advanced Security, Oracle Database Vault and Oracle Audit Vault to further ensure data privacy, protect against threats and enable regulatory compliance.

The transaction is expected to close before the end of June 2010. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president of Oracle database server technologies, said: “The Secerno acquisition is in direct response to increasing customer challenges around mitigating database security risk.

“Secerno’s database firewall product acts as a first line of defence against external threats and unauthorised internal access with a protective perimeter around Oracle and non-Oracle databases. Together, Oracle’s complete set of database security solutions and Secerno’s technology will provide customers with the ability to safeguard their critical business information.”

Steve Hurn, CEO of Secerno, said: “As a provider of database firewall solutions that help customers safeguard their enterprise databases, Secerno is a natural addition to Oracle’s industry-leading database security solutions. Secerno has been providing enterprises and their IT security departments strong assurance that their databases are protected from attacks and breaches. We are excited to bring Secerno’s domain expertise to Oracle, and ensure continuity and success for our current customers, partners and prospects.”

The forum was used by criminals for various illegal activities, such as trading stolen credit card details and login details for online games. As well as posts from forum members, the SQL dumps from the forum application uploaded to RapidShare unfortunately also include a range of victim-related data.
The unidentified hackers may well be the same group which hacked the 1337-crew underground forum in late 2009 and likewise published the stolen data – in response, German police arrested a number of forum members and administrators.
This time around, the hackers have published information on how they hacked the site in a magazine-type format entitled ‘owned and exposed’. They point out that their hack was made easier by the laxness of the access rights to the Linux system assigned by the administrator. Reportedly, all users had read access to the entire system including /root, and the web server account was set up as owner of all files.
In a German language message to their members, the group behind carders.cc describes it as “a dark day for the scene” and apologises for logging IP addresses. They add that this was not done deliberately, but was the result of an error by administrator Zagerus, who has now been “suspended”. They anticipate that only the team behind the site will be caught up in any legal investigations.
This strike against criminals who spend their time hacking other people’s servers may give rise to a degree of malicious joy, but the hackers’ actions have also resulted in data belonging to unwitting users being spread around the internet. It seems less a simple case of ‘good vs. evil’, more a conflict between competing groups with resultant collateral damage.

Microsoft has taken the position, according to those close to the company, that Android infringes on the company’s patented technology and that the infringement applies broadly in areas ranging from the user interface to the underlying operating system.

In a statement to ZDNet UK’s sister site CNET News, Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said although Microsoft prefers to resolve intellectual property licensing issues without resorting to lawsuits, it has a responsibility to make sure “competitors do not free ride on our innovations”.

His comments came as Microsoft and HTC announced they have inked a new patent deal that specifically provides the Taiwanese cell phone maker with the right to use Microsoft’s patented technologies in phones running Google’s Android operating system. Microsoft said it has been in talks with other phone makers.

According to the allfacebook.com website, Facebook’s public policy director Tim Sparapani spoke with American radio journalist Kojo Nnamdi and stated that the company would release simple privacy settings in the coming weeks.

Wired reported that Sparapani said: “Now we’ve heard from our users that we have gotten a little bit complex, I think we are going to work on that. We are going to be providing options for users who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from and I think we will see that in the next couple of weeks.”

It claimed that proposed changes are unlikely to reverse its December policy changes to make large portions of a user’s profile ‘publicly available’ by ‘helping everyone find and connect with each other by keeping some information – like your name and profile picture’.

He told Nnamdi on Washington DC’s WAMU station that Facebook was dedicated to privacy. He said: “We have built a privacy setting for every new type of sharing [users] are allowed to have. What that means is that in fact we have come up with an extraordinary number of privacy settings.

“This should be compared to almost any other company out there where there are no privacy settings at all, so Facebook should be getting credit here for giving tools in the first place.”

Blogger Nick O’Neill, writing on allfacebook.com, said: “Given that the company has come under significant pressure over the past couple of weeks over new programs, including the highly controversial ‘Instant Personalisation’ program, it’s not surprising to hear Sparapani announce these features. What’s even more significant is that these ‘simple’ privacy settings sound as though they’ve most likely been in the works for a short period of time.

“What I’m still wondering is why Mark Zuckerberg or any other executive haven’t made a formal announcement stating that they are listening. While representatives of the company’s communications department have stated that the company is listening and will effectively do the right thing, no formal statement has come from Mark Zuckerberg.

“Perhaps this is a test of Mark’s ability to delegate some of the communication to the general public, however I’m pretty sure that most people want to hear that the company is listening from Mark’s own mouth (or at least a blog post under his name).”

Benjamin Cohen, technology correspondent at Channel4 News, claimed that Facebook clearly realises that not everyone understands the 50 privacy settings and 170 privacy options that users are currently presented with and are confusing users and not everyone has realised that their status updates are so public.

He said: “The company are still in discussions internally about how best to implement new changes, but it is clear that some simplification will occur soon. There was talk of big privacy options that change scores of privacy settings rather than having to set them individually.

“Facebook as a company are refreshing in their ability to actually respond to criticism. They don’t shy away from it as other technology giants have a tendency to. They are, I think still genuinely taken by surprise at the way that people use Facebook and more importantly the information they upload. Users are their lifeblood, if they upset them then they risk their whole future existence. They’ve realised that there’s unease and they will change things.”

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: “If the reports are accurate, the question everyone will be asking is whether Facebook is really prepared to make the radical changes necessary to satisfy the growing number of users concerned with privacy on the site?

“Or will users believe that the changes are cosmetic and do not go far enough and, ultimately, quit the site altogether? Certainly, from my own point of view, Facebook needs to take a fundamental shift in its approach. Rather than asking users to ‘opt-out’ from sharing their information with more and more of the internet, they should ask their almost 500 million members to explicitly choose to ‘opt-in’.”