Back-Up With a Storage Robot

From Data Robotics comes Drobo, the first fully automated storage robot designed to ensure that data is always protected, storage capacity is unlimited and it is exceptionally easy to expand. Consumer and small business storage has entered the terabyte era and non-technical users are facing the daunting challenge of managing storage capacities that used to be found only in large businesses. So let Drobo take over. Just plug in Drobo, feed it with drives and use it just like you would any external hard drive — except this one is self-protecting, infinitely expandable and requires no complex configuration or management. Drobo is designed to anticipate much of what can go wrong with digital storage and automatically monitors and repairs problems that put data at risk.

The robotic storage technology inside of Drobo is based on storage virtualization principles combined with the ideals of cybernetics. Drobo connects via any USB 2.0 port on your Mac or Windows PC. Under its magnetically-attached faceplate are four bays that can accept any brand, size, speed or capacity mix of standard 3.5-inch SATA internal hard drives, sold separately and available at most electronics stores. Drives just slide in without requiring any tools or carriers. Drobo is priced at $499. To learn more about it, click to www.drobo.com.

Don’t Open Virtual Postcards!

Shahzadul Hasan Subhani, manager, IT Security Services, IT Matrix, is alerting the Kingdom’s Net community that e-mail addresses in Saudi Arabia are being inundated with online greeting card mail with reference to the 4th of July and “postcards” from family members or friends. If you click on these mails an error message will appear and then you will be asked to click on another link to download the card. However from that link, a malicious .exe file will be downloaded to your system. For the health of your computer, ignore any such e-mail.

Subhani would also like to draw everyone’s attention to a new trick from spammers which involves attaching a .pdf file to an e-mail. The .pdf file contains the spammer’s message. Such messages used to be included in e-mail in the form of straight text but now with most companies using e-mail filters, spam with straight text messages are being destroyed before they are read. The new method is a means of attempting to defeat the filters. In any case, since .pdf files can contain malicious code, it’s really wise not to open one unless you were expecting such a file from a known contact.

Consumers Notified of ID Theft

IdentityTruth.com has begun its public beta launch. IdentityTruth is a free service, providing individuals with the earliest possible notification in advance of potential identity theft. An identity is much more than credit and credit cards. IdentityTruth explores billions of data points from many different sources — well beyond credit cards alone — to notify consumers in advance of potential identity misuses, so they can be on guard.

IdentityTruth combines in real-time, detected suspicious activities, fraud schemes, credit requests, related data breaches and the individual’s specific profile, to offer a more complete picture of a consumer’s identity risk. It reports suspicious events in the past, predicts possible frauds that could impact the individual in the future, delivers on-going alerts about any changes to the individual’s credit and identity profiles, and reports on any related regional data breaches that could impact an individual’s identity.

Under the free beta program, IdentityTruth does not require the subscribers to divulge any confidential information to use the service. Register for it at www.IdentityTruth.com.

Try the Panda Beta Versions Free

Try the beta versions of Panda Antivirus & Firewall 2008 and Panda Internet Security 2008. Both solutions are Vista-compatible and include a series of new features such as greater malware detection capacity, new low-level scanning for rootkits and a system for blocking malicious web pages, to boost protection against spyware and phishing. Panda Internet Security 2008 also has a PC tune-up feature to improve computer performance and a local backup option. Both betas can be downloaded free from: www.pandasoftware.com/promotions/betatesters_consolePSP/.

Panda Internet Security 2008 comes with new features such as “PC Tuneup” to help improve computer performance and remove cookies, temporary files, etc. It also offers a local backup option. This lets users make backup copies of important files and documents. They can select the frequency with which backup copies are made, their location (another hard disk, a USB device, CD, DVD, etc.) and even the type of files to back up. These security applications from Panda include free technical support via e-mail for the duration of the beta period.