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Fire up iTunes and check for update when you connect your iPhone to your computer

iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update

This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:

• Cut, Copy & Paste with shake to undo
• Landscape keyboard in key applications
• Enhanced Messages application
- Send and receive photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS*
- Forward and delete single or multiple messages
• Added search feature in Mail, Calendar, Notes and iPod
• Spotlight search across iPhone
• Support for CalDAV and subscriptions in Calendar
• Improvements to Safari
- Performance
- HTML 5 support
- HTTP Streaming audio and video
- Auto-fill usernames and passwords
• New Voice Memos application
• Sync Notes with a Mac or PC via iTunes
• Internet Tethering over USB and Bluetooth*
• Browse and download movies, TV shows, and audiobooks from the iTunes Store**
• Stereo Bluetooth***
• Wi-Fi auto login
• Enhanced Stocks application
• More Parental Control options for Apps, Music, Movies and TV Shows
• iTunes account creation and login**
• YouTube account login and access to subscriptions, ratings and favorites**
• Shake to shuffle
• New languages, dictionaries, and keyboards
• Find my iPhone and Remote Wipe via MobileMe (subscription required)**
• Support for more Exchange policies
• Create and send Exchange meeting invitations
• Search mail on server (Exchange Server 2007 and supported IMAP servers)
• Search LDAP company directory
• VPN on demand and VPN proxy support
• Encrypted configuration profiles
• Encrypted iTunes backups
• 1,000 new developer APIs, including:
- In App Purchases
- Apple Push Notification Service
- Accessories support
- Peer to Peer Connectivity
- Embedded Maps
- iPod Library Access
• Bug fixes

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3G S

* Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S and requires support from your wireless provider.
** Not available in all regions or in all languages.
*** Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S.

This week brought a major update to Microsoft Office 2007 — Service Pack 2, a free download that fixes bugs, improves performance and adds a few new features in the company’s bundle of productivity applications (see my review).

This update should arrive automatically if you use Windows’ Microsoft Update option, or you can download the 290-megabyte file yourself.

The headline attraction of Office 2007 SP2 is the support it adds for some important, non-Microsoft file formats. It can read and write Open Document Format files, which may help Office users share files with people running the sometimes-unimpressive, but always free and open-source OpenOffice.org suite. Office 2007 SP2 also lets users save a copy of their work as a Portable Document Format file — a helpful feature that Microsoft had unwisely required people to install an optional add-on to use before.

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Microsoft has announced that the Release Candidate version of Windows 7 will be available to the public as a free download on May 5. And since the RC version seems to be pretty much finished (I have not tried it), then it’s essentially giving it away for more than a year: as mentioned earlier, it won’t expire until 1 June next year.

RC includes a couple of new features, mainly Remote Media Streaming (so you can stream stuff from your home PC to your work PC, for example), and in pro versions, Windows XP Mode (below).

The slight drawback is that if or when you want to buy the final version, it’s not designed to install over the beta RC. Microsoft is only testing the normal use case, which is an upgrade from a previous version of Windows.

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I would not recommend using it as a main OS if reinstalling Windows 7 from scratch later is something you’d like to avoid. However, installing Windows 7 on a test computer, or one you don’t mind reinstalling later, for the purpose of kicking the tires sounds great.

The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin, the lead defense contractor for the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, suggested yesterday that cyber-attacks had not caused any serious security breaches in the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program.

Still, defense and corporate officials said attacks on the Pentagon as well as the F-35 program are constant, and former defense officials familiar with the program said some of the F-35’s less sensitive systems have been infiltrated by cyber-intruders.

“We know we are probed on this every day. We have very aggressive defensive systems. The more sensitive the information, the greater the safeguards are,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. He said he was not aware of any sensitive F-35 technology having been compromised by a cyber-attack.

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Redmond suffered yet another butter fingers incident over the weekend when the company let slip that the near-ready version of Windows 7 will be made available on 5 May.

The company’s partner program website revealed the date for the release candidate of its forthcoming operating system on Saturday.

Neowin picked up on the apparent gaffe and has a screen grab of the website here. Microsoft has since amended it, by removing the date from its site.

It had been carrying the message that paying subscribers to MDSN and TechNet could get their hands on the RC ahead of the 5 May release, when partners will be able to download it too.

General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could “think like the bad guy.” Applicants, it said, must understand hackers’ tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems.

In the Pentagon’s budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011.

With warnings that the U.S. is ill-prepared for a cyberattack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology to protect everything from the electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes.

President Barack Obama appointed a former Bush administration aide, Melissa Hathaway, to head the effort, and her report was delivered Friday, the White House said.

While the country had detailed plans for floods, fires or errant planes drifting into protected airspace, there is no similar response etched out for a major computer attack.

David Powner, director of technology issues for the Government Accountability Office, told Congress last month that the U.S. has no recovery plan for a digital disaster.

“We’re clearly not as prepared as we should be,” he said.

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Brocade® (Nasdaq:BRCD) today announced the Brocade IronView® Network Manager (INM) integration with Microsoft Forefront “Stirling.” This allows network operators to effectively track and perform configuration changes and software updates, identify and resolve network failures, and address network security breaches from a centralized location.

The Brocade INM tool acts as the Forefront “Stirling” gateway for Brocade switches, routers, and wireless LAN (WLAN) products. INM leverages the sFlow traffic monitoring capabilities embedded in Brocade IP networking solutions and combines advanced network management capabilities to expand the functionality of Forefront “Stirling” to Brocade IP devices. It further simplifies network protection, provisioning, diagnostics, and problem resolution to provide critical visibility across endpoints, messaging, collaboration servers, and Brocade IP products.

Key Benefits of Forefront “Stirling”

Forefront “Stirling” is an integrated security suite that delivers comprehensive protection across endpoints, application servers, and edge solutions with the following benefits:

* Comprehensive protection, integrating industry-leading detection technologies
* A single management console for configuring security policies and visibility across organizations
* Part of multi-layered defense that works with existing Microsoft infrastructure

Microsoft Forefront “Stirling” enables software, hardware, and services vendors to share and use security event information across the Forefront “Stirling” environment and through products developed by other members of the extensive partner ecosystem. As a result, partners can enhance the effectiveness of their security technologies and better protect customer IT environments.

Brocade INM Key Benefits with Microsoft Forefront “Stirling”

* Acts as the Forefront “Stirling” gateway for all Brocade IP devices, delivering added network layer security
* Communicates and analyzes security status with Microsoft Forefront “Stirling” products and management console, providing real-time network behavior visibility
* Simplifies Brocade IP networking and Microsoft Forefront “Stirling” network modifications from a centralized point to quickly adapt to changing business demands

“This integration enhances and simplifies the user experience for our customers,” said Ben Taft, senior director of strategic alliances for Brocade. “Through our strategic relationship with Microsoft, we’re empowering network operators with the tools needed to centrally secure broad networks while making it easier to manage and coordinate security across the IT Infrastructure.”

“Microsoft is pleased to work with Brocade to develop interoperability between Forefront ‘Stirling’ and INM in order to give our customers more comprehensive and responsive security across the enterprise,” said John Chirapurath, director in the identity and security business group at Microsoft Corp. “Microsoft is committed to collaborating with top industry vendors and providing solutions that help organizations more effectively achieve their business goals. We call this ‘business-ready security.’”

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The four convicted men behind The Pirate Bay — Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom — say they can’t and won’t pay the $3.6 million in damages and promised the site will continue running. So much for Hollywood’s sweet victory and happy ending.

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Posted on Pirate Bay’s website along with a press conference video:

So, the dice courts judgment is here. It was lol to read and hear, crazy verdict. But as in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow. That’s the only thing hollywood ever taught us.”

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Wearing bandanas and waving Jolly Roger flags, hundreds of supporters of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay demonstrated on Saturday against a Swedish court’s conviction of the Internet site’s organizers.

The Stockholm district court on Friday sentenced Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom to one year in prison each for helping millions of Pirate Bay users commit copyright violations of movies, music and computer games.

The court also ordered them to pay 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to international entertainment companies, including Warner Bros., Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.

The entertainment industry applauded the move, calling it a landmark decision protecting the rights of those whose livelihood depend on creative activity.

All four defendants have vowed to appeal the verdict.

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