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As of last month, Facebook has been declared the most popular web site on the internet.

This means that more people spend time on it than Google, Yahoo, and a whole host of other web sites that most use on a daily basis.

This is an outstanding number for a social media web site to reach.

It was not that long ago where you had to be a college student to be able to sign up for the site and it was way behind Myspace.

But they unlocked the shackles off of the sign up process and people came in large numbers.

Any site in the world would love to be in the position that Facebook is in now.

Facebook Has Become A Big Target

But there are some bad things that go along with being the number one web site on the internet.

It makes you become one of the biggest targets of black hat hackers out there.

There have been many attacks already that have focused on Facebook users and this latest news is sure to increase that number.

There is a new one going around now that is quite simple but turning out to be quite effective.

There are people out there, sending a message telling Facebook users that they are going to need to reset their passwords.

They either send this message through the user’s email account or through a message on Facebook itself.

The message claims that a bad person has access to their account, and that they need to click that specific link so that they can reset their password.

But what really happens is that the person gives the hacker who sent the link the correct password when they are trying to reset it.

So far it has not been determined where these phishing attacks are coming from, but this attack is simple enough that people should be able to avoid it.

Be Careful With Your Passwords

Most of the time, Facebook will not ask you for your password.

Especially through your email account.

They will tell you to go to Facebook itself and to change your password from there.

This only happens rarely and only if they believe that your account has been compromised.

So if you get any emails that have this message in them, be very skeptical.

Nine times out of ten, this message is not coming from Facebook, but someone trying to attack your account.

Also, it is especially important that you do not ever share your password on a site that is not Facebook itself.

Look at the address bar on your browser.

This will let you know if you are on an official Facebook site.

So if anyone comes around asking for your password, just tell them no.

Or better yet, do not respond at all.

Most of the time, the email is fake and there is nothing wrong with your account.

AT&T and Research in Motion (RIMM) have worked together to launch Blackberry Professional Software in an attempt to lure small and medium sized businesses to the BlackBerry service.

This new BlackBerry software package makes the handheld email system cheaper and easier to use than ever. The package can cater for up to 30 users and offers a wide range of features such as access to email, contacts, a calendar facility, and internet access, which allows small to mid-sized businesses source information or even update their own content managed website remotely from anywhere in the world.

The new software package is much simpler than the Enterprise version of BlackBerry that is used by larger businesses. It doesn’t need a dedicated RIM server, and it can be easily installed on a number of e-mail servers such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange. In addition to this, the new software system employs a number of predefined user policies. These policies provide a straightforward version of the security and IT features provided by BlackBerry’s Enterprise service, so they give small businesses access to a number of important features, including the ability to limit features on an employee’s handset, as well as being able to lock down lost and stolen BlackBerry handsets.

Michael Woodward, AT&T’s vice president of business voice, data and wireless products, believes that their new software will help small and medium sized businesses to take advantage of the blackberry services that were previously only available to larger companies. He said: “BlackBerry Professional Software will allow our small business customers to more easily afford and implement blackberry service so that they have many of the controls and security features and the productivity benefits of staying connected that large business customers enjoy.”

BlackBerry Professional Software offers businesses the opportunity to take advantage of either a five or ten user package. These packages are available at a reasonable price, making them far cheaper than the larger Enterprise service. The new software is only available to businesses with fewer than 30 employees. However, if a business on the new programme finds itself outgrowing this limit, their software can be easily upgraded to the much larger Enterprise server.

Analysts believe that the simplicity of this new BlackBerry programme will make it a resounding success. Jack Gold, analyst with J. Gold Associates, said: “Basically, smaller businesses still have wireless e-mail needs, but generally don’t have IT departments to install and maintain complex e-mail systems. This is a good way for AT&T to sell more smartphones, while offering their clients a way to enable wireless e-mail.”

Chris Hall, senior director of BlackBerry offers at AT&T, echoed this sentiment. He said: “Small and midsized business need voice and e-mail to do business, and this solution fits the needs of legal firms, to small financial companies, to catering companies.”

BlackBerry Professional Services is currently available in the USA, although it is unknown if and when it will be made available to small businesses in the UK.

Source:

App Scout

IT Management

Phoenix Business Journal

23 July 2009 (Hong Kong) – According to the latest research report issued by Knight Frank, a stabilisation in demand coupled with a sharp rent fall in the past nine months indicates that the downturn in the office leasing market may come to an end sooner than expected. Knight Frank says Grade-A office rents will bottom by the fourth quarter of the year.

Mr Mark Bernard, Executive Director of Commercial Sales & Leasing Department at Knight Frank, says, “A number of positive signs have emerged recently, indicating that the demand for offices might be stabilising. The number of newly launched hedge funds reportedly increased from four in the first quarter to ten in the second quarter. Certain small financial companies that previously wanted to surrender part of their office spaces withdrew their decisions, due to improving business volume. A wave of new listings in the local stock market is also forthcoming in the second half of the year. This revival of financial activity will lend support to the demand for office space.”

Grade-A office rents in Hong Kong dropped 8.8% in the second quarter, an improvement on the 14.9% decline during the first. In June, office rents fell an average of 3.0% and there were further signs rent levels were stabilising in some non-core areas. For example, rents in Quarry Bay dropped a mere 0.4% — the least among all major business districts, followed by Kowloon East and Tsim Sha Tsui, where rent levels fell 1.1% and 1.7%, respectively.

A number of major deals were recorded in non-core areas last month. Manulife confirmed its take-up of eight floors in Kwun Tong 223, with a total area of 240,000 sq ft; Census and Statistics Department committed to three floors covering 50,000 sq ft in Landmark East in Kwun Tong; while Bausch & Lomb, a contact lens and eye-care retailer, leased 10,000 sq ft of space in Manhattan Place in Kowloon Bay. As business confidence improved, office expansion was also seen in core areas. One example involved a law firm that leased 33,000 sq ft of space in Edinburgh Tower in Central.

In the sales market, the number of large-scale transactions increased substantially in the second quarter. Major deals in the past month included 18 floors of Cyber Plaza in Tsim Sha Tsui, acquired by Fancy Trend Investment for HK$254.4 million or HK$4,240 per sq ft as well as the en-bloc transaction of Continental Diamond Plaza in Causeway Bay, which changed hands for HK$838 million or HK$18,217 per sq ft. Another en-bloc transaction involved Po Sang Bank Building in Mong Kok, which was bought by Moral Winner Investment for HK$250 million or HK$5,702 per sq ft.

Office sales activity has bounced back to levels last seen before the onset of the recent financial crisis. There were over 280 sales transactions in June, representing a 70.0% month-on-month rise and the highest level since early 2008. Total sales in June were triple the value of the previous month. However, activity slowed down significantly in early July, as buyers adopted a wait-and-see attitude after having witnessed a surge in office prices for four consecutive months.

 “The capital values of offices continued to surge. After rising 15.2% in May, the average price of Grade-A offices grew a further 8.9% last month. By the end of June, office prices had rebounded by about 40% from the trough in February, outperforming the prime retail and luxury residential sales markets.” Mr Bernard continues.

 Mr Bernard concludes, “However, the Grade-A office sales market may enter a consolidation period and sales activity is expected to slow in the near term, as the recent price surge has already priced in a significant improvement in the real economy. ”

Everyone is playing video games now. When they arrived on the scene, the main audience for them were teens that were somewhat socially inept or “geeky”, but that has changed.

Now, not only do kids and teenager play video games but grown men and women play them in their spare time as well. In fact, the 25-34 age group is one of the largest group of customers buying these PlayStation games and Xbox games.

Women love this kind of computer simulated interaction too and account for 40% of the main audience. The game consoles market is so large that almost no demographic is excluded.

According to recent studies, video games are now more popular than television. Twenty years ago families would sit down together and watch the Cosby Show. Millions still watch television every night. But the world of entertainment has changed.

There are now thousands of websites dedicated to discussions regarding specific games. For example. there are sites that have discussion boards on strategies and updates and tips for gamers dedicated solely to Madden Football.

In recent years, U.S. sales of video games have begun to pass Hollywood box office revenues. That statistic won’t change and the gap between the two will only continue to grow larger as more and more people get hooked on the realistic simulations that companies are putting out.

This is especially true as the gaming industry has begun to target young children. Some say that video games are contributing to the dumbing down of America’s kids. Perhaps that is not true.

Electronic games promote a lot of beneficial things such as hand eye coordination, improved concepts of literature such as character development, and can make learning fun and exciting. There are tons of new ones on the market that teach reading and arithmetic through both handheld and console video games.

There is even talk of incorporating them in the learning strategy for some schools. Children’s hospitals have also found an excellent use for them. Often times when children are undergoing treatments for serious illnesses such as cancer or sickle cell anemia their treatments can be long and painful. Hand held video games are a wonderful way to brighten a child’s day and take their mind off of what is happening.

Video games are extremely popular and have caused a revolution in the entertainment industry. They are fun for everyone and are shaking off the bad rap they’ve had in the past. If you aren’t already playing them then you should start today!

If your company is established business, which uses one or another in-house developed Business Management System and you are now in situation when you are moving the business to the new phase, where you need industry strength ERP system behind, or how now they name it accounting backoffice, you may be interested to read on how Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains can do the job for you. Of course, and this is not a big secret, GP integration needs to be designed and programmed by GP consultants, who will work in concert with your internal IT professionals. Let’s take a look at typical scenarios:

1. Sales Order Processing and Vendor Drop Shipping. If you have strong presence on the web as eCommerce reseller, there is the chance, that what you actually do is transfer customer sales orders to vendor drop ship purchase orders. If this is the case, you will need to integrate your SOP system with Microsoft Great Plains. The first and the most reliable tool to choose from and consider on the first place is GP Integration Manager. In IM itself, please review eConnect connectors to integrate Sales Order Processing and Purchase Receipt documents. eConnect route is definitely faster, in order to see the difference you should know that traditional IM connector uses Great Plains workstation as OLE server to do the job, basically filling up fields in the form and so, validating business logic

2. Direct eConnect programming. This option should be faster in comparison to Integration Manager way, as IM eConnect connector has to do all the steps in business logic validation, while in eConnect MS Visual Studio.Net c# or VB programming you can choose the steps to perform in business logic validation. However eConnect “atomic” stored procedures might still be less efficient as they had to validate the logic of Microsoft Dexterity

3. SQL Stored Procedures approach. SQL is definitely the fastest tool to try, however you should be proficient in SQL scripting and understand the impact of various SQL expressions on GP data extraction and manipulation performance: Select versus SQL cursor is good example. This is not the only warning – when you use SQL update, delete or insert query, you can damage GP DYNAMICS or company database tables

4. Integration Mapping. Your employees or traditional IT department contractors might be giving you the signal that they’ll integrate Microsoft Dynamics GP with your legacy Sales system. Microsoft as successor of Great Plains Software, knows that GP is mid-size ERP package and being such it requires consulting partner network to sell MRP software and do certified GP ERP installation and implementation. Of course your people could ultimately and theoretically be done with the GP implementing job, however you should understand the risks and learning curve cost impacts

5. Diving to Technology Ocean. GP technologies include: Microsoft Dexterity, SQL Server 2005 and 2000, GP ReportWriter, GP Modifier with VBA, Crystal Reports, eConnect and XML Web Services, GP Integration Manager with eConnect connectors. MS Sharepoint and GP Business Portal at this time are in market attacking mode, so if you need such practical modules as Electronic Document Delivery, Requisition Management (successor of eRequisition), Order Management (successor of eOrder)

6. Pervasive SQL or Ctree integrations. There are chances that your company had hard time in earlier 2000 and you lapsed to pay Microsoft Great Plains annual enhancement program. In this situation, if you plan to get new GP version, currently GP 10.0 license keys, you will have to undergo GP enhancement reenrollment procedure