Congratulations to Lisa Rowload, VP of Lending with Neches Federal Credit Union!

She is the WINNER of a new Apple iTouch from the Percento Technologies drawing at the 2011 TCUL 77th Annual Meeting – Conference in Austin Texas this week.

Thank you to everyone who joined our drawing.

Financial Technology Support

Microsoft’s Windows accounted for 78.6% of worldwide operating system revenue in 2010, up nearly a full percentage point, despite growth in Linux servers and Mac desktops, according to Gartner.

Gartner’s new analysis adds up the revenue for both server and desktop operating systems worldwide, comparing Microsoft (MSFT) to IBM (IBM), HP (HPQ), Oracle (ORCL), Red Hat (RHT) and Apple (AAPL).

VISUAL HISTORY: Windows after 25 years

Windows has long dominated the desktop market, but has had a tougher fight on the server side. Adding the two segments together shows Windows grabbing $23.8 billion in 2010 revenue, up from 2009 when Windows accounted for $21.9 billion and 77.9% of the market by revenue share.

IBM, maker of Unix and mainframe operating systems, came in second place in 2010 with $2.3 billion revenue and 7.5% market share. Although Red Hat, the top Linux vendor, accounted for only 2% of share and Apple’s Mac OS 1.7%, Gartner said Linux servers and Mac desktops are on the rise.

“Linux (server) and Mac OS were the fastest-growing subsegments in the server and client OS segments, respectively, while Microsoft maintained its leading position in the overall OS market,” Gartner said.

Microsoft growth was “driven by positive Windows 7 adoption and [the] PC refreshment cycle.”

Windows desktops accounted for $17.7 billion of OS revenue, and 96.6% of worldwide desktop share, followed by Mac OS at 2.8% and Linux at 0.6%.

Counting by revenue, rather than unit share, seems to help Microsoft’s cause. Usage tracker Net Applications gives Windows 89.6% of share by number of users, while StatCounter gives Windows 91.6% of users with the rest going mostly to Mac and Linux.

On the server side, Windows earned $6.2 billion in revenue, for just over 51% of the market. HP’s Unix systems took in 8.6%, IBM’s Unix 8.5%, Linux on the whole took 8.4% and IBM’s mainframe, 7.8%.

The small cost of servers running open source Linux naturally results in a revenue share that is much lower than its unit share.

An ongoing survey of the top million websites by W3Techs gives Linux and other Unix-like systems 64.1% of Web server operating system unit share, compared to 35.9% for Windows and nearly zero for Mac OS. Numbers like these have led people like Linux Foundation chief Jim Zemlin to brag that Linux powers the majority of Internet traffic despite its small revenue share.

The overall operating system market grew 7.8% to 30.4 billion in revenue in 2010, according to Gartner, with desktop systems leading the way.

One category Gartner did not include in its analysis is the mobile operating system. Usage of Android and Apple’s iOS still account for a small portion of total OS use, but it is growing quickly due to proliferation of smartphones and tablets.

Net Applications, which lumps desktop and mobile operating systems together, found that Apple’s iOS rose from 0.81% to 1.87% in the past year, while Windows dropped from 91.3% to 89.6%.

Windows 7 seems to be on fire, selling 350 million licenses and becoming the fastest selling operating system in history, according to Microsoft. A PC World analysis, while not definitive, suggests that the 350 million licenses may actually be a step back for Microsoft, representing only about two-thirds of total PC sales, much lower than Microsoft’s typical desktop share.

However, current usage patterns as tracked by Net Applications shows Windows share dropping only slightly, and that is largely due to gains made by mobile operating systems.

IOS, which powers iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, is actually more widely used than Linux desktops, according to Net Applications. IOS share is nearly double that of desktop Linux and more than three times higher than Android’s.

Source

IBM on Tuesday reported quarterly sales growth across all its major divisions and raised its earnings outlook for the full year, the latest sign that business spending in the IT sector continues to recover.

IBM’s total revenue for the quarter ended March 31 was US$24.6 billion, up 8 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, or up 5 percent on a constant currency basis. Net income after one-time charges climbed 10 percent to $2.9 billion, IBM said.

Revenue was up in all geographies, with sales growing 12 percent in the Asia Pacific and 9 percent in the Americas. The recovery in Europe continued to lag behind, with sales up 3 percent for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

“On the strength of this performance, we are raising our full-year 2011 operating earnings per share expectations to at least $13.15,” IBM Chairman, President and CEO Sam Palmisano said in a statement.

Revenue from Global Technology Services increased 6 percent to $9.86 billion and revenue from Global Business Services increased 7 percent to $4.7 billion, IBM said.

In a conference call to discuss the results, financial analysts asked why IBM’s service signings for the quarter were down 14 percent, or 18 percent when adjusted for currency fluctuations. The figure shows the total value of service contracts signed during the quarter, even though revenue from those contracts often is not recorded until much later.

The signings were down partly because public-sector spending is down, said Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge. Also, signings vary widely from quarter to quarter and were up 25 percent in the fourth quarter last year, so it’s not surprising if IBM was “rebuilding the pipeline” in the first quarter, he said.

Its hardware sales increased 19 percent to $4 billion. “This was the best first-quarter growth in over a decade,” Loughridge said. IBM’s mainframe business continued its recovery, with sales up 41 percent from a year earlier, and its Power systems also did well, with sales of those Unix products up 19 percent, IBM said.

Software revenue climbed 6 percent to $5.3 billion. Within that, sales of IBM’s middleware, including its Websphere and Tivoli products, were up 16 percent to $3.3 billion. Revenue from Websphere alone jumped sharply at 51 percent, IBM said.

IBM’s business was relatively unscathed by the massive earthquake that hit Japan on March 11, Loughridge said. It incurred about $20 million in damage to its infrastructure in the country, but there was otherwise little impact from a business perspective.

Japan provides about 15 percent of IBM’s revenue, mostly from service contracts, which tend to be stable even in turbulent times. “Our employees there are safe and that’s the number-one thing,” he said.

IBM raised its earnings forecast for the full year to at least $12.73 per share on a GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) basis, up from $12.56 previously.

After the results, IBM’s shares were down about 2 percent on the after-hours markets, at $162.09.

Source

Developer James Laird has extracted and posted the RSA private key behind Apple’s AirPort Express, as well as an open-source “ShairPort” solution allowing music can be streamed from iTunes to other devices and services.

Developer James Laird said that he had discovered that the Airport Express streaming solution hid a private key, and extracted it after his girlfriend had had trouble connecting the two.

Laird posted the RSA private key on the VLC development newsgroup, and then the “ShairPort” software on his own private blog. It currently stands at version 0.03, after Laird discovered problems with IPv6.

“My girlfriend moved house, and her Airport Express no longer made it with her wireless access point,” Laird wrote. “I figured it’d be easy to find an ApEx emulator – there are several open source apps out there to play to them. However, I was disappointed to find that Apple used a public-key crypto scheme, and there’s a private key hiding inside the ApEx. So I took it apart (I still have scars from opening the glued case!), dumped the ROM, and reverse engineered the keys out of it.”

The AirPort Express, now several years old, is an 802.11g access point. More importantly, however, it serves as a means for Express users to wirelessly stream music from their Mac and iTunes to other places in the home, including speakers. Cracking the wireless key means that other developers may be able to tie into ShairPoint into their own private services, allowing them to receive iTunes music from remote locations.

Apple users have wanted wished for their music to be stored in iTunes and then streamed for years. In January 2010, MP3.com’s Michael Robertson claimed such a feature was coming from Apple and its Lala.com service. Instead, Apple launched the iPad.

Apple does allow limited iTunes streaming; the recent release of iTunes 10.2.1 – seemingly identical to the 10.2 version of iTunes – includes an improved version of Home Sharing that lets users stream content from their iTunes library between computers to an iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM), or iPod touch (third and fourth generation), as long as the device is running iOS 4.3.

While there’s no indication that a hardware manufacturer would build in ShairPort, other apps (an Android app that connected to iTunes?) might be able to build it in.

Other root keys have also been leaked. Sony has been the most recent victim, with the root key guarding the PlayStation 3 recently leaking. Sony, however, partially covered up the hole by settling with hacker George Hotz, which includes an injunction against posting details of the hack, or, presumably, the root key.

A more serious breach occurred last September, when the HDCP master key protecting Blu-ray discs was cracked and posted to the Web.

Source

Masters 2011 is underway as CBS broadcasts live from Augusta National.

Masters 2011 Live Stream is officially active as golf’s biggest tournament kicks off from Augusta National. Fans of the sport (not me) eagerly await Tiger Woods as he is set to tee of this afternoon. How will Tiger perform during The Masters 2011? Phil Mickelson is favored to win but you never know what will happen on the golf course!

CBS Sports is offering full coverage with their Masters 2011 Live Stream as golf’s biggest tournament gets underway. It is a beautiful day at Augusta National and it will be interesting to see how Tiger Woods performs during his first round. For all of you golf fans out there, enjoy the live video feed of The Masters 2011 below: click here

Percento Technologies International – IT Management and Consulting

Many federal Web sites will go dark if the government shuts down tomorrow night, the White House indicated this afternoon.

A 16-page memo (PDF) to federal agencies says their Web sites may stay online only in a small number of situations, including tax collection and handling “exempted” activities such as payments and other functions that are paid for by previous annual budgets.

“The mere benefit of continued access by the public to information about the agency’s activities would not warrant the retention of personnel or the obligation of funds to maintain, or update, the agency’s Web site” during a shutdown, says the memo, prepared by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

It adds: “If an agency’s Web site is shut down, users should be directed to a standard notice that the Web site is unavailable during the period of government shutdown.” The IRS’s Web site would likely stay online, the memo says, because tax collection is an exempted activity, “but the entire Treasury Department Web site would not.”

The current temporary appropriations bill funds the federal government only through 12:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. After that, the procedures outlined in federal regulations and a federal law called the Anti-Deficiency Act kick in.

Making the matter more complicated is that many federal agencies say they have enough money in reserves or other funds to stay open at least through next week. That list, according to The Washington Post, includes the Patent and Trademark Office, the Federal Highway Administration, the Veterans Health Administration, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Energy Department, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Federal police and Defense Department military personnel are generally exempted too.

This is something of an unprecedented situation for federal Web sites, which were in an embryonic stage during the last government shutdown in the mid-1990s.

Another option is that the Web sites will stay online, but they won’t be updated.

Also affected: federal employees’ BlackBerrys, cell phones, and laptops. The White House says that non-exempted “employees will be prohibited, after midnight on Friday night, from working remotely, such as from home–including by accessing agency information technology.”

The Anti-Deficiency Act exempts workers dealing with “emergency situations” affecting “the safety of human life or the protection of property.” That’s been interpreted to mean that ongoing, regular functions of government not affecting public safety don’t qualify as emergency situations.

Here’s a longer list of what government services will continue, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. And here’s more from the Office of Personnel Management.

Source

The first three months of the year have so far witnessed a rise in malware and some notable cyberattacks, according to a report released today by Panda Security.

Laptop computers and other digital devices carried into the U.S. may be seized from travelers without a warrant and sent to a secondary site for forensic inspection, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last week.

The ruling is the second in less than a year that allows the U.S. government to conduct warrantless, offsite searches of digital devices seized at the country’s borders.

A federal court in Michigan last May issued a similar ruling in a case challenging the constitutionality of the warrantless seizure of a computer at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The defendant in a child pornography case also contended that a subsequent search of the device at a secondary computer forensic facility violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Several other courts, including the Ninth Circuit itself, have ruled that warrantless, suspicion-less searches of laptops and other digital devices can take place at U.S. border locations.

The issue of border searches is an important one for businesses because corporate travelers often carry laptops holding sensitive company data across U.S. borders.

Privacy advocates and travel groups have expressed concern that searches of such laptops could expose such sensitive corporate or customer information, especially citing the Department of Homeland Security’s policy of copying or downloading the data if necessary.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that according to government documents it has obtained, U.S. customs officials searched electronic devices belonging to about 6,600 travelers between October 2008 and June 2010. The ACLU also said that U.S. officials confiscated more than 220 devices between October 2008 and June 2009.

The Ninth Circuit court ruled on an appeal filed by the government in a case against Howard Cotterman, who was charged with producing, shipping and transporting child pornography based on evidence gathered from his laptop computers.

Cotterman’s laptops were seized at a border crossing in Lukeville, Ariz., upon his return to the country from a visit to Mexico. Custom officials decided to inspect Cotterman’s computers because their computer systems showed he was a registered sex offender in California.

Officials found no incriminating data in an initial inspection of Cotterman’s computers and a digital camera at the border. However, because many of the files on the computers were password protected, the agents decided to transport the systems to a digital forensics laboratory 170 miles away in Tucson.

Lab personnel copied all the content on Cotterman’s hard drives and used forensic analysis tools to analyze it. The search of the drives yielded hundreds of images depicting child pornography, authorities said. >more