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Wayne

Yoggie has announced the unveiling of its new Pico USB stick used to protect your PC from incoming data through mediums such as your wireless adapter, LAN or Bluetooth. Similar to the Gatekeeper series, Pico is a Linux based software running on the small thumb-sized device with a built-in 520MHz processor and 128MB of RAM to keep those protection-processing resources out of your computer and in the device.

In an enterprise network, most of the protection for computers is provided by separate appliances protecting the whole network. At home any type of spam protection or firewall software usually runs directly on the computer, taking up memory and processing power. With the Pico this is all taken care of within the stick which simply plugs into your USB port.
The Yoggie Pico runs 13 different applications providing protection from hacks, viruses, malware, worms and other attacks while frequently checking for updates to protect against new vulnerabilities. There is also no complicated installation and by simply plugging it in, it will automatically start filtering traffic.

The device comes in two versions; the Yoggie Pico Personal and the Yoggie Pico Pro. Both have the same protection features but the Pro version targets enterprises with a VPN client to remotely manage notebooks on the road. We expect to see the Yoggie Pico available in September of this year, with the Personal retailing for $179 and the Pro for $199 each. Both come with 2 years of licensing and can be extended for $30 (Personal) and $40 (Pro) per year.
The Yoggie Pico is available for pre-order from the Yoggie website

< http://www.yoggie.com/node/40> now with orders shipping June 10th, and will be available through other retailers sometime in September.

THERE is probably no technology company around (except perhaps for Microsoft) that gets more attention than Google. There are good reasons for this. The Internet has become an indispensable part of our business and personal lives. Google makes the Internet easier to use by offering great productivity tools that are free of charge.

What most folks don’t know is that Google offers free software packs for download that can really enhance your daily computer life. They can be found at

The three that I find most usefull are:

Google Desktop: Helps you find something your looking for on your computer by indexing all your data, including word docs, e-mail, photos, online articles and other Web pages. Then all you have to do is type in a keyword.

Norton Security Scan & Spyware Doctor Starter Edition: includes a special edition of Norton Security Scan, as well as another program, Spyware Doctor, to help you evaluate your computer’s vulnerability to security risks. The two apps combined will detect and remove viruses, worms and Trojans; detect, remove and blocks all types of Spyware; run and schedule scans to keep your system healthy. This is not the full-featured version of security and anti-spyware software which you’d have to pay for, but this is certainly a good place to start, especially if you have a small-business or home-office operation.

Toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox: Has a multitude of cool utilities that will save you time and frustration. Included is a pop-up blocker, a language converter for converting foreign web sites, and a spell checker that works in web based email.

These are only a few of the applications found within the package. Whats really cool is that if you don’t want an app you can delete if from the pack before download. And even if you download an app that you already have, if it is older than your present app it will NOT install.

Wayne

Even though Norton Antivirus programs are the most widely known, I’ve always shy’d away because of there intrusiveness. They in twine themselves into the registry so much that if they become corrupt it is almost impossible to fix short of reloading the operation system.

I’m happy to report that they have listened and everything I didn’t like has been fixed in there new release which also has a fresh name change. It’s called Norton 360.

Posted below is an article describing all the new features. I plan on purchasing this product and will report my findings in a later blog.

Introducing Norton 360 – All-In-One-Security! Click Here

Wayne
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I’ve been using spyware and other security software for almost two decades but far too often, I have wondered whether the cure was worse than the disease.

Symantec is a case in point. Older versions of its Norton Anti-Virus and Norton Internet Security programs have slowed down my machine and interrupted my work flow by asking me to decide what to do with every suspicious file or email it ran across.

I’m happy to report that the company reformed its ways. Its newest product, Norton 360, has no noticeable impact on system performance and has left me blissfully almost unaware of its presence.

That doesn’t mean it’s not doing its job. It’s just being quiet about it. The software, which costs $69.99 per year for up to 3 household PCs, is designed to protect users from viruses, spyware, phishing attacks and other security threats.

It also has a two-way firewall that blocks incoming threats and outbound threats – malicious software that “phones home” to send personal information to a rogue server. There is also a “PC Tuneup” feature that removes temporary files left behind by Windows or your browser and defragments your disks to speed up drive access.

In addition, there is now a backup feature that allows you to automatically backup to an external drive or to an online server run by Symantec (you get two gigabytes of online backup free and can purchase additional space). I’m a big fan of online and other off-premise backup strategies because they protect you even if the unspeakable happens such as fire, flood, hurricane, earthquake or worse.

Unlike some backup software, this product doesn’t try to compress or otherwise alter your files. That leaves you with a backup that you can access from any PC even if it’s not running Norton 360.

Because Norton 360 is so unobtrusive, I was wondering if it was even working until I discovered its view statistics option that told me that it had detected and blocked two viruses and one piece of spyware. It also informed me that it had automatically completed 53 security and program updates to make sure my protection isn’t out of date.

For Internet Explorer users, the program is able to help protect you from malicious websites by checking against a database of known bad sites and analyzing sites on the fly to see if they contain code that could lead to “drive-by downloads” of malicious software that could jeopardize your security or harm your PC. Unfortunately, this feature doesn’t work with Firefox, Opera and other browsers besides Internet Explorer.

I also used the program to defragment my disk drive, which puts all of your files in contiguous areas of the drive so that the drive heads can access your data more quickly. Earlier versions of Norton products used to give you feedback as they defragmented your drives but in the spirit of leaving you alone, this one doesn’t tell you anything other than that it did a defrag. Personally, I wouldn’t mind having a little more reassurance that it’s doing its job as long as that didn’t slow down my PC.

Unlike some competitive products from ZoneLabs and TrendMicro, the new Norton product doesn’t have wireless network protection. It also lacks features to clean up the Windows registry (which can sometimes slow down a PC) as well as other system performance tweaks you’ll find in other packages such as Iolo’s System Mechanic.

Parental controls, ad-blocking and anti-spam tools are not included with the product but you can add them by downloading the Norton Add-on pack. Actually, I think this is a pretty good idea. The company kept the product leaner and faster by leaving out features that a lot of users don’t need while making them available at no cost for people who do need them. Perhaps Microsoft could learn from this example.

Overall, I give Norton 360 good marks for being easy to install and configure, and knowing when to stay out of your way and not slow you down – which is exactly the kind of progress I like to see when it comes to security.

By Larry Magid © MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.