VMware came up with a Beta program for the upcoming release of VMware Workstation 6.

Here is just a small list of features taken from VMware Workstation 6 Beta Program home page:

• Support for Windows Vista - Use Windows Vista as host operating system
• Multiple monitor display - You can configure a VM to span multiple monitors, or multiple VMs to each display on separate monitors
• Integrated Virtual Debugger - Workstation integrates with Visual Studio and Eclipse so you can deploy, run, and debug programs in a VM directly from your preferred IDE
• Automation APIs (VIX API 2.0) - You can write scripts and programs to automate VM testing
• Headless mode - You can run VMs in the background without the Workstation UI

You can find an extensive list of features, known issues and notes on

VMware Workstation 6 Beta Release notes page.

VMware Workstation 6 Beta is available for download after registration: http://register.vmware.com/content/beta/ws/registr...n.html . Version available for download has debugging enabled so it can be somewhat slow. Still it is fun because it has so many feature.

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Iomega Corporation (NYSE: IOM), a global leader in data storage and protection, today announced new versions of two of its versatile storage products: the high-end Iomega® UltraMax™ Desktop Hard Drive with expanded capacity to a towering 1TB*, and a new stylishly black small form-factor Iomega® dual interface Portable Hard Drive with 120GB** of storage capacity.

Iomega® UltraMax™ Desktop Hard Drive
Designed for Mac® OS X users, Iomega’s popular UltraMax Desktop Hard Drives deliver secure, high-capacity storage in a rugged enclosure that complements the Apple® Mac® Pro and Power Mac series of computers. With RAID 1 and a built-in FireWire and Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0) hub for future expansion, Iomega’s UltraMax Drives excel in digital content creation, graphic design, and other disk-intensive tasks.

“Apple’s Mac Pro is a thoroughbred personal computer that needs an external storage system that can keep pace,” said Peter Wharton, Vice President of Marketing, Iomega Corporation. “With FireWire 800, the Mac HFS+ file system, and RAID 1 performance, Iomega’s new UltraMax drive has incredible power right out of the box, and its interface choices and RAID options will enhance your workflow whether you’re connecting it to Mac Pro, an iMac, or a MacBook.”

In addition to the default mode of RAID 0, which stripes data across the UltraMax drive’s two 7200-RPM SATA hard drives, other drive settings include RAID 1, ’spanned’ (both hard drives are treated as a single volume), and ’simple’ (each hard drive is treated as its own drive letter). For ease of use, the new Iomega UltraMax Desktop Hard Drive has a manual RAID switch, allowing the user to turn off the RAID configuration and use the drive configured as JBOD.

The Iomega UltraMax Hard Drive is preformatted with Apple’s HFS+ file system for Mac OS X users. HFS+ makes more efficient use of large hard drives and supports journaling under Mac OS X, which makes it easier to recover data in case of a problem.

The stackable UltraMax drive enclosure complements the new Mac Pro series of Apple computers as well as the older Power Mac series. The enclosure is metallic grey with a mesh grill, an echo of the Mac Pro computer’s industrial design. Its three interfaces include FireWire® 800, FireWire 400, and Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0), and it provides users with a three-port Hi-Speed USB hub for easy expansion. Cables for FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0 operation are included with the drive.

Iomega® Black Portable Hard Drive
Fashionably thin at just 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) and an incredibly light 5.8 oz.(163 g), the Iomega® Black Portable Hard Drive 120 GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0/FireWire® is packed with ideal features for mobile users. It is the perfect storage companion for your Mac notebook, including host-powered operation and Drop Shock™ technology. The drive’s 2.5-inch hard drive delivers fast 5400 RPM performance and comes with both FireWire 400 (1394a) and USB 2.0 cables.

“Host-powered products are great for mobile users because they eliminate the need to bring along a power adapter and find a wall outlet for it,” said Wharton. “The Iomega Black Portable Hard Drive gets all the power it needs from the USB or FireWire cable. Choice of connectivity combined with 120 gigabytes and a stylish little package make the new Iomega Black Portable Hard Drive an ideal portable hard drive for road warriors and others that need more freedom and versatility in their storage products.”

Other travel-friendly features include the use of industry-leading EMC® Retrospect™ Express backup and disaster recovery software for improved data security. In addition, Iomega’s Drop Shock technology provides enhanced durability by helping protect both the drive and its data from unexpected bumps and jolts.

A single Iomega 120GB Dual Interface Black Portable Hard Drive can hold up to 480,000 photos, 2,220 hours of music, or 180 hours of video***.

Included Software
For secure storage and worry-free backup and disaster recovery, Iomega also includes EMC® Retrospect® Express software with the new UltraMax Drive and the new Black Portable Hard Drive. Retrospect Express delivers automated, reliable, cost-effective protection for Windows® and Mac® users. Its award-winning design makes it easy to set up and manage highly efficient backups on any personal computer, greatly simplifying disaster recovery. Users can back up open files, verify backup integrity during the backup, have scheduled backups proceed even without logging in, and recover individual files or a complete system to any point in time.

Operating System Compatibility
The Iomega® UltraMax™ Desktop Hard Drive 1TB Triple Interface is compatible with Mac® OS X 10.1 or above on Apple® computers with an Intel processor or G3 processor or higher. The UltraMax Drive can be reformatted to NTFS or FAT32 for use with a PC (instructions included), making it compatible with Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows XP Home and XP Professional editions, as well as the upcoming Windows Vista. FAT32 format allows cross-platform use.

The Iomega® Portable Hard Drive 120GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0/FireWire is compatible with Mac OS X 10.1 or higher, as well as Windows 2000 Professional/XP Home/XP Professional and the upcoming Windows Vista.

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Paris, December 18, 2006 - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced the availability of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9800, the newest member of Alcatel-Lucent’s award-winning family of 10-Gigabit Ethernet core switches that offer high-performance, high security, and enterprise-class availability at affordable prices. This chassis features twice the capacity of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9700. Also available are a new high-density 10-Gigabit Ethernet module and a new power-over-Ethernet (PoE) Gigabit Ethernet module.

The Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9000 family is ideal for enterprise network administrators who require switches in their network core and aggregation layer to support large amounts of user data being consolidated for 10 Gigabit connections. Similar to the other OmniSwitch 9000 models, the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9800 delivers wire-rate processing for IPv6/IPv4 and supports multicast applications, allowing businesses to benefit from these future trends at their own pace and at no extra cost.

The Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9000s can also be used at the edge to support converged applications and deliver industry leading quality of service (QoS) for multi-media applications, voice-over-IP (VoIP), video collaboration and database applications. OmniSwitch 9000 switches anticipate and address future requirements at the network’s edge with up to 384 ports of PoE-enabled 10/100/1000 Ethernet to the desktop.

The OmniSwitch 9000s are part of Alcatel-Lucent’s end-to-end enterprise switch family that includes stackable and modular edge switches, which use the Alcatel-Lucent Operating System (AOS) and Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniVista Network Management System for simplified manageability, high availability, advanced security and quality of service (QoS) features, at a reduced total cost of ownership.

“The Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9800 is ideal for use in the network core, however its strong security and power-over-Ethernet ports also make it ideal for use at the edge where support of voice, video and data convergence is critical,” said Eric Penisson, for Alcatel-Lucent’s network infrastructure activities. “The OmniSwitch 9800 is a versatile platform that will keep pace with growing enterprise performance and end-user needs while setting new performance standards for network uptime, security and services.”

“Enterprise network managers have been looking for switches that have a higher switching capacity to improve their network’s performance and are upgrading wiring closets as well,” said Steven J. Schuchart Jr., Senior Analyst for Enterprise Networks at Current Analysis. “Alcatel-Lucent has addressed those needs with the OmniSwitch 9000s. These products hit the sweet spot in this market by offering 10 Gigabit speeds with wire-speed power-over-Ethernet options at a very competitive price.”

The Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9800 features a completely redundant configuration starting at USD 37,495.

Opera web browser has reached version 9.10 RC1 on Windows.

Opera is a free alternative to Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers. It is pretty stable and feature packed application. The latest version although a beta has a number of improvements including built-in Fraud Protection technology. Opera also has a version for mobile phones, PDAs and communicators. Pretty decent software.

You can read the changelog for the latest version on Opera Desktop Team page.

You can download and test the browser here:

Windows MSI
Windows Classic

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Tokyo, December 12, 2006 - Fujitsu Limited today announced the development of the world’s first 2.5″ hard disk drive that offers storage capacity of 300 gigabytes (GB) with a Serial ATA⁽¹⁾ interface. The new hard disk drive “MHX2300BT” will be available in late February 2007. Featuring the highest storage capacity in the 2.5″ class, it will be available on a global basis for use primarily in multifunctional mobile PCs and digital TVs.

Fujitsu began selling hard disk drives with perpendicular magnetic recording in October of this year. It has been an industrial leader in introducing high-capacity 2.5″ hard disk drives, launching products with 160 GB in September 2005 and 200 GB in May 2006 that garnered high praise from many customers.

MHX2300BT marks the commercial introduction of second generation of perpendicular magnetic recording technology. The new hard disk drive will be offered in 300 GB, the highest storage capacity available in 2.5″ hard disk drives, and 250 GB versions, offering the capacity needed to store terrestrial broadcasting digital TV videos. This level of capacity makes these hard disk drives suitable alternatives to the 3.5″drives typically found in desktop PCs, and their small size makes them especially well-suited to flat-panel TVs with built-in recorders.

The new hard disk drives are the RoHS compliant⁽²⁾ and have read/write power consumption requirements of just 1.6 W, among the lowest in the world, making them environmentally-friendly products. They are also exceptionally quiet, emitting just 2.1 bels⁽³⁾ of noise at idle.

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SGI (NASDAQ: SGIC) today introduced the newest member of its storage portfolio, the easy-to- deploy SGI® InfiniteStorage 220 RAID system. This storage solution enables data consolidation for organizations of any size, with fully integrated software and a flexible appliance-like design for simplified deployments. These systems feature a number of configuration choices that allow customers to choose the exact features that match their storage requirements. With Fibre Channel or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) host connectivity, as well as a choice between SAS and SATA disk drives, the InfiniteStorage 220 can be introduced as a solution to a wide number of storage challenges. The affordable SGI InfiniteStorage 220 solution delivers maximum value for data backup, disaster recovery, and general file storage applications.

The new SGI InfiniteStorage 220 platform makes it easy to gain the benefits of high availability and RAID protection without the complexity of typical Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions. In concert with its new Storage Management Interface (SMI) software, the new storage platform builds in many improvements for storage environments, whether they are SAN or Direct Attach Storage (DAS) implementations:

• Ease of deployment - With only basic familiarity with servers and storage, users can set up and deploy cost-effective RAID storage.
• Ease of Management - Many tasks are automated and streamlined using SMI, including data protection and diagnostic tasks.
• Ease of growth - Low-impact scalability allows for the installation of additional storage to be managed easily and transparently without shutting down.

“The plug-and-play design of the SGI InfiniteStorage 220 storage solution makes high-performance RAID storage very accessible to any business, and lowers costs during the life of the platform,” explains Kurt Kuckein, SGI RAID product manager. “This newest addition to the SGI storage family broadens the choices and gives customers the ability to protect their current storage investments while integrating their choice of drives in a single enclosure. The scalability and flexibility suit RAID novices and experts alike.”

Start Small - Add As You Grow

The modular and cost-effective SGI InfiniteStorage 220 configurations allow businesses of any size to address small initial storage needs and scale up as their requirements grow. With a range from 2 to 48 drives, an InfiniteStorage 220 can cover the gamut of storage requirements for many organizations. Each platform can be configured with one or two controllers, supporting up to 12 integrated disk drives and up to 36 additional drives (in three add-on enclosures). This adds up to a capacity of 24TB with current 500GB SATA drives.

The simplicity of SGI’s InfiniteStorage 220 solutions overcomes the data management challenges of today and allows businesses to manage multiple drive technologies and expanding capacities without introducing complexity.

Pricing and Availability

The SGI InfiniteStorage 220 is now available for order with shipments beginning in early Q1 2007. InfiniteStorage 220 configurations start at less than $8,000.00 USLP. For more information please visit www.sgi.com/storage.

SGI - Innovation for Results™
SGI (NASDAQ: SGIC), delivers a complete range of high-performance server and storage solutions along with industry-leading professional services and support that enable its customers to overcome the challenges of complex data-intensive workflows and accelerate breakthrough discoveries, innovation and information transformation. SGI helps customers solve their computing challenges whether it’s enhancing the quality of life through drug research, designing and manufacturing safer and more efficient cars and airplanes, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense, or helping enterprises manage large data. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

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“Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.”

Firebug is an extension for Firefox web browser that allows you to edit and debug web page source code.

This release has the following changes:

1. CSS import rules are displayed with link to the imported style sheet
2. Edit button added to the HTML toolbar to be consisted with the CSS tab
3. The HTML editor has a streamlined UI
4. HTML body elements can now be edited, but using innerHTML instead of outerHTML (which won’t work)
5. Using the arrow keys while inspecting will draw the outline around the current element
6. After editing HTML, whitespace text nodes will not be wrongly inserted in the view
7. Ubuntu Linux now displays the correct theme graphics
8. On Mac OS X, the button to toggle the large command line is no longer obscured in the external Firebug window
9. Added a link to the FAQ for the very common problem people are having with the Style tab not working

You can download the extension from here: http://www.getfirebug.com/releases/firebug1.0-b4.xpi (Firefox is required)

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Sun Microsystems announced availability of Java Standard Edition 6. Java 6 has a number of new features, you can read more about them from this link: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/features.jsp . A quote from the website:

New Security Features and Enhancements

• Native platform Security (GSS/Kerberos) integration.
• Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) login module that employs LDAP authentication
• New Smart Card I/O API
  » Find out more

Integrated Web Services

• New API for XML digital signature services for secure web services
• New Client and Core Java Architecture for XML-Web Services (JAX-WS) 2.0 APIs
• New support for Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) 2.0
  » Find out more

Scripting Language Support (JSR 223)

• New framework and API for scripting languages
• Mozilla Rhino engine for JavaScript built into the platform
  » Find out more

Enhanced Management and Serviceability

• Improved JMX Monitoring API
• Runtime Support for dTrace (Solaris 10 and future Solaris OS releases only)
• Improved memory usage analysis and leak detection
  » Find out more

Increased Developer Productivity

• JDBC 4.0 support (JSR 221)
• Significant library improvements
• Improvements to the Java Platform Debug Architecture (JPDA) & JVM Tool Interface

Improved User Experience

• look-and-feel updates to better match underlying operating system
• Improved desktop performance and integration
• Enhanced internationalization support

Release Notes are available here: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/index.html .

Download URL: http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/ea.jsp

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Nmap main developer announced availability of nmap version 4.20 (as posted on http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2006/q4/0172.html ):

Hi Everyone,

I just posted the binaries for 4.20! Woohoo! This is the first “stable” release in almost 6 months, and contains tons of important changes over 4.11. But I think you guys are well familiar with those. Please give it a try in the next few hours if you can. Unless I hear about important problems, I’ll release it to the nmap-hackers later tonight or tomorrow morning. That posting will include a summary of changes, stupid pot smoking jokes, etc.

You can find the goods at:

http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-4.20.tar.bz2
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-4.20-s...up.exe
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-4.20-w...32.zip
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-4.20-1...rc.rpm
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-4.20-1...86.rpm
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-fronte...86.rpm
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-4.20-1...64.rpm
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-fronte...64.rpm
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-4.20.tgz

And here are the changes since RC2:

o Integrated the latest OS fingerprint submissions. The 2nd generation DB size has grown to 231 fingerprints. Please keep them coming! New fingerprints include Mac OS X Server 10.5 pre-release, NetBSD 4.99.4, Windows NT, and much more.

o Fixed a segmentation fault in the new OS detection system which was reported by Craig Humphrey and Sebastian Garcia.

o Fixed a TCP sequence prediction difficulty indicator bug. The index is supposed to go from 0 (”trivial joke”) to about 260 (OpenBSD). But some systems generated ISNs so insecurely that Nmap went
berserk and reported a negative difficulty index. This generally only affects some printers, crappy cable modems, and Microsoft Windows (old versions). Thanks to Sebastian Garcia for helping me
track down the problem.

Enjoy!
Fyodor

Additional Info

nmap is one of the most powerful network scanners that can be used for network auditing. nmap is capable to perform various types of network scan, e.g. TCP and UDP port scan. It can be installed on a wide variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, various Unix systems.

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Dell today introduced the PowerVault^TM MD3000, a versatile, direct-attached storage array delivering high performance and high availability for critical applications. The PowerVault MD3000 is the first external RAID SAS array from a tier-one storage system company.

“Direct attach storage is incredibly important to a large number of customers. With its performance and advanced software capabilities, the MD3000 will redefine how customers look at DAS,” said Darren Thomas, vice president and general manager of Dell storage and services. “At Dell, we want to change the economics of storage by providing easy-to-use, highly-capable storage at new levels of affordability.”

The expandability, availability, advanced snapshot and virtual disk copy functionality of the PowerVault MD3000 make it an ideal platform for clustered applications such as Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. In addition, these applications are including more advanced replication capability in the software itself. The MD3000 complements this by providing easy-to-use and highly-capable storage at a fraction of the price of storage area networks.

Added to this, the PowerVault MD3000 uses dual active/active RAID controllers to enhance performance and availability - producing up to 1,400 MB/s of throughput and approximately 90,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS).¹ The throughput performance aids applications such as video services and file serving while the high IOP/s make it ideal for applications with high transactional performance requirements - such as databases and email applications.

Dell Leading with Standards

The PowerVault MD3000 is Dell’s second storage product to comply with the Storage Bridge Bay 1.0 specification. Dell is a founding member of the Storage Bridge Bay (SBB) Working Group that is dedicated to developing industry standards that help accelerate the adoption of new storage technologies and deliver enhanced quality and affordability. Additional information on SBB can be found at www.sbbwg.org.

PowerVault MD3000 Features

Ideal Customer Scenarios

Pricing and Availability

The PowerVault MD3000 is available immediately worldwide with pricing beginning around $6,499. For more information on Dell storage, visit http:///www.dell.com/storage.

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