Lycos runs up white flag in DoS war on spammers

After a week of trading packet requests across the internet with spammers, Lycos Europe has pulled down its www.makelovenotspam.com service. ...more

Paypal texts itself to mobile phones

Paypal is to launch a new service making it possible to pay into Paypal accounts from a mobile phone. The service is available on the PayPal website. Users first have to activate their phone and have a PayPal account, and can then send money either with a simple SMS message detailing the amount and destination account, or by dialling a number and following automated instructions. ...more

eBay launches Express marketplace

Auction site eBay has officially thrown open the doors to its fixed price marketplace to be known as eBay Express. Although eBay has featured the 'Buy It Now' button on its lists of items for sale for some years now, eBay Express puts all of the fixed price non-auction items in one place to make it easier for customers to shop immediately rather than wait to see if their bid has been successful. Because eBay is now putting all of its merchants in one place, the site can, for the first time provide a shopping trolley for customers to browse around and purchase altogether at the check out. ...more

Accountants blocking the progress of Open Source

Accountants are stopping small businesses from switching to Open Source solutions, according to OpenAdvantage, a business advice centre. Speaking at Linuxworld Conference and Expo in London today, Director Scott Thompson said that the lack of a small business version of Sage for Linux is 'one of the biggest hurdles we face'. 'We show them OpenOffice and Evolution, and they say "that's great, just like Office and Outlook, now show me the accounts package", and we say, well, there, isn't one,' he said. ...more

Microsoft launches no-frills XP Starter Edition for South East Asia

Starting in October, Microsoft is shipping a modified version of Windows XP geared for the Asian markets. Specifically, in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Dubbed Windows XP Starter Edition, it will be available for low-cost desktop PCs from official Microsoft OEM distributors. ...more