HP unveils mid-market disk backup

Aimed at small businesses, HP has launched a disk-based backup and recovery system, which it claims will make protection and disaster recovery more reliable and affordable. The HP StorageWorks D2D Backup System is, according to the company, at least 50 per cent cheaper than competing systems and can be integrated into existing network-based IT environments. The company said that restoring lost or corrupted files would be easier on the new systems as backup data is stored online, where is can be retrieved in minutes instead of hours. ...more

Co-existence is as easy as APC

Apple UK has published a guide explaining how easy it is to for Macs and PCs to 'peacefully co-exist' 'The Macintosh and Windows worlds are no longer separated by incompatible standards,' says the site. 'Contrary to popular myth, Macs and PCs connect seamlessly to the same networks, share many common applications and exchange data and files 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.' The guide is broken down into four sections: exchanging files between platforms, which includes a few solutions, hints and tips; sharing the same network connection; communicating over the Internet and using PC applications on a Mac, noting that several easy-to-use PC emulators for the Mac are now available. ...more

Digital cameras overtake rivals

Sales figures taken from the Dixons store group have shown that the sale of digital cameras have, for the first time ever, overtaken that of conventional 35mm camera sales. The record figures came during the month of April, a time that represents a peak month for camera sales as consumers get ready to head off to the sun on their summer holidays, and the figures from Dixons suggests that holidaymakers are giving up photo developing in favour of a digital alternative. "This is a sea change in consumer photography," said Ian Ditcham, marketing director at Dixons. ...more

New Instant messaging virus reaching epidemic proportions

Kaspersky Labs has warned of a new virus that is already creating a global epidemic by exploiting the ICQ instant messaging application. The Bizex worm arrives as an instant message inviting the victim to visit the 'jokeworld' website where they are shown cartoons from a 'Joecartoon' series. However, in the background, the worm harvests the victim's ICQ contacts to which sends the invitation to visit the website as if it came from the victim. ...more

BT broadband upgrade hiccough calmed

A BT system failure is believed to be caused a backlog of ADSL users waiting to be upgraded from 512Kbps to 1Mbps connections. Some 10,000 are believed to have been affected, with some losing the service, shortly after being upgraded. The outage coincided with the surge in upgrade applications that followed changes to the availability and range of ADSL services. ...more