A US appeals court has upheld a district court’s ruling that ordered Microsoft and Autodesk to pay millions of dollars to a Michigan company for patent infringement. The court earlier this month affirmed an August 2006 decision by a lower Texas court, which upheld a jury decision in another district court awarding z4 Technologies $115 million from Microsoft and $18 million from Autodesk to settle a patent-infringement suit.

The Texas court also awarded $25 million more from Microsoft to z4 to settle the case, originally filed in September 2004, and denied Microsoft’s request for a new trial.

Lawyers for plaintiffs in a case brought against Microsoft over Vista’s marketing have claimed that even the software giant’s marketing director was confused by the prelaunch campaign in the U.S. The case involves the way Microsoft marketed PCs as "Windows Vista capable" prior to the consumer launch of the operating system in January.

Plaintiffs Dianne Kelley and Kenneth Hansen claim Microsoft was not telling the truth when it put the "Vista capable" logo on PCs that would be capable of running only Vista Home Basic. They contend that "Vista capable" implies that the machine is able to run all versions of Vista, rather than just the pared-down Home Basic version.

Over the years, we at ZATZ have had the opportunity to publish articles by some well known authors and true experts in the field. As we continue our active coverage of Outlook 2007, we’re fortunate to be joined by Meryl K. Evans. In this helpful article, she’ll showcase six brilliant ways to get the most out of Outlook 2007.

Read this OutlookPower article.

Tens of thousands of malware-serving pages, crafted to reach a high search engine ranking, are showing up in the first page of returns from Google, Yahoo and Live. The seeding of malware into pages returned from searches for innocent terms has reached epic proportions, security researchers say.

Malicious iFrames, rootkits and fake codecs are being served up on tens of thousands of sites returned as results for searches for such things as alternate router firmware or "how to for Microsoft Excel."

Fookes Software has announced that Aid4Mail now supports over 30 email clients and mailbox formats including Office Outlook 2007, Windows Mail, and Windows Live Mail, under Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/2003/XP/Vista. Support for Office Outlook includes import and export capabilities for MAPI profiles, PST databases, and MSG files.

Aid4Mail is a sophisticated but easy-to-use tool that can migrate email to a different mail client, export it for viewing through Internet Explorer, MS Excel, and most databases, and archive it to save space or for regulatory compliance. It can merge mail into a single mailbox file, or export it as individual message or text files, and can extract attachments, embedded contents, and email addresses.

About 8.3 million U.S. residents–nearly 4 percent of the nation’s population–were victims of identity theft in 2005, but few victims identified computer-related crime as the culprit, according to a U.S. Federal Trade Commission report. The FTC data, obtained through telephone surveys, found that 56 percent of ID theft victims didn’t know how their personal information was stolen. Only 1 percent of victims identified computer hacking as the cause of the ID theft, and another 1 percent identified a computer-based phishing attack, where ID thieves typically send out bogus emails that look like they come from banks or retailers and ask for log-in information.

Sixteen percent of the victims knew the ID thieves personally, and 7 percent said the data loss came from a purchase or financial transaction, including online, in-person, and mail purchases. Five percent of victims said their data was taken from a company that held their personal information, according to the FTC report.

Scribe Software, a provider of configurable data integration and migration software technology for enterprise business applications, announced that WennSoft has developed an integrated solution between it’s Service Management Series and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. WennSoft, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is leveraging the Scribe Insight tool, extending their solutions’ value by integrating critical customer information across the Dynamics product line.

Add-in Express announced the release of a new time-saving plug-in for Microsoft Outlook users that will significantly help reduce the time spent on email correspondence. This handy plug-in, named Template Phrases for Microsoft Outlook, allows inserting commonly-typed phrases and blocks of text into email messages in a click, without having to type the same text over and over again.

The Template Phrases for Microsoft Outlook is very easy-to-use. Its pane is built in the Microsoft Outlook message window which gives users the absolute and complete visualization. All template phrases can be seen at a glance organized in a multi-level tree structure, so that the user needs just one mouse click to insert a text template into an Outlook emails message.

Microsoft has tweaked its Windows Live OneCare self-updating PC care service to better meet the needs of small user group environments. Windows Live OneCare consists of a set of security and performance tools, all managed by a central console. Security features include anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall feature with automatic updates. Performance tools include backup and restore and a tune-up feature that handles routine maintenance of all PCs on the small network. A "health meter"–essentially a dashboard–monitors each computer’s protection level and health, along with how to fix problems.

According to security firm McAfee, the release of Service Pack 1 for Microsoft’s Windows Vista is likely to accelerate the adoption rate of Redmond’s latest operating system and have a corresponding impact on the bottom lines of malware writers, who have largely continued to target Microsoft’s earlier operating systems, such as Windows XP.

Windows Vista is being relegated to the doghouse again this week for being slower than XP, and security experts are warning that Vista might face more serious malware in the upcoming year.