GFI Software, developer of network security, content security and messaging software, announced the release of the latest version of GFI WebMonitor for ISA Server, a solution that gives administrators comprehensive control over corporate Web usage and what employees are downloading from the Internet. GFI WebMonitor 4 boosts employee productivity and increases security whilst maintaining optimum use of the Internet as a business tool.

AccuWeather.com announced that it has released two new Spanish-language versions of popular weather widgets, including Spanish-text versions of the AccuWeather.com Toolbar for Internet Explorer and netWeather dynamic forecasts for web sites. AccuWeather.com produces more Spanish-language forecasts each day than any other weather provider in the U.S., with clients including major Spanish media outlets as Telemundo, Univision, and Grupo Televisa.

According to a July 2007 survey by Gartner Group of 225 U.S.-based organizations, 66 percent projected some level of increase in IT staff looking 12 months forward. This is up from 61 percent in 2006. The H1-B visa program, which allows U.S. firms to petition for workers from abroad, has been one avenue of meeting this demand. But the number of positions needing to be filled is seemingly way greater than the allowable quota imposed by Congress.

Attackers have set their sights on two Microsoft flaws–an unpatched DirectX Media vulnerability and the XML Core Services flaw the software giant patched last week in its MS07-042 security update.

Cupertino, Calif.-based antivirus giant Symantec issued alerts for both exploits in emails to customers of its DeepSight threat management service Monday and early Tuesday. The security vendor said it had raised its ThreatCon to level 2 in response to the threats.

If you’re like Contributing Editor Bill Mann, you spend much of your day in Outlook. Wouldn’t it be nice to spend less time there, and more time doing other stuff, maybe even spending some time away from the computer? Bill can’t guarantee you a specific result (despite the title of this article), but if you take advantage of the five techniques he describes here, you will save significant time in Outlook every day.

Read this OutlookPower article.

The archiving policies of U.K. companies have been thrust in the spotlight after news broke over the weekend that U.K. supermarkets Tesco and Asda are both fielding email archive requests from the Competition Commission. The Commission wants the supermarkets to hand over millions of emails to help its investigation into allegations of supermarket abuse of suppliers.

The emails the supermarkets need to produce cover their correspondence with suppliers in June and July when there was a price war between the two giants. Asda alone has said it will have to retrieve over 11 million emails.

The Commission is investigating allegations that the two supermarkets had threatened their suppliers and demanded discounts on goods. It forms part of its ongoing investigation into the alleged misuse of power by the U.K.’s largest supermarkets. The other two supermarkets being investigated, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, have not been asked to hand over emails.

CircleUp, provider of social communication services for online and offline communities, announced the availability of a free downloadable toolbar for Microsoft Office Outlook. By integrating the free CircleUp service with Outlook, used by close to 18 million people worldwide, CircleUp extends its current consumer service to small business, home office and professional users to deliver significant productivity gains in email and group communications.

With up to 90 percent of collaboration occurring through email and up to 75 percent of an organization’s knowledge assets stored in email messages, the need for more streamlined and functional group communication is apparent. Instead of blasting an email to tens, hundreds or thousands of contacts, only to be inundated by a flood of answers, CircleUp enables office managers, event planners and administrators to send a question, announcement or information request to any size group and get back a single, organized result containing facts, decisions, links, photos and feedback that can be acted on immediately.

Working late again and wondering where the day went? Are you stressed and frustrated and can’t seem to get a handle on your time? Oh, look: You’ve got mail!

Admit it. Did you just drop everything you were doing to check an email that was, in all likelihood, some variety of spam or irrelevant snippets? If so, you are not alone. British researchers at Glasgow and Paisley Universities have found that the pressures from handling a constant influx of email throughout the workday takes an exasperating toll on workers. Worse yet, heavy email communication causes anxiety.

Just when it appeared tech firms had the upper hand against spam, spammers have unleashed new forms of the meddlesome email to trick filters.

Spam in the form of popular PDF email attachments and electronic greeting cards is confounding email security systems and annoying consumers. The recent Storm email virus and several pump-and-dump stock scams are clogging inboxes and snookering consumers into downloading malicious software. And it could get worse as the holidays approach, anti-spam experts say.

StudyLamp Software has announced the release of Get ’em Done, a to-do list manager for Windows XP and Vista. Unlike other to-do list software that takes hours or even weeks to learn, Get ’em Done takes less than five minutes to master and makes organizing your tasks fast and simple.

Get ’em Done is designed with minimalism in mind. New items are added to the to-do list with a simple title. Optionally, the user can also add categories, deadlines, details, and set a priority for a task. Get ’em Done ensures users will never forget a task again. The task list can be sorted or grouped in various ways, allowing the user to quickly determine which tasks should be worked on. When a task is complete, one click marks it done and moves it to a separate list for completed tasks, in case it needs to be reviewed again later.