Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, introduced Harvard graduates June 7 to a new Creative Capitalism, and encouraged them to build a concept of reward and profit that encourages governments and businesses to do the right thing.

Gates, in a prepared address at Harvard’s 356th Commencement, focused on the inequities of the world and challenged students to find new ways that would encourage business leaders and governments to apply the wealth of discoveries and technology at our disposal to the people and places it fails to reach.

Silverlight: One small step for rich Internet application development, one giant step for Microsoft’s push into the design and creative professionals market.

Ian Ellison-Taylor, product unit manager for WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight at Microsoft, said the company’s trek from a strictly Windows PC focus to a cross-platform, cross-browser tool for delivering rich, graphical user experiences on devices and other platforms was like putting a man on the moon.

Could women be the answer to IT’s dwindling work force? Penn State researchers argue the fairer sex is under-represented in the industry, and taking steps to increase their numbers would serve to swell the ranks of the overall work force and promote diversity.

While women accounted for almost 60 percent of the U.S. labor force in 2004, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the same period they accounted for 32 percent of the IT work force. Furthermore, according to a 2005 ITAA (Information Technology Association of America) study, women who leave the IT workplace are less likely than their male counterparts to return.

There’s a bushel of security enhancements in Windows Vista–they comprise the most important aspect of the new operating system and the most compelling reason to upgrade, analysts say–but they’re not all perfect, nor are they silver bullets.

Vista’s BitLocker encryption, for example, is restricted from working alongside virtualization software, doesn’t encrypt multiple disk volumes, and only ships to customers on Microsoft’s Software Assurance plan or with the Ultimate version of the operating system.

Each of Vista’s security functions has similar quibbles associated with it–be they lack of features or license quirks–that enterprises must ponder. Given that, how does an enterprise determine which Vista security features to deploy and how to best deploy them?

Ascender Corporation announced an agreement with Microsoft that allows it to distribute the new ClearType fonts featured in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. The ClearType fonts appeal to end users, graphic designers and enterprises for use in earlier versions of Windows, non-Windows operating systems or in applications other than Microsoft Office.

Extensis announced Portfolio Server 8.5, a significant upgrade in its Portfolio Server digital asset management product. The Portfolio Server upgrade provides industrial-strength workflow features to organize and exchange digital files utilizing visual catalogs and embedded metadata. Portfolio Server is a multi-channel system that makes it fast and easy to find and share valuable creative assets within the creative workgroup, across the organization and externally with global partners. The Portfolio 8.5 product family includes Portfolio Server, Portfolio Client, Portfolio Express, Portfolio NetPublish and SQL Connect modules, as well as a Single-User version of Portfolio.

We continue our analysis of the White House email controversy by looking at the what might have happened to the alleged 5 million missing messages. A key factor may have been a migration from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook in 2002 or 2003. Read this article for our technical analysis and to learn about some of the freaky questions we’ve turned up in the process.

Read this OutlookPower article.

Tethys Solutions has released Launch-n-Go 2.5, an easy-to-use multi-function program for Windows. Use the program’s text inserter to type any text into any Windows program quickly. Use the text expander feature and expand abbreviations as you type them. Use hotkeys and keywords for instant access to nearly everything on your computer. Launch Web sites, files, folders, or programs instantly, or search the Internet. Share your shortcuts, searches, and interests with friends and colleagues.

The new version supports Windows Vista, as well as allowing users to print lists of hotkeys and keywords for ready reference. And a new floating toolbar can be positioned anywhere on the desktop for convenience.

ExtraLabs Software announced the release of Feed Editor Lite 2.2. Designed for the Windows OS, this application enables you to create, edit and publish RSS feeds and podcasts surprisingly quick and easy.

Compared to other RSS editors in its category, Feed Editor Lite combines an unprecedented number of features, including support for various RSS formats, podcasting support, WYSIWYG HTML editor, an XML editor, an RSS Feed preview, FTP upload and publishing, automatic date management, and an ability to convert CSV or HTML to RSS and back, as well as and others. All this is delivered in an intuitively transparent user interface that has been meticulously written in collaboration with usability groups and real end users.

DigiScope, from Lucid8, provides simple navigation and powerful searching of raw unmounted Exchange Server 2000, 2003 and 2007 databases so that Administrators can find the recoverable information that they need and then restore or export that information with a single click of a button. The new DigiScope e-Discovery and Recovery solution for Exchange is available now and has an introductory price of $595 for a single store/database with unlimited mailboxes in each store.