PCmover for Vista is expected to be available at major retailers in North America and the U.K. by January 30, 2007 and available online at by January 18, 2007–prior to Microsoft’s official launch date of its new Vista operating system. The promise of a new and improved operating system is leading many people to consider purchasing new PCs. And once they’ve brought the new machine home, every new PC owner will face the same challenge: how to transfer the software applications, email contacts, files, and photos–the personality and functionality of their old PC to their new one. Laplink’s PCmover allows users to perform their migration using several options: genuine Laplink USB Cables, any local network (including wireless) or removable media (CD-R, DVD-R or external hard drives).

Laplink Software announced the availability of PCsync, one of the first Windows Vista file synchronization software products specifically designed for Ultra-Mobile PCs. With PCsync, consumers running Windows Vista on UMPC devices can easily synchronize large files and folders–including photos, music, videos and more–between UMPCs and other PCs running Windows Vista, Windows XP or Windows 2000.

Microsoft has released high-priority fixes for serious vulnerabilities in its Outlook and Excel applications, but there are no patches in the January batch for known Microsoft Word flaws that are currently under attack. The software maker released four bulletins with patches for a total of 10 vulnerabilities, most rated "critical," but there is no sign of fixes for the known code-execution Word bugs that have been exploited in zero-day attacks since December 2006.

In an effort to combat attention fatigue and information overload, the Burton Group, a Salt Lake City-based IT research firm, released a research report introducing the concept of an Enterprise Attention Management system. According to the report, in the current information economy, knowledge is everything but can be also stress-inducing, from email overload, instant message intrusion on screens and unpredictable interruptions from PDAs and cell phones. An abundance of communication venues can make it difficult to pick out the important parts from the noise.

Microsoft has announced that the new version of Office for Mac will arrive in the second half of this year. Office 2008 for Mac, as the product is being dubbed, is a universal binary, the company said Tuesday. That means the software runs both on Macs with Intel chips and on those with PowerPC chips. In addition, it is compatible with the new XML file formats used by Office 2007 for Windows, which hits retail shelves this month.

Apple Computer faces some tough hurdles if it decides to launch a mobile phone built around its popular iPod music player, Microsoft’s entertainment chief said. Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, said Monday that it too is considering a mobile phone integrated with its Zune digital music player, but launching such a device is not at top of its priority list.

Cisco Systems’ purchase of email security specialist IronPort Systems is another sign that big-name vendors are taking over the spam fight, analysts say. Upon completion of the $830 million cash and stock deal, networking giant Cisco will join Symantec and Microsoft as a leader in the email security arena. Those other companies entered the market via acquisitions and product development of their own.

Just more than half of all U.S. teens use social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, according to a new Pew Internet & American Life Project study. But of those 55 percent of teens, age 12 to 17, who have created a personal profile online, 66 percent say that their information is not visible to all Internet users, according to Pew Internet, the nonprofit research arm of the Washington-based Pew Research Center.

Docudesk Corporation announced the release of deskUNPDF PDF Converter. deskUNPDF was developed to meet customers’ most frequent requirement–to be able to recover a PDF for editing or use in other applications. An extremely frequent problem people have who work with electronic documents, is that they regularly need to be able to convert PDFs into a document format better suited to making changes, whether Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, or another editable format. deskUNPDF was expressly designed to address this problem. Coupled with many features unique to deskUNPDF and an attractive price point, deskUNPDF will appeal to Docudesk customers, those who use Adobe Acrobat, as well as individuals who have a one-time requirement to recover a PDF and open in Microsoft Word. In other words, use deskUNPDF to take a PDF and "un-PDF" it.

Yahoo is working on a next-generation version of its Messenger product, designed specifically for the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. The Yahoo team has used the Windows Presentation Foundation framework to build dynamic features on top of the core communications features in Yahoo Messenger. The company will use this week’s CES conference in Las Vegas to preview the product and announce its roadmap.