Endeavor Commerce, developer of SmartCatalog, a quote-to-order solution for mid-size enterprises and divisions of Fortune 500 corporations, announced its participation as an exhibitor at Microsoft’s annual customer conference, Convergence, held March 25-28 in Dallas, TX. SmartCatalog by Endeavor Commerce makes the complex sale simple by automating the quote-to-order process across all sales channels. Since 2000, Endeavor Commerce’s solutions have helped manufacturing, technology and telecommunications companies around the world increase revenues and profits by deploying sales configuration and eSelling solutions that process real time quotes and perfect orders. SmartCatalog solutions integrate tightly with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which Endeavor will showcase at Convergence.

Atlas Business Solutions unveiled its new and improved version of ScheduleAnywhere. This pay-as-you-go, online employee scheduling service allows managers to schedule their employees from any computer with Internet access, whether at work, at home, or on the road. It also lets employees view schedules online, as well as submit time-off requests. One of the most difficult tasks managers face is employee scheduling. Making sure the right employee is scheduled at the right time and place can be complicated and time consuming. Add this to the many individual time-off requests a manager receives and the hassle of finding replacements for "no shows," and employee scheduling can be downright problematic. To make these tasks as easy as possible, ScheduleAnywhere offers simple, yet effective, online tools for assigning and rotating work shifts, maintaining minimum staffing levels, handling time-off requests, and much more.

DKAT Internet Services has invented a new process of tracing viruses that are normally untraceable. The computer user is asked to sign up with DKAT Internet Services’ virus detector and is assigned an email detection id. The user is instructed to create a new contact in their address book, with their assigned detection id for the email id. The rest of the contact information can be whatever the user wishes to type. The user doesn’t need to do anything else. There is nothing to download or purchase. If a virus infects their computer and starts sending itself to contacts in the address book; the virus detector will warn the user via email, when the virus sends a message to the detector. Essentially, the virus is tricked into divulging its existence. The detection system is meant only to warn a person of a possible infection they would otherwise not know about. It is not intended to be a replacement for a working anti-virus program.

Lyquidity adds version control to existing document management systems at a fraction of the cost using Version Manager API. Lyquidity’s Version Manager API is now available for COM, Java and .NET applications. It allows the addition of version management to applications that handle Microsoft Office documents. The simple API allows users to add, delete, export and rollback versions for Excel, Powerpoint and Word documents. Add a version to a document when a user checks it out from the library and remove it when the document is returned.

Bloggers would be largely immunized from hundreds of pages of confusing federal regulations dealing with election laws, according to a bill approved by a House of Representatives panel on Thursday. Democrats had blocked an earlier effort last November to enact the legislation, which would amend federal campaign finance laws to give Internet publishers many of the same freedoms that newspapers and magazines currently enjoy. "We don’t expect bloggers to check with a federal agency before they go online," said House Administration Committee Chairman Vernon Ehlers, a Michigan Republican, referring to the Federal Election Commission. "They shouldn’t have to read FEC advisory opinions (or have) to worry about running afoul of federal election laws."

As part of its commitment to help protect consumers and resellers from counterfeit software and other forms of software piracy, Microsoft announced its new Genuine Software Initiative. The Genuine Software Initiative will focus the company’s many activities and investments directed at combating software counterfeiting and other forms of software piracy into a single coordinated effort. The initiative will focus increasing investments across three strategic areas: education, engineering and enforcement.

Research In Motion announced the immediate availability of BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server-Small Business Edition v4.1 for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino. The latest versions of BlackBerry Enterprise Server build upon the manageability and power of BlackBerry as a platform for wireless communications and mobile access to corporate data. Incorporating feedback from thousands of enterprise customers across the globe, BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 includes new functionality that makes it easier than ever to expand populations of BlackBerry users and manage larger scale deployments. The new release further expands wireless communications in the enterprise by providing tight integration with leading platforms for enterprise instant messaging, including Microsoft Windows Messenger, Live Communications Server 2005 and IBM Lotus Sametime.

IBM employees using Linux desktops are switching to Red Hat’s version of the open-source operating system, but the company denied reports that it’s planning to dump Microsoft’s Windows. IBM started standardizing on Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux product last year, after signing a deal in which the Linux distributor would provide support. IBM does not plan to switch employees currently using Windows to Red Hat.

Be careful what you post. Students are getting expelled for what they post on social Web sites. With recent news coverage of the sites and their explosive growth, authorities have taken notice, concerned not only about inappropriate behavior but that kids are making themselves vulnerable to predators. Police recently have investigated several cases involving teens who were sexually assaulted by men they met on these sites. Earlier this week, two men were indicted on federal charges that they used the Internet to have sexual contact with girls from Connecticut.

Robert Oppenheimer agonized over building the A-bomb. Alfred Nobel got queasy about creating dynamite. Robert Propst invented nothing so destructive. Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "monolithic insanity." Propst is the father of the cubicle. More than 30 years after he unleashed it on the world, we are still trying to get out of the box. The cubicle has been called many things in its long and terrible reign. But what it has lacked in beauty and amenity, it has made up for in crabgrass-like persistence. Propst’s workstations were designed to be flexible, but in practice they were seldom altered or moved at all. Lined up in identical rows, they became the dystopian world that three academics described as "bright satanic offices."