inCampus, Inc., a Seattle-based company led by an established group of technology veterans looking to promote social and economic change among college students, announces the launch of a new online marketplace, offering a revolutionary gateway for Student-to-Student commerce. 3,800 universities and community colleges across the nation are represented on inCampus, connecting students who are looking to buy, sell, trade, or find anything - from a salsa partner to a blender. In addition to products, the Web site also allows students to find housing, books, jobs and more. The company ultimately plans to connect students across the world.

“There is so much potential for students around the world to take advantage of the Internet and connect with each other through commerce.” said Phuc Vu, CEO of inCampus. “We plan to empower students through this revolutionary concept we call student to student commerce.”

inCampus co-founder Aqib Rasool conceived the idea as a college student who found that Web sites like eBay and Craigslist were helpful for buying, trading and selling but there was no place to connect with other college students. He saw the potential to connect students from all over the nation looking for anything from housing options to used text books.

Unlike other marketplaces that are crowded with buyers and sellers of all ages and interests, inCampus offers a community-based Web site, developed exclusively for each college campus. As the first e-commerce community specifically created for college students, inCampus is an intersection of social and e-commerce Web sites. The site only features categories specifically of interest to college students ranging from travel, carpool, tickets, roommates and books.

The company’s mission is to empower students around the country through online commerce. To further this mission, inCampus has established the inCampus Foundation, a non-profit organization that was created with a portion of the co-founder’s company equity. As the company grows, the foundation’s funds will grow exponentially, ultimately creating a significant amount of resources that will be used to provide financing programs for college students around the world.

Tags: student, campus, college

The computer security experts at Agnitum Ltd. today unleashed Spam Terrier, which protects users of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express from spam.

The software is free.

“Spam Terrier is your new best friend,” said Mikhail Penkovsky, global vice-president for Marketing and Sales at Agnitum.

“Are you sick and tired of email offers for generic sex drugs and replica watches, profile updates from ‘Paypal’ and security and unpaid item reminders from “eBay” that demand your passwords, Nigerian bank scams, the millions of dollars liberated from Iraq by “men who prefer privacy” - and the fortune you won in yet another lottery, even though you have absolutely no recollection of ever traveling to Spamistan to buy a ticket?

“Research indicates that 90 percent of all email is junk you don’t need or want. Don’t just accept this as an unfortunate fact of life. Spam is dangerous. Spam wastes your time. Spam invades your life and your privacy. Spam infects your computer with Spyware and Trojans that steal your identity,” said Penkovsky.

Spam Terrier’s pedigree traces back to the team that develops Outpost Firewall Pro, award-winning software that provides home, small office and mobile users with powerful protection against Spyware, keyloggers, Trojans, hackers, identity theft, wireless network hijacking and other security threats.

Agnitum also licenses its firewall technologies globally to Novell, Sophos, Lavasoft, Bullguard and CAT, among others.

Who says anti-spam software has to be difficult to use and complex? Spam Terrier features a friendly, easy-to-user interface with convenient, intuitive controls. With built-in heuristics-based anti-spam tools, it collars junk email by training itself. As a user selects what he or she considers spam, Spam Terrier “learns” to identify behavior patterns of spam, instead of relying on users to block specific keywords and phrases.

The more you train Spam Terrier, the better its nose gets for inappropriate email. It remembers “spam scores” that classify a message as “not spam,” “probable spam” or “definite spam.” Accuracy increases over time.

“Spam Terrier is a smart assistant that bites into unwanted correspondence,” said Penkovsky. “It saves you time and inbox space. It defends against malicious and fraudulent messages, identifies messages from friends and peers, and defines white and black lists.”

Download Spam Terrier here.

Tags: spam terrier, agnitum, anti-spam, spam, email, outlook, outlook express

More than 20 million licenses were sold in the opening month of general availability for the new operating system, as new tools and programs ease the transition for consumers.

Initial sales figures from Microsoft show its new operating system Windows Vista made a splash in its debut. In the first month of Windows Vista’s general availability, sales exceeded 20 million licenses, more than doubling the initial pace of sales for its predecessor, Windows XP. These initial figures reflect the broad interest in the security and usability enhancements in Windows Vista.

“We are encouraged to see such a positive consumer response to Windows Vista right out of the gate,” said Bill Veghte, corporate vice president of the Windows Business Group at Microsoft. “While it’s very early in the product lifecycle, we are setting a foundation for Windows Vista to become the fastest-adopted version of Windows ever. Working with our partners, we are helping our customers leverage new tools and programs to accelerate the transition and provide a great user experience.”

Windows Vista license sales after one month of availability have already exceeded the total of Windows XP license sales in the earlier product’s first two months of availability. In January 2002, the company announced sales of Windows XP licenses had exceeded 17 million after two months on the market.

The more than 20 million copies shipped represent Windows Vista licenses sold to PC manufacturers, copies of upgrades and the full packaged product sold to retailers and upgrades ordered through the Windows Vista Express Upgrade program from January 30 to February 28.

Microsoft’s PC-maker industry partners confirm consumer interest is strong. “Since the launch of Windows Vista, Dell consumer customers have overwhelmingly chosen premium versions of the operating system that enable them to have a richer experience with music, video, photography and other computing applications they choose,” said Neil Hand, vice president of Dell’s Consumer Product Group. “Customers’ initial experience with Windows Vista has been quite positive, and we will continue to try to deliver the best customer experience possible,” Hand added.

“HP worked extensively with Microsoft to ensure that our Windows Vista-based PCs offer consumers our easiest, safest and most satisfying technology experience yet,” said Mark Sanchez, vice president and general manager, consumer PCs, HP. “We are pleased with the customer acceptance of our Windows Vista offerings, including our innovative new TouchSmart PC.”

Microsoft has made several new tools and programs available to help customers get the best experience with Windows Vista. Windows Upgrade Advisor is a downloadable tool offered online at WindowsVista.com that helps consumers determine whether their Windows XP-based PCs can be upgraded to Windows Vista, and also helps choose the edition of Windows Vista that best meets their needs. The tool scans the computer and creates an easy-to-understand report of all known system, device and program-compatibility issues, and recommends ways to resolve them.

The “Certified for Windows Vista” logo program is designed to make it easier for consumers to recognize products that deliver premium experiences with Windows Vista. Hardware devices and software bearing the logos at retail help consumers make educated choices when purchasing devices and software to use with Windows Vista. There are more than 4,500 “Certified for Windows Vista” products to date - 2,500 of which were certified just since the January 30 launch event.

Windows Update keeps customers’ computers up-to-date and more secure by providing Windows Vista software updates from Microsoft. In Windows Vista, the update process is designed to be less disruptive than in previous versions of Windows. Users can elect to automatically receive new updates, and updating occurs in the background or may be scheduled for a time convenient to the user. If an update requires a restart to complete installation, a user may complete the restart at a more convenient time. On occasions when an update applies to a file in use, Windows Vista can save the application’s data, close the application, update the file, and then restart the application. In the initial phase after launch, Windows Update has delivered new drivers at a rate of more than 1,600 per month, bringing the total number of drivers above 27,000.

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