private

Anyone who has shared a computer with a roommate, family member, or co-worker knows it's pretty hard to keep everything organized. But beyond having separate user accounts or personal folders, some data you have on your hard drive just isn't meant to be seen by other users. Whether it's your personal account numbers, journal entries, or other private files, a secure place to store items on your shared computer is necessary for your privacy.

A while ago I found a great Windows app for creating secure volumes called TrueCrypt. This open-source (free) program offers up multiple levels … Read more

Carl Icahn has been called many things: corporate raider, shareholder activist, private equity investor, according to Wikipedia.

And, maybe soon, we may add billionaire blogger to the list.

It appears the prolific writer of shareholder activist letters may want to apply his writing skills to a blog on his Icahn Report Web site.

While the Icahn Report home page notes "blog coming soon," the site has already posted its privacy policy and terms of use.

Icahn, who is making a second run at Motorola's board, is considering using the blog to highlight reports that either he or … Read more

Silver Lake, a major private equity investor into technology companies, announced Wednesday it got a boost to its expansion plans with the help of pension fund behemoth CalPERS.

The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) has taken a 9.9 percent stake in Silver Lake, which has invested in such companies as Flextronics with a $200 million investment, Avaya through a leveraged buyout, and the creation of Avago Technologies via a $2.7 billion acquisition and carve-out of Agilent Technologies' chip business.

Silver Lake is also known for the incredibly complex $20 billion buyout transaction of Seagate Technology in 2000, … Read more

While we're not in the habit of praising marketing campaigns, this one from Sprint and RIM at least shows that some people are trying things beyond such cliches as mystery ads and countdown commercials. In pushing the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphone, the two companies are advertising "the first $10.5 million cell phone--an exciting limited-time offer for billionaires."

According to its special site, the phone comes bundled with with an "exotic island" for $10.5 million--$199.99 for the handset and $10,499,800.01 for the land. It even goes so far … Read more

Covad Communications Group has sold out to the private equity firm Platinum Equity for $304 million in cash, the company said Monday.

Covad, which offers a slew of telecommunications services such as DSL, voice over IP, broadband wireless, and Web hosting to Internet service providers and small and midsize businesses and home users, is the latest in a long line of technology companies to be gobbled up by private equity firms as they struggle to keep up in the competitive market.

Earlier this year, Palm sold out to Elevation Partners for $325 million. And Avaya was bought for $8.2 … Read more

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.--The $2 million NASA-sponsored Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge ended Sunday with no winner and a call to the fire department.

Armadillo Aerospace, the space company founded by "Doom" creator John Carmack, was the lone competitor in NASA's contest, which calls on teams to build a lunar vehicle and then simulate a 90-to-180-second lunar flight. On Sunday morning, Armadillo flew one 91-second flight successfully, but as it was preparing to launch a second time to complete the challenge, the team discovered a crack in its engine.

The team tried to fix … Read more

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.--Armadillo Aerospace, the space company of Doom creator John Carmack, impressed the crowd here Saturday by flying and landing a privately built lunar spacecraft over 90 seconds. By doing so, Armadillo completed the first of two parts of a NASA challenge worth $350,000 to simulate a flight on the moon.

On its second try, however, Armadillo didn't fare as well. The spacecraft, called the MOD, flew 50 meters vertically from the launch pad, then traversed 50 meters horizontally--required tasks of the first level of competition. But five seconds before landing on the … Read more

Struggling PlanetOut said Monday that it has struck a deal to raise $26 million in new funds from private investors.

The publicly traded company, which runs the PlanetOut and Gay.com Web sites, as well as Out and The Advocate magazines, has seen its revenue drop and its losses widen in recent months.

Among those investing, as noted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is Bill Gates' investment arm, Cascade Investment LLC. Other investors include Special Situations Funds, SF Capital Partners, PAR Investment Partners and Allen & Co. The investment is coming from the sale of roughly 22.8 million shares of … Read more

An anonymous zillionaire, apparently from the Middle East (as deduced by photos of in-flight map monitors that show Arabic text and Dubai as an origin point), has tricked out his very own Airbus A380, and it's pretty darn awesome. Nicknamed the Flying Palace, it's equipped with a boardroom, a luxurious cocktail bar, and plenty of space for chilling out.

In fact, if it weren't for the windows, you wouldn't even think it were an airplane.

I'm going to see if we can get our own A380 for Crave. It'd contain, naturally, a luxury Dance Dance Revolution arcade, … Read more