private

PALM DESERT, Calif.--If you're going to spend the cash to charter a private jet, shouldn't it be easy to book the plane?

You would think the industry would simplify things for the wealthy, but that's not the case, according to start-up FlyRuby, which unveiled its service at the Demo Spring conference here today. Indeed, company CEO Michael Leek says that it can often take hours to figure out a suitable private plane charter between two cities. And that's just not efficient.

That's where FlyRuby comes in, Leek said. A former U.S. Marine with … Read more

The last time you used a public Wi-Fi hot spot, did you get the feeling you were being watched? Good. You very well may have been.

Just last week the U.S. Federal Trade Commission published the Wise Up About Wi-Fi page that offers tips for safe use of public Wi-Fi. Among the tips is the familiar advice to use encryption at all times (look for "https:" in the address header and the lock icon in the address bar or it the bottom status bar, depending on your browser).

The FTC's public-Wi-Fi safety page recommends that you … Read more

Facebook's recent investment round, led by investment bank Goldman Sachs, has been one of the most-talked-about news events that the social network has gotten itself involved in--and arguably the one about which it's been the most secretive. This afternoon, Facebook broke the silence by issuing a press release in which it confirmed, finally, that it has raised $1.5 billion ($1 billion from Goldman Sachs and $500 million in a round that also includes existing investor Digital Sky Technologies) at a $50 billion valuation.

"DST and Goldman Sachs approached Facebook to express their interest in making an … Read more

The G-20 nations have the most power and the largest impact on the future of clean energy because together they account for 90 percent of the world's investment in clean energy. In addition, China leads the G-20 and the world in investment and almost every other category when it comes to clean-energy development, and it may do so for the next 10 years.

That's according to a report released today by The Pew Charitable Trusts, in conjunction with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The report, called "Global clean power: A $2.3 trillion opportunity," offers predictions for … Read more

After considering its options, Seagate has decided to stick it out as a public company.

The Scotts Valley, Calif.-based hard-drive maker said today that after taking a look at what private equity firms were offering, it will not take the company private, and will instead buy back $2 billion worth of stock from shareholders.

"We appreciate the interest shown by the private equity firms and our dialogues with them were extensive and thoughtful," Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo said in a statement. "However, management and the board have chosen to cease discussions concerning a private equity-led leveraged … Read more

This week IBM announced new cloud offerings for federal and state governments aimed at providing the scalable infrastructure and ease of deployment available from public cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Rackspace.

These clouds are hosted at IBM data centers and are multi-tenant offerings restricted to government entities. And while the world doesn't need yet another definition of cloud, this use case of hosted private cloud (note: I'm not sure if this fits as virtual private cloud) is one that I suspect we'll see more and more large data center providers move toward.

For clarity, these clouds are both private and hosted, leading me to wonder if this type of offering will be more appealing than behind-the-firewall private cloud solutions. After all, in this scenario you don't have to buy hardware or hire staff to manage your infrastructure.

To a large extent, these new services look just like hosting did a few years back with the only real difference that the infrastructure is designed to be used in a multi-tenant manner as opposed to having dedicated servers. (Note: most hosting companies ran multi-tenant servers anyway, but the actual technical way of separating the tenants is different with cloud providers.)

It's not that services such as Amazon Web Services EC2 can't perform at the same level of a government-specific cloud offering, but the often challenging requirements related to government computing require a specific way of doing things.

A few weeks back I spoke with IBM CIO Pat Toole, who emphasized the fact that IBM corporate IT has a strong focus on optimizing virtualized servers in cloud-like ways to reduce costs. With nearly 400,000 employees, IBM is as big or bigger than many government entities and has similar challenges related to uptime, security, and storage.… Read more

Seagate is pondering a move to go private again and the timing makes a lot of sense given the hard drive market could face a wrenching change amid the popularity of tablets.

In a short statement, Seagate confirmed reports that it may go private. The company said "it has received a preliminary indication of interest regarding a going private transaction." Bloomberg reported that TPG and KKR were the parties interested in buying out Seagate.

In 2000, Seagate went private right before the tech bust in a complicated deal valued at $20 billion. Going private allowed Seagate to ride … Read more

Good, strong passwords are critical to protecting your hardware, software, and personal data, yet how often do you find yourself using the same easy-to-remember, easy-to-enter passwords over and over again? Or do you draw a blank when trying to come up with a decent password that you can remember? JBCG's WebPassPro is a free password-generating program that can save you from using predictable passwords by generating unique, secure passwords for you. It doesn't save passwords on your system, and what data it does save on your PC is encrypted. It can regenerate passwords as required and export password … Read more

You probably have financial records, family photos, and other computer files that you'd rather keep private, but that's not always possible if others share access to your computer. Free Hide Folder from Cleanersoft is a compact tool that makes it easy to hide and password-protect files and folders and access them with a few quick clicks when you need them.

When you first run Free Hide Folder, you're prompted to create a password that the program will use to protect hidden files, so make sure it's one you'll remember. Free Hide Folder's interface is … Read more