Perhaps it's time for PSAs focused on cybercrime? The federal government is certainly stepping up its warning calls about computer crime. This morning the FBI issued a warning about a fraudulent e-mail message with the subject line "New Patterns in Al-Qaeda Financing." The message is delivered with a malicious attachment that is suspected of having files to steal user system credentials.

The problem is, though, who routinely keeps a lookout for FBI cybercrime warnings? Television is by far a more popular medium and a better way of getting the word out. PSAs would be a great forum to warn the public about threats like the Hotmail Phishing attack or the latest Facebook malware. PSAs can be so popular that they can achieve cult status -- remember the Crash Test Dummy ads?

Phishing attacks often involve excellent mimicking of legitimate sites and are therefore becoming harder to detect, particularly for novice users. It's time for a strong PSA campaign about cyberthreats---the same as would be made for any other outbreak that could threaten the population.

The latest is the proposed sale of Nortel's optical networking and carrier Ethernet assets -- collectively, Nortel's Metro Ethernet networks business -- which, according to a statement from Nortel, has entered the advanced talks stage with Ciena Corp.

Nortel confirmed it is in talks with Ciena -- which makes fiber optic gear for telephone carriers -- but declined additional comment. Ciena also confirmed the talks in a separate statement.

"The outcome of these discussions is uncertain and subject to negotiation of definitive agreements," Nortel said in its statement.

The Metro Ethernet networks business is the third major piece of Nortel that appears to have found a buyer since Nortel entered bankruptcy protection in January 2009.

Sales in the Ethernet division, per Nortel's most recent earnings statements, were $333 million in the second quarter, a 27 percent decline year over year. For fiscal 2008, the division reported revenue of $1.39 billion, down 8.7 percent from 2007.

Nortel in June sold its CDMA and LTE Access carrier wireless division to Ericsson for $1.13 billion.

In September, Avaya emerged as the winning bidder for Nortel's enterprise solutions business, agreeing to pay $900 million plus $15 million for an employee retention program -- a transaction currently under review by Canadian government regulators.

Well, Microsoft's Exchange Team just posted that this was actually a deliberate decision by Microsoft:

"Two primary technical points drove our decision to not support Windows Server 2008 R2. First, Windows Server 2008 R2, while an incremental OS upgrade, creates significant testing requirements for Exchange 2007. Because the Exchange 2007 SP2 engineering preceded the Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM, Exchange 2007 SP2 would have had to be delayed significantly to align testing schedules. Second, because upgrading the server OS underneath an existing Exchange server is not supported, the feedback we have received is that the primary need is to support Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controllers in an existing Exchange 2007 deployment, which we have done."

The first point is understandable technically. Yet, why the urgency to push out Exchange 2007 SP2 ahead of the Server 2008 R2 release? Why not take the time to ensure compatibility? Or, why even release SP2 and instead just incorporate any new features into Exchange 2010?

The second reason is more unclear. The issue surrounding this entire brouhaha is that Exchange 2007 SP2 cannot be installed in a domain running Server 2008 R2 DCs and not about the OS that Exchange is running on.

The Exchange Team's blog also states that allowing Exchange 2007 SP2 to install with Server 2008 R2 may not allow Exchange to utilize all of the features of Server 2008 R2. However, the blog posting did not provide any detail as to which features are affected.

This problem brings up another question: Because the general upgrade path to Exchange 2010 has been outlined as first needing to deploy Exchange 2007 SP2, where does this leave those organizations wishing to upgrade to 2010 but cannot install Exchange 2007 SP2?

Of course in the blogosphere, many are decrying this as a way Microsoft is forcing Exchange 2010 on those domains that opt to have Server 2008 R2 domain controllers. And that's a shame. Exchange 2007 SP2, Exchange 2010, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 all have been designed with heightened performance, security and granular configurability the likes of which have not been seen before with Microsoft's products. It's truly a shame that some infrastructures may be left in an upgrade lurch because of this questionable decision.

The new iTunes 9 offers copious enhancements to iTunes' look and functionality, which The Wall Street Journal lauded as more intelligent, more accessible and easier to use than its predecessor.

One enhancement is a spate of new syncing features that allows users to more easily sync music and video from their computer to their iPhone and iPod, and organize all the apps on their iPhone or iPod Touch, right into iTunes.

Another general iTunes improvement is the new Home Sharing feature, which gives users an easier way to organize apps on their iPhone or iPod Touch by allowing users to copy song files shared from one computer to another. The Home Sharing feature allows users to look into the shared library on another computer, select the song, movie or audio book file that they want copied, and then drag it into their own iTunes library. The Home Share function can be configured to automatically transfer new media purchased on another shared computer to their library, but doesn't delete the original media file on the owner's computer. However, the function only lets users browse iTunes libraries of up to five computers.

Apple also launched an array of visual enhancements with iTunes LP, a feature which allows users to download select albums accompanied by visually stimulating interactive art, in an attempt to replicate LP record albums of yesteryear. The artwork also comes with liner notes, performance and artist photos, and other design features once associated with record albums.

iTunes 9 also now displays an exact visual representation of users' iPhones and iPod Touch screens on their computer, which users can rearrange with the mouse.

In the new iTunes, users can create up to 12 Genius Mixes with a Pandora-like function that allows them to find a series of songs that mix well from their iTunes library, and then automatically create multiple mixes that play repeatedly.

Other improvements include features that allow users to save the iTunes Store items they want to buy later in a new wish list, or buy ringtones of songs directly from the iTunes Store on their iPhone while assigning a specific song to a contact.

The iTunes Store even received a facelift, complete with a redesigned interface and improved navigation throughout the site. Along with movies, users will have access to special features they can download in their iTunes libraries, such as interviews , trailers or images.

The new iTunes 9 is available as a free download here.

Taking steps to counter questions about the future of Sun's product lines, Oracle -- in a front-page newspaper advertisement -- is vowing to devote more development, sales and service resources to Sun hardware and software than Sun does today.

And Oracle took a dig at archrival IBM as well.

Oracle is in the process of acquiring Sun for $7.4 billion. But Oracle has had to work hard to convince Sun customers that it intends to continue developing and selling Sun's server and data storage hardware products. A number of Sun VARs and ISVs, saying they are worried about the future of the Sun product line, have taken stepsto join IBM's and Hewlett-Packard's partner programs.

In a front-page ad Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, directed at "Sun Customers," Oracle said it plans to spend more money developing Sparc (Sun's microprocessor architecture) and the Solaris operating system than Sun currently does. Oracle also promised to "have more than twice as many hardware specialists selling and servicing Sparc/Solaris systems than Sun does now." And the company intends to "dramatically improve Sun's hardware performance by integrating Oracle software with Sun hardware."

The ad then offers a quote from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: "We're in it to win it. IBM, we're looking forward to competing with you in the hardware business."

While U.S. antitrust regulators and Sun's shareholders have approved the acquisition, the European Commission last week said it would investigate whether the acquisitionof Sun's MySQL open-source database would reduce competition in the database software market. That could delay the acquisition into next year.