Twitter followers help recover stolen MacBook

There is no denying the fact that social networking is a great tool, whether it’s being used to keep you up to date with the latest COD MW3 game or helping the victims of Japans earthquake it’s a great way to reach a wide range of people.

Previously we have reported how social networking site Twitter had been used to combat crime, in this post by Matt Tran he told us how a school boy used Twitter to catch a phone thief. The latest use of the site to foil crime involves a man who used his followers to track down the thief who took his laptop.

The man in question is Ottawa based web analyst Sean Power, a few days ago his laptop was stolen while visiting New York. A few days went past until Power remembered he had installed a free tracking program to his laptop called Prey,according to Cnet in the process of tracking down the thief he decided to keep his Twitter followers updated on his exploits.

In his first Tweet which you can see above Power can be seen expressing his joy in tracking down his beloved MacBook, capitalizing on the use of his tracking software he then proceeded to gather more information on the man that was in possession of his computer, using a built in camera he was even able to gain a picture of the assailant.

Power then continued to keep his followers updated with all this newly acquired information and even sent out the thieves location, following this one of his followers headed down to the bar and confronted the guy who had stolen the laptop. After a brief conversation on the phone with Power the thief decided to do the right thing and return his much loved piece of kit.

This just goes to show how powerful social networking is, we don’t know about you but after reading this story we will definitely be downloading Prey onto our computers.

TechEd: Cisco Expands Microsoft, NetApp Relationships, chum up against VMware

Who needs VMware? NetApp, Microsoft and Cisco are releasing validated server/hypervisor/storage designs for Hyper-V cloud data centres. We definitely won't call them vBlocks.

These template designs are part of Microsoft's clumsily named Hyper-V Cloud Fast Trackprogram and NetApp's storage component is called the even less-catchy "NetApp Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco data center architecture," which defeats acronym shortening. Perhaps El Reg will call them Hyper-V blocks, which sounds better than H-blocks.

The design uses Cisco UCS servers and Nexus switches, and NetApp FAS storage running ONTAP. A NetApp OnCommand 3.0 plug-in for Microsoft will be included and available in August. The Microsoft components include Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 and Microsoft System Center components. These are System Center Virtual Machine Manager, System Center Operations Manager, System Center Service Manager, and Opalis Integration Server.

With no trace of irony and no mention of EMC and VMware, Soni Jiandani, an SVP in Cisco's Server Access and Virtualization Technology Group, said: "With this validated architecture design, customers can confidently take advantage of the Cisco Unified Computing System and the NetApp infrastructure to accelerate their journey to the private cloud."

Microsoft's channel partners can use the pre-validated designs to implement private public cloud infrastructures using the Cisco-Microsoft-NetApp combo. Other Microsoft partners in this program include Dell, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, IBM and NEC. We don't think it is likely EMC will show in the list, but you never know. ®

Microsoft And Baidu To Partner A Big Search Deal In China To Take On Google (REPORT)

Looks like Microsoft is on a roll these days, after acquiring Skype for a whooping $8.5 Billion, reports in Chinese press now suggests that Microsoft is on the verge of announcing a deal with Chinese search giant Baidu.

Bing is currently an also-ran in Chinese search and any potential deal with Baidu could help Microsoft’s relatively new search business take off in the country.

Reports in China suggest Baidu could be about to take over the paid ads on Bing’s Chinese site while Microsoft would offer English language results for Baidu in return.

According to sources, Baidu will be Microsoft’s strategic agreement signed this weekend, both sides will cooperate in the search field to reach, but still unaware of the specific details of cooperation. Insiders speculate that Microsoft will be in the (bing) provided to use Baidu’s bid ranking service.

Reports also suggest a deal could be announced as early as next week.

Bing isn’t the only US-based search company having problems in China, with Google also struggling to make a dent in Baidu’s huge user base. Microsoft’s partnership with the big boys of Chinese search could see Google pushed even further down the pecking order.