Apple's Photo Finish

"For proof, look no further than the collective sigh of relief on Wall Street when I.B.M.'s chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, said that he expected spending on information technology to increase 4 percent or 5 percent this year. That performance, he noted, would be the best since 2000. Still, a modest single-digit growth rate is none too impressive when compared with the boom times of the 1990's or the long-term trend. Growth in a low gear is the consensus outlook. IDC, the technology research firm, estimates worldwide growth in spending on information technology - computer hardware, software and services - through 2008 to be 6.5 percent a year, one and a half times world economic growth over all. That would represent a break with the past. From the 1960's through the 1990's, technology spending has increased on average by two to three times the rate of economic growth."
• The New York Times: A Technology Recovery In Post-Exuberant Times (Registration required)

Here's another sign of mending for technology: Tech publications that went bust with the very dot-coms they covered are coming back. Red Herring magazine, which went from the size of a Sears catalog to nothing, is back and plans a weekly edition, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
• The San Francisco Chronicle: Red Herring Resurfaces With Plans To Go Weekly

If It Sounds Like a Tech Recovery....

Another tech-related IPO could be out of the box soon. Dolby, the pioneer of high-tech movie theater sound systems, may be ready to sell shares to the public, Bloomberg reported today. "Ray Dolby, who developed music and motion-picture sound systems that won him Academy Awards, is planning an initial public stock offering that may value his company at as much as $1.5 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Dolby Laboratories Inc., based in San Francisco, has hired brokerage firm Morgan Stanley and plans to raise about $400 million selling new shares and part of Ray Dolby's stake, said a person who declined to be identified. The transaction is planned for next year."
• Bloomberg via The Los Angeles Times: Dolby May Be Planning IPO (Registration required)

Reader Feedback: Invasion of the Data Snatchers

Monday's Filter column on the spread of various cybersecurity threats prompted some interesting reader feedback. Here are a few edited excerpts of reader comments:

* "I just finished reading your article ... and thought you might want to let people know that there are free tools available for detecting and removing sypware/adware on their PCs. Two of the better tools are Ad-Aware (www.lavasoftusa.com) and Spybot Search & Destroy (www.safer-networking.org/en/download/). They are both free and seem to complement each other by finding items that the other may have missed. I have them both on my home PC and run them once a week. Another good resource can be found at download.com; they have a decent FAQ on the topic and many products (similar to the ones I mentioned previously) available as free downloads." -- Andrew Debenham, Manchester, Md.

* "I [spend] an inordinate amount of time clearing spyware and adware from my home computer by running AdAware SE, SpyBot Search and Destroy (with updates), on top of McAfee anti-virus protection and firewall, etc. All of my Windows service packs are kept up to date. But, it seems to me that the cat and mouse game between hackers and protectors (assuming they really are two different, competing groups), requires each home user to become an amateur IT guru administering daily doses of updated 'aspirin' in order to keep one's computer functioning. What is most disconcerting is that once you have it completely cleaned ... it doesn't stay fixed. Tomorrow's surfing just brings in the same or new spyware/adware. Obviously, my browsing habits seem to pick up all the same stuff over and over. This simply cannot be each individual users' problem, or else Internet use will become not worth the bother. Each consumer should not have to spend 10 hours a week to use their computer for 3 hours of work. Microsoft has apparently committed to going to another OS in the next year or so, having pretty much given up on XP. Maybe Google would like to go beyond search engines and try their hand at operating systems, too?" -- Scott A. Sterling, Holland + Knight, Washington.

washingtonpost.com also has some great cybersecurity resources, including primers on ID theft and PC safety. Thanks for all the readers who took the time to write.

Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com.