The Department of Energy released a final Request for Proposals (RFP) yesterday for the competitive selection of a management and operating contractor for Berkeley Lab. A draft RFP was issued in October for public comment and a Comment Workshop was held in the Berkeley area. The final RFP, which reflects minor changes from the draft as a result of comments received, includes provisions to facilitate competition, encourage superior science, and achieve excellent management performance. Full story.

Nordman Helps
Set the Standard

Nordman

A new standard, IEEE 1621, has just been approved by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Board. Bruce Nordman, with Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division, worked with industry to draft the standard, and shepherded it through the approval process. It defines principles and design elements for power control in computers, office equipment and consumer electronics—mainly terms, symbols, and indicator lights, and should lead to greater use of low-power "sleep" modes, which will save large amounts of electricity. Go here for more information.

Take Precautions When
Using Laptop Computer

Laptop computers — originally designed for short-term use only — are now primary computers for many employees.   However, this can cause injury. Because the keyboard and monitor are attached, they can't be adjusted for comfort. Also, the keys are smaller than those found on a traditional keyboard. Finally, the bases can get hot and cause burns. Laptop users should consider using a separate, full-size keyboard and pointing device, a monitor riser or laptop holder to raise the screen to eye level, and a docking station to facilitate use of separate input devices and monitor. Additional equipment, such as an ergo chair, keyboard tray, and computer desk, can also help. For more information, contact Jeffrey Chung at x7170.

Lab Technologies Make Herring Top 100 List

From top, Cohen, Alivisatos, Zettl

Nanosys, Inc. and Nanomix, Inc. — start-ups using Berkeley Lab technology licensed by the Technology Transfer Department — have been named to Red Herring's list of the 100 most innovative companies. Nanosys was co-founded by Paul Alivisatos and has licensed a portfolio of nanotechnologies from his lab. Nanomix, which has licensed nanotube technologies from Alex Zettl, was founded by Zettl and Marvin Cohen. All three researchers are with the Materials Sciences Division. Go here to see a complete list of winners.

A new mass-mailing Windows-targeting worm, which may appear as a holiday greeting from someone you know, is spreading rapidly. It arrives as a message from a falsified address with a subject line such as "Merry Christmas!," "bolddog karacsony...," "Feliz Navidad!," and "Weihnachten card." Examples of messages are "Happy HollyDays!," "Feliz Navidad!, "Joyeux Noel!," accompanied by the spoofed sender name and cute graphics. Attachments have extensions of .bat, .cmd, .com, .pif, and .zip. If you open such attachments, your system will be infected by this Erkez.D worm which will disable security processes and make your system vulnerable to back door access by attackers. Do not open any attachment that you are not expecting, even if it appears to be from someone you know. And update your anti-virus software every day.

ITSD to Charge
For VPN service

Starting in January, the Information Technologies and Services Division will begin charging users of the Virtual Private Networking (VPN) service — both hardware and software — a recurring fee of $12 per month. All current VPN customers will be contacted and given the opportunity to discontinue the service or to provide an account number for ongoing charges. VPN technology provides users with secure remote access to Laboratory resources, including online library journals and websites that are restricted to onsite use. Go here for more information.