The Pandora Recovery 2.0 data recovery tool now recovers from both NTFS and FAT formatted drives and remains free to all.

Truphone has added services to ensure customers never run out of credit again. The new services are:

Customers can now easily top-up [refill their credit] while on the move
Customers may set their account to ‘auto top-up’when credit has reached a specified level
Truphone now sends ‘low balance’ SMS alerts to customers
Payments may be made via a wider variety of credit and debit cards

Electric Pocket has created a new software tool for BlackBerry smartphones which lets users automatically forward text messages to any email address. txtForward can be used when changing to a new phone so you don’t miss messages during the transition.

It’s been a while since we’ve given you an update on some of the coverage our own David Gewirtz and the ZATZ magazines have been getting, and we also wanted to share some of the link-love back to those who wrote about us. So here are a few of the articles mentioning David’s work in the last few weeks:

• Yahoo News, “GAOBashes Feds Sloppy E-mail Management”
• Aljazeera Magazine (yep, that Aljazeera), “Lost e-mails obscure ‘Plame-gate'”
• Pacific Free Press, “Bush Farewell: A Legacyof Continued Secrecy”
• ConnectIT News, “U.S.government cyber-security worse than previously thought”
• Certification Magazine, “E-MailExpert Addresses the White House’s IT Shortcomings”
• MC Press Online, “Hardware Encryption Offers Benefits over Software Encryption”

A full list of recent coverage is on his Reviews Page. Stay tuned. With more interesting articles coming out and a pile of interviews scheduled over the next few months, we’re sure to have a lot more link-love to share throughout the summer.

Start-up CherryPal is taking pre-orders for its partly cloudy “desktop” that mashes web-hosted computing, going green, open source, and social networking into a 10 ounce box.

CherryPal is asking $249 for the systems, and, surprisingly, won’t require a monthly subscription despite having most of its storage capacity and several of its features hosted in the cloud.

It’s Windows Vista’s fault that solid-state storage isn’t performing as well as its proponents predicted. So said SanDisk CEO Eli Harari.

SSDs are viewed as the heir apparent to the hard disk, particularly for laptops and other mobile computers. SSDs are way more shock-resistant and consume less power. Theoretically, they should deliver better performance. But they don’t. According to Harari, it’s because “Vista is not optimised for Flash memory solid-state disks”.

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) cautioned investors about a new identity theft scam designed to extract confidential information and cash from unwary individuals.

SIPC officials are investigating phony emails sent by a supposed “senior investment advisor” claiming to act for an SIPC member. Neither the individual nor the firm named in the message are involved in the solicitation. The email falsely claims the brokerage firm is acting on behalf of SIPC.

To get the information supposedly needed to file the claim, the sender includes a fake SIPC “Beneficiary Information for Automatic Deposit of Payment” form requiring information which could be used to withdraw funds from an investor’s accounts. The phony form even includes a false detailed form routing number: “SIPC 4531/09 (4-00).”

Investor reports about such e-mails sent in the name of SIPC should be directed to vdrew@sipc.org. Investors receiving any such suspicious e-mails are encouraged to forward the original e-mail to SIPC.

To learn more about how SIPC brokerage account liquidations work, go to http://www.sipc.org/pdf/SIPC_brochure_Investors_Guide_To_BD_Liquidations.pdf on the Web.

It was a bad day when Uncle Benji’s laptop was stolen. His new PC had Windows Vista on. Instead of agreeing to the EULA – which he actually read – he asked for a refund on the operating system.

For details on his saga: http://www.equiliberate.org/?q=node/3

Disk Space Finder is a free tool to help you find out what is taking up the most disk space on a PC.

When your iPod screen cracks, the folks at the website http://www.ipodjuice.com can replace it with a brand new screen that is covered for ten years.