Notes expand Web services features in next release. IBM will be giving Lotus Notes developers tools to let the popular corporate application consume a Web service officially. Today, you can publish a Web service in Notes for other apps to consume, but not the other way around. Mark Jordain, an IBM product manager, says some app creators have already solved that problem, but IBM doesn't officially support their work. However, when the next release of Notes appears late next year or early in 2007, IBM's support will be official. Also, expect to see a Linux client for Notes in the next release. Rob Ingram, another IBM product manager, acknowledges that customers aren't yet banging down IBM's door for a Linux client, but with corporate engineering departments shifting from Unix to Linux, the company expects to hear the tap-tap-tapping soon.

Filter out unnecessary data for remote, online backups. Matt Medeiros observes that Hurricane Katrina should have disabused folks of the notion that storing backups across a campus or even across town is a good idea. Still, the CEO of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SonicWall Inc. acknowledges that people are skeptical about the efficiencies of backing up PC-resident data across the Internet. He thinks that there will be fewer doubters in 2006, when his company releases a combination of content management and online backup technology that lets you "filter out data that is not mission-critical to the company." Not only can you avoid backing up end-user MP3 files, but you can also skip saving every copy of a corporate memo on local drives. The SonicWall system, he claims, will know that only one memo needs to be retained. What's more, Medeiros contends, you won't have to churn through every file to see what's important. He says it will be done with simple scripts that can be written to eliminate file types, such as MP3s, or to ensure that anything labeled "confidential" does get saved off-site.

Glide through multimedia creations effortlessly with a new service. So promises Donald Leka, CEO of New York-based TransMedia -- if you sign up for his Glide Effortless service, which stores dozens of file formats, such as PowerPoint, Word, QuickTime, MP3, Flash and many more. With the GlideLink tools, you can drag and drop such files into a single presentation that can be streamed to the end users or groups you specify. According to Leka, you can protect file access in numerous ways. For example, you can set the number of times a person can view a stream or download or forward a file, and you can revoke access after it has been given. The current release is geared toward consumers, with 100MB of online storage offered for free. Later this month, a corporate version will be unveiled that, Leka says, "can provide a big company with a terabyte of storage." Today, GlideLink works only with Windows, but around Christmas, Mac users will get a version, and in January, even Linux desktop users will have one.

Americans tops in impatience in global poll of help desk callers. Dimension Data Holdings PLC, an IT services and integration firm in Johannesburg, South Africa, conducted a study of 360 call centers across the globe and learned that people calling from the U.S. were likely to hang up the fastest if their call wasn't answered in a timely manner. While callers from the Asia-Pacific region were willing to endure easy-listening arrangements of ancient Beatles tunes for an average of 72 seconds before slamming down the phone, Americans could tolerate that torture for only about half that time. Lesson? Answer U.S. calls first, or wait a bit, knowing they'll ring off before you need to say hello.