The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is AC/DC's Back In Black. Ever have one of those days where you couldn't decide between Back In Black or Miles Davis' Kind of Blue for the music, either would have been fine? It's that kind of day here:

 

Norwell, Massachusetts-based CRM vendor Satuit Technologies, which focuses on the market for investment professionals, has announced that the company's earnings for 2009 grew by 80 percent year over year. The company credits "strong client retention and the growth of its sales force" for the strong results.  

 

"2009 was a building year for us," said Karen Maguire, CEO of Satuit, adding that "we took advantage our surplus cash and of the market conditions to add staff, in sales, programming and client support."

 

We must say "surplus cash" sounds nice about now. Our hat's off to you.

 

"There was a lot of strong talent out there and we were in a position to make some bold moves," Maguire said. "We also saw our reputation for success in the asset management industry bear fruit as we won larger deals against must larger competitors."  

 

Satuit officials also mentioned what they called "the continuing trend for hosted solutions" for playing a role, with SatuitCRM's on-demand product outpacing their on-premise offering at a rate of "nine out of every ten deals." Still, they said 2009 saw interest in on-premise deployments, noting that the vendor can deliver "the same software and service for both hosted clients and more traditional on-premise deployments."

 

Approximately 11 percent of Satuit's total client base has installed SatuitCRM on their own servers, but these clients represent more than 28 percent of all users.   

 

SatuitCRM officials like to point out that their software was "designed and built for investment professionals, by investment professionals." The privately-held company was founded in 1994.

 

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No moss growing on the folks over at Pearson Education. They've already released their first iPhone/iPad Reader Apps for the home and office and technical and professional communities.

The apps, available as single or multi-book libraries, are considered "a new learning format" for the company by Pearson officials, who say they "complement the suite of product types already available, such as traditional print books, online reference libraries, e-books, video, simulation and more."

The first App to launch, The iPhone Developer's Library, combines three books on Mac programming and iPhone app development. The Pearson reader App contains "standard eBook features such as easy navigation, search, highlighting, and hyperlinking," company officials say, "along with features specifically designed to benefit the technical audience, such as scrolling vertically and horizontally through long program code listings and the ability to access and reuse program code through the e-mail feature."

 

Guess we don't qualify as the "technical audience," then, as those don't sound like the reasons we'd buy the app. They sound perfectly lovely for whomever they're intended for, however.

 

In addition to the fully-populated iPhone Developer's Library App, Pearson also offers free reader Apps that contain one sample chapter from various best-selling Pearson books, and allow customers to purchase the remaining chapters. And for IT professionals interested in pursuing certifications there are a growing list of Apps to come from Pearson, in areas such as CCNA, CompTIA and more.

 

Pearson Apps are now available through the iTunes Store. More than 15 reader apps are available now. The latest apps from Pearson downloadable for free include Effective Java, Mac OS X Snow Leopard in Depth and Microsoft Windows 7 Unleashed.

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IdentityTruth, an identity theft monitoring service, has issued a warning to consumers about how everyday activities like using their phone, browsing the Web and shopping can increase their risk of becoming victims of identity theft.

 

"The way we live can actually provide many more opportunities for criminals to target us as victims of identity theft," says Steven Domenikos, CEO of IdentityTruth. "Most people don't think about identity theft until it happens to them, and miss opportunities to protect themselves from being victimized."

 

Domenikos has a list of eight everyday activities which he says increase an individual's risk for ID theft, and he's willing to share them with you:

 

Phone Home: While Apple vets all iPhone apps, some others -- notably Android Market -- do not. Fake banking apps have been discovered on Android Market and have been subsequently removed, "but not before they were downloaded and used by an unnamed number of victims," he says. Apple isn't immune from phishing scams, but they're safer.

 

Staying Connected: Social networking sites are the culprit here. Besides the spam friend requests that are received, presumably in an effort to get past the spam e-mail filters, there are the add-on helper applications that pose just as much a danger as the rogue smart phone apps referenced above.

Check that URL: In October 2009, ICANN approved the user of non-Western characters in Web addresses. Beginning in mid-2010, one will begin to see addresses in Arabic, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic and others. With certain foreign characters looking like western characters, it is easy to see that the scam artists will use these to impersonate valid sites.

 

It's in the mail: When you receive applications for "preapproved credit cards in the mail" be sure that you open and shred the enclosed materials before throwing them away: "According to the US Department of Justice, criminals may retrieve those applications to try and activate the cards for their use without your knowledge."

 

Longer Log-ins: A recent report from Imperva shows the most commonly used passwords, including "123456" and "iloveyou" makes you easier to target. Choose complex passwords that include both letters and numbers.

 

To reply: If you get an e-mail from any institution -- be it your bank, your credit card company or the IRS -- asking that you reply with sensitive personal information, do not respond under any circumstances.

 

Trash that: Dumpster Diving is where criminals comb through trash looking for personal financial information -- cancelled checks, bank statements, credit card statements and more.

 

Shred any and all documents containing any personal information.

 

Shop till you drop: Double check all receipts from stores and ATM's -- they may contain account information that identity thieves can use.

 

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Sports Illustrated has expanded their partnership with JAGTAG to change the way readers enjoy what's called, and most likely is, "America's largest print media event, the 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition."

 

The issue hits newsstands today and will feature JAGTAGs throughout the magazine -- as if you'll notice them -- providing readers with the opportunity to request and immediately enjoy videos of top Sports Illustrated models on their phones.

 

Rumor has it text will accompany the swimsuit pictures as well, and unbeknownst to many subscribers, actually has in the past as well.

 

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition readers -- term used loosely -- can "access the exclusive content by sending a photo of a 'mobile beauty' JAGTAG, which will return a video via MMS directly to their phones," JAGTAG officials say: "Unlike other 2D barcodes, JAGTAG delivers swimsuit videos to both standard phones and smart phones without requiring the consumer to download an application or have access to the mobile Web."

 

JAGTAG designed custom 2D barcodes for the program featuring a "bikini icon" within the code design. Mobile Beauty videos will showcase Brooklyn Decker from the cover shoot, Olympian Lindsay Vonn, Bar Rafaelli, Jessica White, the 2010 "rookies" and more.

 

Dudley Fitzpatrick, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of JAGTAG, estimates that the magazine will reach over 60 million readers.