James Martin, the Island's live-in technology guru, must be a very happy guy these days.

A spin-off company from Mr. Martin -- suitably called James Martin & Co. -- has had an injection of $191 million in funding and has been relaunched as Headstrong.

The announcement was made last week by the 19-year-old information technology and Internet consulting firm. The company will focus on digital strategy services and use the capital for training, marketing and forging strategic partnerships.

Mr. Martin, who remains chairman emeritus of James Martin, told LocalBusiness.com that the company has nearly a two-decade history of delivering complex IT systems and understanding how technology affects organisations.

For the consulting company to be a continued success "we had to take our own medicine'' and roll out a different enterprise, he was quoted as saying.

"It needed a lot of money, a lot of work and a lot of ingenuity'', Mr. Martin said of the transformation. He described the change as a "very deliberate and very radical reinvention of James Martin & Co.'' New York private equity investment firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe put $173 million in the company, which gives it effective control. Plans are to eventually take the company public, according to the firm. Headstrong had $110 million in revenue in 1999 and profits of $6 million.

If you're an Internet day trader you should be extra careful these days according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC has warned that there are a number of scamsters claiming to sell securities online and offering "pre-IPO''' stock for investors who can supposedly jump in before the firms go public.

A number of companies have been making such claims including 1stBuy.com Inc.

The company paid a $25,000 civil fine after the SEC alleged that the company raised some $3.8 million from 1,200 investors by making false and misleading statements about an IPO, or initial public offering of stock, and by referring to the offering as a "pre-IPO.'' It was the fourth time in recent months that the SEC has taken action against companies attempting to exploit those looking for online businesses on which to ride to their dreams.

The SEC has accused New World Web Vision.com, Y2K Highway Inc. and Stadtt Media LLC, of securities fraud by making false claims about IPOs. Be especially wary when hanging out on the company notice boards at Yahoo! I've been reading some very suspicious hype on some of those e-mail boards over the past year.

Password cracking is another favourite exercise of the hacker crowd. Many people choose some of the most obvious passwords despite many warnings against the practice. It doesn't take much smarts to guess such passwords.

A survey by Visa found that 67 percent of passwords are easy-to-guess names or numbers. The majority of people choose their birth date, nickname or favourite sports team as a password.

Visa found that 19 percent of those surveyed use their own name or nickname (now that's dumb), 11 percent use their partner's name or nickname, 11 percent use their birth date or star sign, eight percent use the name of a sports team, eight percent a holiday destination, five percent a favourite pop star and five percent the name of their home town.

And half those surveyed admitted to using the same password to access three or more applications. It is tempting and easy. Remembering passwords is a hassle especially as the recommended combination is one that mixes numbers with upper and lower case letters.

However, if you fit into those categories you're advised to change your password immediately.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin y hotmail.com or (33) 467901474.