Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:40 AM CEST - Jun,29 2004
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- Malicious server halted - Russian Web site that had been
downloading code to steal financial information from users
has apparently been shut down, security officials reported today. No one
has figures on how many government or other users may have been affected by
the widely publicized network attack.
- Gates dishes out security promises - At a news conference here
Monday,
Microsoft's chairman said computer systems must become more secure and
must be at least as reliable as essential physical infrastructure like
electricity and water systems. "That absolutely has to be done," he said.
The main solution to the problem, Gates said, is to isolate people who are
trying to send out malicious code. Gates said one-third of customers have
never had problems with security attacks because they have firewalls in place.
But for the other 70 percent of the customers, he said, the process of
protecting themselves had been "clearly not automatic enough."
- Will XP's Service Pack Cause Chaos? - The major
changes to Windows XP brought by Service Pack 2 are bound to cause support
headaches. Analysts, users, PC makers, and Microsoft all expect a spike in
help desk calls. SP2 is due out in the third quarter, so it could be out as
soon as next month. The service pack will be downloaded automatically into
many PCs through Microsoft's Windows Update service and could create problems,
including breaking current applications, disrupting networking set-ups, and
prompting non-technical users to make PC configuration decisions that may be
beyond their grasp.
- Retro Nintendo joins Game Boy - Japanese gaming giant
Nintendo has gone retro with a classic version of its 15-year-old Game Boy
machine and a collection of original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
titles from the mid-'80s. The Classic NES Limited Edition Game Boy Advance SP
($100) resembles the first television console game launched in the United
States by Nintendo in 1985. The company quickly rose to success with games
such as "The Legend of Zelda," "Donkey Kong" and "Super Mario Brothers."
- New Wi-Fi spec approved - A Wi-Fi security specification received
final approval from a standards group, with improvements to the quality
and speed of wireless networks expected to follow. As expected, the Institute
of Electrical and Electronic Engineers approved on Thursday the 802.11i
specification as a standard to be used in conjunction with other 802.11
standards. The most significant feature of the 802.11i standard is
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), a strong encryption standard supporting
128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit keys, said Robin Ritch, Intel's director of
security industry marketing.
- AMD Sempron to arrive on August 17th -
According
to TheInquirer, the Athlon XP 2700+ and slower chips are going to be
canned. Actually, the last order for 2700+ and slower could be placed until
yesterday Sunday, June 27, 2004. If you want more of those chips you will have
to find someone with some leftovers. AMD is also canning all Athlon MP CPUs
since its Opteron sales are doing great and they don’t want to hurt new
Opterons with leftovers from Athlon MP. Athlon MP, you were a good chip, rest
in peace.
- NV SLI Announced -
NVIDIA today
unveiled a new technology (PR)
that enables multiple NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series or NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards
to operate in a single PC or workstation for a stunning increase in graphics
horsepower. NVIDIA SLI is a patent-pending hardware and software solution that
enables system builders to connect two PCI Express-based NVIDIA GeForce 6
Series or NVIDIA Quadro graphics boards on their PCI Express-compatible
motherboards. Coverage:
TGH,
Gamers Depot,
TechReport,
NeoSeeker,
Hardware Analysis,
FiringSquad,
Sudhian
- ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe WiFi review - Hexus.net let us know they have
posted
a review of the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe WiFi.
- Asus P4P800-VM Motherboard review -
The
P4P800-VM is a strong, reliable, and price effective motherboard. Not only
does it provide the user with Pentium 4 3.0+ and Prescott support, it also
provides a level of performance and guaranteed stability. The low price, along
with all the included features like SATA, onboard LAN, audio and Intel’s
Extreme Graphics 2, makes this board perfect for those upgrading with a
budget.
- BFG's pre-overclocked 6800 Ultra review -
BFG
offers a pre-installed waterblock and card bundle for those who don't want
to void their warranty while installing their own; it even runs at 70MHz over
a stock 6800 Ultra. Yes, it comes at a $99 premium, but the tradeoff of having
a true lifetime warranty intact is very well worth it. Don't have a power
supply good enough to run the new Ultra OC card? BFG has you covered as well.
They even offer a bundle containing both the 6800 Ultra OC and a 530W power
supply. You'll even be able to find the bundle at Best Buy soon.
- HIS Excalibur AIW 9600XT TURBO, Platinum Pack - The HIS Excalibur
AIW 9600XT is a very nice card.
It might not
be the fastest card around, but you get a very good all-around card with
excellent multimedia features. I will even go so far to say that the AIW cards
so far are the ultimate card to use in a multimedia PC and that the Multimedia
Center has everything you need to transform your computer into a kick-ass
Personal Video Recorder.
- Galaxy GeForce FX 5700 LE - So, to sum up,
Galaxy's 5700 LE does exactly what you would expect of it - runs games at
a speed befitting of its budget status. For the most casual of gamers, who
don't expect blisteringly fast shader performance or to run games at high
resolutions with anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, it's hard to be
disappointed with such a cheap offering.
- LG GSA-4082B Super Multi DVD Rewriter review - The LG GSA-4082B drive
PCstats is testing in
this review tackles CD-R/RW and DVD-/+RW media as well as DVD-RAM discs.
The LG GSA-4082B can write DVD-/+R media at 8X, DVD-/+RW media at 4x, DVD-RAM
at 3x and read DVD's at 12x. For standard CD media, the drive can burn CD-R's
at 24x, CD-RW's at 16x and read CD's at 32x. The drive has a 2MB cache as well
as BURN proof technology. Essentially, with this one drive, all of your
recordable optical media requirements are covered in one sweep.
- Voodoo Envy M:860 - Gaming Notebook - It's no surprise to see that
the Envy M:860 is a pretty high-spec notebook. After all, if you want to
play the latest games on the move, you're going to need a bit of grunt under
the hood. Unlike the Rock last week, this Voodoo is based on AMD technology
and the central processing duties are fulfilled by an Athlon 64 3400+.
Supporting the AMD CPU is 1GB of 333MHz DDR RAM and a 60GB 7,200rpm hard disk
both these components should help to push the performance of the Voodoo that
bit further. Of course you can’t have a gaming notebook without a decent
graphics solution, and Voodoo has gone for the best mobile graphics chipset
available in the shape of the ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 complete with 128MB of
memory.
- BenQ Joybook 6000 review - Lasting 168 minutes (2 hours and 48
minutes),
the Joybook 6000 didn't really meet our expectation for an ultra-portable
notebook. Still, with a battery life that's hitting close to three full
hours, you could still get a pile of work done while on the go – just make
sure you keep track of your WiFi usage as this connection will severely
discount the unit's running time.
- Razer Viper Optical Gaming Mouse -
The Razer Viper Optical is a very unique mouse. It sports a nice sleek
design with a lighty ruby tinting that aliminates brightly when used. It also
sports some nice gripping features not often found on mice today.
- RCA Lyra RD2780 player review - Video playback is a tricky beast.
The RD2780 will not play back all types of video files that you might
expect it should. This is perhaps the single most important negative aspect of
the RD2780. In order for portable video players to really achieve some sort of
momentum in the market, a device either needs to support a wide variety of
video codecs, or the manufacturer needs to provide easy to use software to
create video files compatible with the RD2780. Sure – if you're computer savvy
you can re-encode DivX, XviD, MPEG1/2, or WMV files into the appropriate
formats but the average Joe sure won't be able to
- The Beginners Guide to Linux v1.1 - Linux- sometimes referred to by
the press as 'Windows NT's worst enemy'. Wired Magazine once called it 'The
greatest story never told'. This is a perfect definition because the story
behind Linux is indeed a great one, yet it is unknown to so many people.
Let's start at the beginning.
- Ray tracing's viability for games discussed -
GameStar.de's forum has discussion between NVIDIA Chief Scientist David
Kirk and computer graphics professor Philipp Slusallek.
- nLite 0.97 Beta -
nLite
will remove certain components from your Windows XP/2003 installation CD so
that they are never installed with Windows. Removing unneeded components you
gain on your system speed and security.
- SpyBlocker 8.0 - Many web sites have ads that are distracting and a
drain on bandwidth. Some sites send cookies and other files to your computer.
Still others acquire information about you, your machine, and your browsing
habits by using single-pixel Web bugs and other methods.
This program (download)
monitors this type of web activity and lets users control or block the ads and
tracking systems. But it also strips ads out of ad-supported software,
disabling the ad module and tracking capabilities without disabling the
functionality of the program.
- Nero CD-DVD Speed 3.10 -
Nero CD-DVD Speed (download)
is an utility to verify various paramentri of our drive CD-ROM/DVD-ROM:
Transfer installments, Seek times, CPU usage, Burst installments, DAE quality,
Transfer installments, Spinup/spindown time.
- ForceWare 61.36 WHQL Windows 2000/XP - Gainward is hosting
the
official ForceWare drivers for Windows 2000/XP today, best thing about
that is that they are WHQL (Microsoft) certified.
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Updated:10:52 PM CEST Jun,05
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