Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 02:04 PM CEST - Jul,24 2004
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- Virus Purporting Bin Laden Suicide Hits Web -
A virus purporting to show images of Osama Bin Laden's suicide popped up
on the Internet on Friday, designed to entice recipients to open a file that
unleashes malicious software code, security experts said. The virus was
attached to a message that was posted on over 30,000 usenet newsgroups and is
not being spread via e-mail, said Web security vendor Sophos.
- Interim Release 1218 Windows Server 2003 SP1 available for beta testers
- FYI,
a new build of Windows Server 2003 SP1 has been released to beta testers
this evening.
- Windows Server 2003 Security Guide 1.3 -
The Windows Server 2003 Security Guide provides guidance to assist in
hardening Domain Controllers, Infrastructure servers, File servers, Print
servers, IIS servers, IAS servers.Certificate Services, and bastion hosts.
- Off-topic: GPS Coke Can can obtained and X-rayed - Remember the
Coke can that's been disrupting Army and government operations all over? The
one that's got
the
cellphone/GPS transponder inside that allows you to collect on a new Chevy
SUV? The one you damn near gave yourself diabetes trying to find, not even
because of the prize but because, come on, look at it! Yeah, that one. Well,
lucky lucky, someone got their hands on one and had it dissected and exposéd
via X-ray. They were even thoughtful enough to compare it side-by-side with an
improvised explosive device (IED), which is what everyone was so concerned
about (just not us). (thanks
Slashdot)
- Off-topic: ET first contact "within 20 years" - If intelligent life
exists elsewhere in our galaxy, advances in computer processing power and
radio telescope technology
will ensure we detect their transmissions within two decades. That is the
bold prediction from a leading light at the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, California.
- Off-topic: Bright idea: LEDs poised to replace light bulbs - A
recent advance in light-emitting diodes may illuminate
the path to replacing light bulbs with LEDs within the next five years,
according to researchers. Fred Schubert, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute (Troy, N.Y.), claims to have invented a 99-percent efficient
reflector that promises to speed the replacement of light bulbs with LEDs.
"Until now, all lighting systems, especially incandescent bulbs, generated
more heat than light. But our 99-percent efficient reflectors for LEDs makes
them the first candidate for light-bulb replacement that generates more light
than heat," said Schubert.
- Off-topic: Army rations rehydrated by urine -
Would you eat food cooked in your own urine? Food scientists working for
the US military have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate by
adding the filthiest of muddy swamp water or even peeing on it. The ration
comes in a pouch containing a filter that removes 99.9 per cent of bacteria
and most toxic chemicals from the water used to rehydrate it, according to the
Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the US Army Soldier Systems Center in
Natick, Massachusetts.
- Off-topic: Halo 2 Theatrical Trailer -check
it out.
- Playstation chipping mod banned in the UK- A British court has
upheld a plea by Sony to ban the sale of modified Playstation 2 chips. That,
according to the BBC, follows Sony bringing a case to the High Court using the
European Union's directive on copyright, which faced a great deal of
opposition before it was issued last year. The report said that David Ball,
who sold Messiah mod chips for the Playstation 2, has been banned from selling
mod chips. The ruling means that using them,
selling
them or advertising their sale here is also illegal.
- Microsoft needs 7,000 resumes - Microsoft expects
to
hire roughly 6,000 to 7,000 workers over the next 12 months, the company
said Friday, though it is unclear how many of those hires will be filling new
posts.
- MP3 creator returns with 3D sound - Karlheinz Brandenburg, director
of the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Technology, along with a team of
co-developers, is in Los Angeles this week showing off his new "Iosono"
technology to representatives of Hollywood studios and giants including
Disney. Brandenburg is credited with much of the work leading to the MP3
format, also developed at Fraunhofer. He and his team are touting their new
product as
true "three dimensional" audio, which can give the impression of, for
example, a horse galloping through the center aisle of a movie theater, or
pinpoint a noise so that it sounds exactly like a person shouting from outside
theater walls.
- How many dead LCD pixels are OK on a screen? - In fact,
there is
an ISO specification which covers this particular problem. The ISO 13406-2
standard deals with this problem, and classifies pixel faults as Types One ,
Two, and Three, as well as fault clusters. Type One is a pixel in a stuck high
state, Type Two a pixel in a stuck low state, Type Three is when a pixel or
subpixel is abnormal for another reason, and a fault cluster is two or more
pixels or subpixels with faults within a five by five pixel block.
- Seagate and Maxtor post losses - It seems that hard drive companies
are falling on hard times. On Tuesday, Seagate announced a net loss of
$33 million for Q2 2004. On Wednesday, Maxtor reported a similar loss in
the amount of
$26.1 million for the same time period.
- Intel to bundle ATI-based VGA cards with 915/925 motherboards -
Intel and ATI Technologies plan a co-marketing initiative called "Driving
Change," which will target the channel and
bundle ATI own-brand add-in-board (AIB) clients with Intel own-brand
motherboards, according to sources at Taiwanese motherboards makers. The
plan, which will kick off on August 2 in North America and Europe, will offer
channel distributors discounts of US$20 or US$30, depending on the motherboard
models. A discount of US$30 is being offered for an ATI Radeon X600-based
graphics card bundled with an Intel BOXD925XCV, BOXD925XBC or BOXD915PBLL
motherboard. An ATI Radeon X300-based graphics card bundled with an Intel
BOXD915PCYL, BOXD915PCY or BOXD915GAGL board will be US$20 less than the list
price, the sources added.
- Sapphire releases the TOXIC X800 PRO VIVO -
Developed for the enthusiast, Sapphire believes in empowering our family
of hardcore tweak addicts by including a built-in calculated performance
enhancements with the inclusion of the A.P.E. , TMR and Lethal Cooling
technologies . The Automated Performance Enhancement (A.P.E.) allows for the
optional increase of memory clock speed to pre-tested levels while maintaining
the hardware's health.
- HP offers up Compaq X gaming PC -
HP
will offer two different Compaq X variants based on specific Intel and AMD
processor platforms. The Intel-based GX5000T series features an ASUS P4C800-E
motherboard, and there are four Intel Pentium 4 processor options ranging in
speed from 2.8GHz to 3.4GHz. The AMD-based GX5000Z series features an MSI K8N
Neo2 Platinum motherboard; processor options include the AMD Athlon 64 3500+
and 3800+ as well as the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53.
- An All-Around Athlon 64 System for $1,500 - ExtremeTech has posted
an article about building an Athlon 64 system for $1,500.
- TR's CPU decoder ring -
The following chart
lists a large number of processors, and gives you just about all the
pertinent details of each one. Wondering exactly what the differences are
between the two types of Athlon XP 3000+, or what the heck a Pentium 4 550 is?
- ASUS P5AD2 Premium i925X Motherboard -
Based on the Intel i925X chipset, this motherboard is so feature-packed
that ASUS is actually marketing it as a motherboard suitable for entry-level
servers and workstations! But will this bold stab at both the
workstation/server market as well as the hardware enthusiast work? Let's find
out.
- Socket 939 Roundup - Based on top performance, the full
implementation of the nForce3 Ultra features, value, overclocking performance,
and flexibility,
the MSI K8N Neo2 emerges from a class of top Socket 939 Athlon 64 boards.
- ABIT AV8 (Socket 939) - It looks like ABIT tried to cut costs this
time around, cutting a few corners here and there but ending up with a good
motherboard at the end. It's not the best all around Socket 939 motherboard
out on the market,
but is cost
effective and a great overclocker.
- Cheap PCI-Express cards roundup -
Digit-Life compared Gigabyte GV-RX60X128V, MSI RX600XT-TD128 based on ATI
RADEON X600XT and Gigabyte GV-NX57128D, MSI PCX5750-TD128, Leadtek WinFast
PX360 TD based on NVIDIA GeForce PCX5750. The characteristics themselves make
it clear that these cards are of the middle level in the price range within
110-160 USD.
- HIS' X800 IceQIIs Cometh -
THG benchmarks the Excalibur Pro IceQ II VIVO and XT PE IceQ II VIVO to
gauge how well the vendor harnesses the X800's power.
- RAID 5 Scaling Tests With Up To Eight Drives - Costs are no doubt
an important factor for SATA storage.
THG tested several configurations using up to eight drives from RAIDCore,
Raptor and Western Digital to determine the best price/performance ratio.
- Toshiba SD-R5272 8x DVD±RW review -
The drive had no problems reading pressed and CD-R media at 40x, but
slowed to 24x when reading CD-RW discs. Toshiba's new drive also reached a
maximum DAE speed of 24x. This is pretty slow considering most of the 8x DVD
writers we've looked at have been able to rip audio CD's at 32x or faster. As
a writer, the SD-R5272 performed reasonably well. With its 32x CD-R and 16x
CD-RW writing speeds it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives we've
tested, but its writing quality was very good.
- Windows XP Service Pack 2: Install With Care - The real surprise
with Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 isn't potential compatibility issues,
but the mayhem that can occur when SP2 is downloaded onto a system. CRN Test
Center engineers evaluated a release candidate two (RC2) version of SP2, and
upon completion of the install
on three out of five systems, the machines blue-screened. A message stated
that "winserv" was missing. The blue screen occurred on both Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) and Intel platforms, and all systems were running Windows XP Pro
with Service Pack 1 installed. Every possible avenue to get back into Windows
failed.
- CATALYST 4.7 has an issue with 3DMark03 - DriverHeaven is reporting
that
ATI has withdrawn its latest CATALYST 4.7 driver from Futuremark
certification because of a documented display corruption problem with
3DMark03.
- Kerio MailServer 6 released -
Kerio MailServer
6 introduces integration with Outlook allowing for shared calendars,
contacts and tasks. New Kerio WebMail features drag-and-drop, right-click
menus and keyboard shortcuts. (thanks
Shaitan's Blog)
- FarCry Benchmark v1.1 -
The
HardwareOC FarCry Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes video card
benchmarking fast and easy. You can select different resolutions, rendering
engines, detail levels and much much more by one click.
- Siriel4 game engine 0.9 -
Siriel4 is game engine
for adventure, arcade, maze like games. The main goal of this engine is to
provide tools and scripts for easy game creation. Game creators only write the
necessary scenario descriptions for the game in a scripting language (such as
Lua) and do not have to care about such low-level details as animation
loading, etc
- MultiRes 1.47 -
MultiRes
1.47 is a small, free, 32-bit alternative to QuickRes, with refresh rate
and multi-monitor support for up to nine display devices under Windows 9x/Me
and Windows NT/2000/XP.
- Lookout V1.2 -
Lookout is lightning-fast search for your email, files, and desktop
integrated with Microsoft Outlook. Built on top of a powerful search engine,
Lookout is the only personal search engine that can search all of your email
from directly within Outlook - in seconds...
- GNOME 2.7.4 - The
GNOME project (download)
provides two things: The GNOME Linux desktop environment, an intuitive and
attractive desktop for end-users, users, and the GNOME development platform,
an extensive framework for building applications that integrate into the rest
of the desktop
- The Bat! 2.12.03 (SHW) -
The Bat
is powerful email client with a friendly, neat interface.
- nLite v0.98.4 - Mainly, it's a little bit of a slipstreamer,
customizer, reducer and iso creator all in one package. Works for every
version of Windows XP installation, so far tested up to slipsteamed SP2 build
2162. To avoid confusion, this is for pre-installation, not like XPlite which
is post installation customizer.
This version
still could be buggy, if you encounter any critical errors please report it
and use 0.97, it's quite stable.
- Hyper-Threading Technology Test Utility - If the
Hyper-Threading Technology Test Utility has returned a non-passing result
for the tested desktop or notebook system, this area will provide guidance in
understanding the results and steps to resolve potential system issues.
- Tray Helper 4.3 -
Tray Helper
is free application with many features (f/e: email checker, auto mail
responder, anti-spam, popup-killer, event reminder and more).
- HyperSnap-DX 5.60.02 (SHW) -
HyperSnap-DX (download)
is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens
from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D,
3Dfx, 3dfx, Voodoo and Glide mode games.
- Fresh Download 7.10 -
Fresh Download (download)
is an easy-to-use and very fast download manager software that turbo charges
downloading files from the Internet, such as your favorite software, mp3
files, video files, picture collections, etc. Unlike any other similar
utilities, this software is 100% free, no charges, no banners in the software,
no spyware.
- Foobar2000 v0.8.3 -
Foobar2000 (download)
is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic
features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support
for several popular audio formats.
- SpeedFan 4.14 -
SpeedFan (download)
is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds, temperatures and voltages in
computers with hardware monitoring chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T.
info for those hard disks that support this feature (almost all :-)) and show
hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on
some motherboards.
- Nvidia ForceWare 62.20 Beta - This time again, and props to them,
Neowin.net was able to grab and leak ForceWare drivers, this is build
62.20 for Windows 2000 & XP. The files are dated 07/15/2004 and will work with
the entire range of Nvidia graphics cards.These fully support and NVIDIA
graphics card and bare in mind they are not WHQL qualified so please be
careful. Mirror:
Guru3D.
- LG 4040B firmware A304 -
This new firmware supports 4X speed for LG DVD-R 8X Media and improves the
readability for 8cm DVD-R/RW media
- Lite-On CD-RW firmware - LiteOn have released a new DVD Dual and
CD-RW firmware updates for
Lite-On SOHW-1213S, Lite-On SOHW-832S, Lite-On SOHW-812S, Lite-On SOHW-832SX,
Lite-On SOHW-812SX and
Lite-On SOHR-5238S.
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Updated:11:06 PM CEST Jun,04
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