SECURITY...

• New Sober Worm on the Loose - A new version of the Sober worm appeared on the Internet early Friday morning and already it is having quite a bit of success infecting users in Europe through the use of social engineering. Sober.J arrives in an e-mail message that appears to be a returned-mail error message, telling the user that an e-mail sent earlier has bounced. The message typically contains a .zip, .bat, .com, .scr or .pif attachment and a body text that is some variation on the following:  "This mail was generated automatically.More info about --YAHOO-- under: http://www.yahoo.com-------Occured_Errors:178.218.194.86_ does_not_like_recipient.# 185: MAILBOX NOT FOUND# 144: Giving_up_on_178.218.194.86.# 533: This_account_has_been_discontinued_[#413].End-------The original mail is attached.Auto_Mail.System: [yahoo]"
• Skulls Trojan attacks Symbian phones  - A newly intercepted malicious Trojan has begun infecting mobile phones which run the Symbian operating system. Dubbed 'Skulls' the Trojan has been detected on Symbian shareware download sites where it bills itself as "Extended Theme Manager" by "Tee-222". However, activation of the malicious code replaces all program icons with skulls and blocks them from running.
• Russians go soft on virus writer - A member of an influential Russian hacking group has received a small fine for posting two viruses on the internet. Eugene Suchkov, a member of the 29a coding group, admitted writing the W32/Stepan and Gastropod viruses and releasing them onto the internet. The code could allow others to create malicious viruses and spread them online.
• End of NT 4 support good news for hackers - Microsoft's move to stop supporting Windows NT Server 4.0 at the end of 2004 will create a migration nightmare that will leave the two million servers that still rely on the operating system open to increased risk from hackers, it has been claimed today.
• Red Hat Warns of Critical Linux Hole- According to a Red Hat Inc. security bulletin, this latest Linux vulnerability is found in fileutils, the package of essential system utilities that manipulate files on a system. The compromised applications include ls, which lists files in a directory, and mkdir, which creates new directories. Some of the problem distributions include Red Hat versions 7.2 through 9.0, and Fedora Core 1 and Core 2 as well as others. However, the warning said BSD and Solaris platforms were unaffected by the vulnerability.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Professional gamers want you - The 4Kings professional computer gaming team has laid down the gauntlet to the public in a bid to find two new recruits to join its group. 4Kings is currently participating in the $1m Cyberathlete Professional League being held at locations around the world. Those wishing to join the team need to compete in online playoffs using the game Bloodline, run by Jolt Online.
• Internet Porn: Worse than Crack? - Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft warns Asian governments of Linux suits - Microsoft Corp. warned Asian governments on Thursday they could face patent lawsuits for using the Linux operating system instead of its Windows software. Linux violates more than 228 patents, according to a recent report from a research group, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said at the company's Asian Government Leaders Forum in Singapore.
• MSN Hotmail Updates - MSN Hotmail users will enjoy a variety of new features today. First of all, a long delayed upgrade in mail box size is being rolled out across new sign ups, as well as existing members. After a 30 day "trust" period (size starts at 25Mb) new users get upgraded to the larger sized mailbox. Hotmail users will be restricted (like Gmail) with a 10Mb cap on message size. Hotmail have also added addition photo features, including the ability to touch up photos and compress them. Microsoft wants to make it easier for Hotmail users to share photos online. (thanks Neowin.net)
• 2-D Holograms Make 3-D Color Display - Researchers from Seoul National University have developed a three-dimensional color display that uses a set of six holograms and is made from relatively compact and inexpensive components.  The three-dimensional displays could eventually be used to display any type of dynamic data for use in entertainment, art, medicine, and military applications.  The autostereoscopic system consists of red, green and blue laser diodes, a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator and a projection lens, and is 60 centimeters long. It generates slightly different images for the left and right eyes to produce the effect of natural three-dimensional vision.
• Nintendo Prepares Weekend Launch of New Handheld - The Nintendo DS handheld launches on Sunday and is like no other portable gaming system before it -- two screens (one of them touch-sensitive), two slots for different types of game cartridges, two kinds of wireless connections, and a number of other bells and whistles that distinguish it from the crowd. Another article can be found here.
• Intel and NVIDIA sign cross-license agreement - NVIDIA and Intel today announced that the companies have signed a broad, multi-year patent cross-license agreement spanning multiple product lines and product generations. Additionally, the companies signed a multi-year chipset agreement for NVIDIA to license Intel's front-side bus technology. This will enable NVIDIA to deliver the NVIDIA nForce platform technology on Intel-based systems.
• Intel prepares to kill off last few 130nm P4s - Come 19 March 2005, and OEMS, system builders and end-users will have missed by a single day their chance to order 2.8, 3.0, 3.2 and 3.4GHz 130nm Pentium 4 chips, each of which supports 800MHz frontside bus clocks and HyperThreading. Anyone who gets their order in by 18 March 2005, can expect delivery by 19 May 2005 for tray-packed processors and 17 June 2005 for boxed parts, Intel notes.

HARDWARE...

• Half-Life 2 CPU Shootout: AMD versus Intel - If you find yourself in a situation where your processor is older than any of those tested, it's a great time to think about upgrading, especially if Half-Life 2 is a priority. NVIDIA's nForce4 chipset is slowly materializing with support for PCI Express and some advanced storage options. Moreover, high-end PCI Express graphics cards, though still rare, will be rolling out prior to the end of 2004. And best of all, there are some remarkably inexpensive processors available, thanks in part to AMD's transition to 90nm manufacturing. You can pick up a Socket 939 Athlon 64 3200+, a great performer in our tests, for less than $200. The 3.2GHz Pentium 4 is priced similarly, though it doesn't benchmark quite as well.
• Testing 12 Athlon 64s - Socket 754 ? 939 ? 130nm and 90nm fabrication process? This test is for those who are lost in AMD's line of products. Here is a comparative test of 16 processors including 12 Athlon 64s.
• Intel Pentium 4 Roundup - For the gamer currently on the Socket 478 platform looking for a processor upgrade it will be worthwhile to evaluate their current hardware setup and figure out if it is worthwhile to move to the 915/925x at this time. A transition to the 925x means a 925x board, DDR2, a new video card and a new processor. The move to the 915 is a bit less painful as some boards will accept DDR. It may be worth it to stick to the 865PE/875 and splurge on a 3.2EE as it may net higher performance at a lesser overall cost even though the EE demands a pretty high premium. For those that may be on a AMD or Pre Socket 478 system, the decision will not be as easy. My suggestion would be to stick with the Prescott and splurge on other areas.
• AMD Athlon FX-55 review - The CPU is basically the same as the FX-53 except with a higher clock- 2.6GHz which makes it the fastest clocked AMD CPU at the moment. As with all FX CPUs, this one also has 1MB Cache which certainly helps in improving performance.
• Shuttle SB77G5 - i875 LGA775 Socketed XPC -  Based on the Intel i875 chipset and outfitted with an LGA775 socket for the new generation Pentium 4 CPUs, this SSF PC looks to be cut from the same cloth as its brethren XPCs, with great small form factor styling and lots of leading edge functionality.
• Foxconn 915A01-P-8EKRS i915 motherboard - The PCB layout is standard, one should note an inconvenient placement of the audio-in jack and the density of memory slots. Access to jumpers is not hampered, when the mainboard is in a case, their brief descriptions are provided on the PCB. The 3-phase switching voltage regulator of the processor incorporates four 1800 uF capacitors and ten 560 uF capacitors. The PCB also contains voltage regulators for the PCI-E x16 bus (2x1000 uF) and for memory (4x1000 uF). Foxconn also manufactures 915A03-P-8EKRS mainboards based on the similar design, which differ from our mainboard under review by the memory type: unlike A01, A03 uses regular DDR.
• Kingston DataTraveler Elite 1GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive - TravelerSafe+ gives users a way to have two separate zones on the flash drive, one being private (password protected) and the other being public. The Boot Utility allows users to set up the DT Elite to be a bootable device that can be used to run BIOS update utilities and the like. The applications are not perfect, but they do add to the DataTraveler Elite experience.
• Hitachi' Ultrastar 10K300 SCSI hard drive - With 300GB of storage to spare, the Ultrastar 10K300 is a monster of a hard drive. Performance is pretty impressive, too, although the drive definitely fares better in some tests than in others. The 10K300 is particularly strong in IOMeter, where it's most competitive with our fastest 10K-RPM SCSI drives. Things aren't so rosy when we look at the Ultrastar's desktop application performance and the bulk of our FC-Test results, where the 10K300's performance consistently trails the 10K-RPM SCSI leaders, including Maxtor's new 300GB Atlas 10K
• Maxtor Atlas 10K V Inaugurates the 300 GB SCSI Drive - The exterior of this unit has barely changed from previous models. It is still a 3.5'' format, 10,000 RPM device with an 8 MB cache, using the Ultra320 SCSI interface. Since per-platter capacity has been increased by 100%, fewer platters are needed to hold the same amount of data. From now on, the 74 GB version will require only one platter; two platters will be used for the 147 GB version, and four platters for the 300 GB top model.
• Epower Technology Warrior Gaming Case review - The Epower Warrior Gaming case has some good and not so good design aspects. With a few design modifications and enhancements this pre-modded case by Epower could be a big seller. The mesh and grooved out window look is just impressive, especially at night with all the lights out.
• ThermalTake XSpeaker Professional Music Kit  - One of the downsides of dragging your rig to a LAN Party is that you have to rely on someone else for sound unless you drag your speakers along with you. Well Thermaltake has decided to do something about that. The XSpeaker Professional Music Kit fits into a free 5.25" bay and guessing from the device's name, the sound should be decent.
• AeroCool AeroBase Flashing Gaming Pad review - The pad itself is quite stunning in terms of design. The outer translucent blue ring is actually a much deeper blue in color. It is just that the pictures are not able to accurately depict its true color. The mousing surface is made of plastic and there is a small black button near the logo on the the top that will allow you to cycle through the various lighting sequences. The bottom is made entirely of the same translucent blue plastic and you can clearly see the 11 embedded blue LEDs that are responsible for the unique lighting effect this pad gives.
• Holiday Shopping List - In the interest of protecting your holiday budget, PCWorld  has compiled some of the more affordable products for turning a PC into a media server.

SOFTWARE...

• Update for Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2003 - When you use the Commerce Server Business Desk Product Picker, you may receive the following error message: "Internet Explorer Script Error An error has occurred in the script on this page. Line: 1559 Char: 4 Error: Expression does not return a DOM node. ./<-- Code: 0 URL: http:////Catalogs/Editor/dlg_ProductPicker.asp?mode=CAMPAIGNS" ~ download patch
• Update for Internet Explorer 6 for XP Service Pack 2 - When you open the Manage Add-ons dialog box on the Tools menu in Microsoft Internet Explorer, some installed add-ons may not be listed. Therefore, for example, you may not be able to select an add-on that you want to disable. This issue occurs because, during the installation of certain add-ons, a flag is set in the registry that prevents the add-on from being managed through the Manage Add-ons dialog box ~ download patch.
• phpBB 2.0.11 - This new version fixes a number of issues, introduces visual confirmation as standard and addresses a potentially serious exploit.
• Switch Window ver 1.0.1 - SwitchWindow (image) is this tiny tool that allows switching to the desired window using menu (full description for each open window is available) as well as it allows closing unwanted windows with [CTRL]+Right Click combination right from the menu.
• F-Prot Antivirus for Windows 3.16  - The release of version 3.16 of F-Prot Antvirus (download trial) for Windows represents a significant milestone in the continued development of the virus protection and services.  In preparation for this release the F-Prot Antivirus scanning engine has undergone a major overhaul and a number of important new features have been added.
• AntiVir Personal Edition 6.28.00.10 - The AntiVir Personal Edition offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation. In order to make possible an easy operation, the AntiVir Personal Edition is developed to the essential points.
• Nero CD/DVD Speed v. 3.55 -  Erik Deppe has released version 3.55 of his CD/DVD testing software Nero CD/DVD Speed. This new version supports now ASUS DVD recorders (Pioneer OEM) and fixes some problems with PlayStation disks.
• Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition 4.6.0.6758 - The Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition (readme)software package provides support for high-performance Serial ATA RAID 0 arrays and redundant RAID 1 arrays on select Intel 865 and 875 chipset-based platforms using WinXP/2000 or Windows Server 2003.