SECURITY...

• Worm Masquerades as CNN Headline Alerts - A new e-mail worm masquerading as news headlines from CNN has the ability to log keystrokes and open backdoors for new threats, anti-virus vendor Sophos Inc. said in an advisory. Researchers at Sophos said the worm, identified as W32/Crowt-A, takes its subject lines and message content from headlines gathered in real-time from Time Warner's CNN Web site. The worm's subject line and attachment share the same name, but continually change to mirror the front-page headline on the CNN site.
• Virus masquerades as email from security firm - An as yet unnamed mass-mailer worm which masquerades as an alert from IT security firm BitDefender has been discovered spreading in the wild. The infection, which comes in an email message with a spoofed 'from' field ([email protected]), prompts users to download harmful executables from a Romanian website.
• Researcher Pokes Holes in Microsoft Patch - Microsoft's first software patch for 2005 does not adequately fix the critical vulnerability it was intended to address, according to a warning issued by IT security services firm GeCAD NET. The flaw is still exploitable in Windows XP Service Pack 1 or Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, even when fully patched and up-to-date (MS05-001 included), Avram warned. Users of Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) are not vulnerable to the attack method.
• US peer-to-peer pirates convicted - New Yorker William Trowbridge and Texan Michael Chicoine have pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software. The two men faced charges following raids in August on suspected pirates by the FBI. The pair face jail terms of up to five years and a $250,000 fine. In a statement the US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network. The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files. During its investigation FBI agents reportedly downloaded 84 movies, 40 software programs, 13 games and 178 "sound recordings" from the five hubs that made up the larger piracy group.
• "Evil twin" could pose Wi-Fi threat - Researchers at Cranfield University are warning that "evil twin" hot spots, networks set up by hackers to resemble legitimate Wi-Fi hot spots, present the latest security threat to Web users. Attackers interfere with a connection to the legitimate network by sending a stronger signal from a base station close to the wireless client, turning the fake access point into a so-called evil twin.
• eXeem opens new file-swapping doors - Called eXeem, the software aims to merge the speedy downloads of BitTorrent with the powerful global search capabilities of Kazaa or eDonkey. The first public version of the program was released by a company called Swarm Systems but has been associated with SuprNova, a Web site that, until recently, drew millions of people seeking free content online through the popular BitTorrent software
• Big names gang up on digital pirates - A group of the world's largest consumer electronics manufacturers are developing a digital rights management (DRM) standard to stop pirated material being played on their home entertainment systems. The alliance, including Samsung, Sony, Philips and Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), has joined with DRM developers Intertrust Technologies to form the Marlin Joint Development Association (JDA).
• Review: Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Tools Ineffective - check it out.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Mr. Potato Head Feels the Dark Side of Force - A spud on the dark side. That's how toy maker Hasbro Inc. is promoting its latest Mr. Potato Head figure, Darth Tater. The toy spud will be available next month, ahead of the May release of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," the latest installment in that film series. Darth Tater will come with a light saber, cape and helmet, in addition to the regular Mr. Potato Head accessories such as eyes, mouth and nose.
• Titan a 'Flammable' Moon Covered in Liquid Gas - Saturn's moon Titan is covered by "dirty" ice ridges and seas of liquid natural gas, a team of scientists said on Friday after a week of research into data from the space probe Huygens.
• Why some people entice mosquitoes - It was already known that some people produce "come and get me" smells which appeal to the blood-suckers. Rothamsted Research, in Herts, found those less likely to be bitten produced odours which masked these scents. The natural repellent could be used to protect everyone from the bugs, suggests the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
• Ex-girlfriend Deletes Lineage Character and Gets Arrested - A jilted Japanese girlfriend logged onto her ex-lover's Lineage account with his username and password. Once there, she deleted his game data including all the items, weapons and clothes he had collected. Although the boyfriend did not suffer financially he reported the misuse of his account to the police. Police then reported the woman of Toyama Prefecture, to the Fukushima District Public. Prosecutors

TECHNOLOGY...

• Xbox Live! Passes 1.4 Million Subscribers - The success of Xbox Live! comes after a successful Christmas period for the US giant, with highlights including the Xbox becoming the only platform to witness year-to-year growth during Q4 as well as the full 2004 calendar year, whilst the overall market saw a dip in year-to-year comparison.
• Microsoft Research's C-Omega - Microsoft Research has produced a data-oriented programming language by merging C#, XPath and SQL.
• Playstation 3 details - You can read it for yourself here. The Cell is set to be unlocked at a techie conference in February. See this slide. It purports to show Mr Cell will run at 4.60GHz, at 1.3 volts, and have 6.4Gb/s off chip communication.  (thanks TheInquirer)

HARDWARE... 

• Intel's 64-bit P4 Processors Begin to Emerge in Retail - Akiba PC Hotline web-site reports that a number of stores in Tokyo, Japan, sells Intel Pentium 4 processors models 3.20F, 3.40F, 3.60F and 3.80F with EM64T capability enabled. The chips come in black and white retail packaging and are positioned primarily for uniprocessor servers and workstations. The central processing units cost approximately $299, $311, $449 and $755 for 3.20GHz, 3.40GHz, 3.60GHz and 3.80GHz speed-bins respectively.
• Western Digital to Ship 6GB 1" Hard Disk Drives - Western Digital announced it would enter the market of miniature hard disk drives aimed at handheld consumer electronics, such as players, phones or cameras. The company's first product for the market will be 6GB HDD in 1" form-factor that will ship in Q2 2005 and will become one of the world's largest HDD of its size.
• BenQ announces three hard disk DVD recorders - Digitimes is reporting that BenQ has announced three hard disk (HDD) DVD recorders. The models, DE305S, DE305H and the DE305P all use double-chip modules whit one chip for recording and another chip for playback this to avoid signal noise and delays. The recorders support only recording to the DVD+R(W) format, others like Lite-On have already released dual format HDD DVD recorders.
• ABIT Okays Repair of Faulty Mainboards, but Claims No More - ABIT Computer said Friday it admits certain issues with it mainboards, and claimed its most-recent products were problem-free, following lawsuits launched Thursday. The firm said it would reimburse or repair free of charge some of its outdated mainboards for its clients, but said its mend it products based on certain documents and experts'claims and provided that those mainboards were not tortured by overclockers – enthusiasts who practice rising mainboards and processors clock-speeds in a bid for high performance.
• Acer Ferrari 3200 and ASUS A4S00K comparison - X-bit Labs compared the two powerful mobile solutions from ASUS and Acer, which differ in their design, dimensions, weight and price, but have similar configurations. So who is the winner of this comparison? The ASUS A4S00K has been faster in more tests and it is also preferable from the price/performance ratio standpoint. The Acer, however, boasts a high performance, too, and its ergonomic properties and wide functionality match those of the ASUS.
• Acer TravelMate 8100 Centrino notebook - All in all, the Acer TravelMate 8100 is still an excellent notebook with great performance. Save for a SATA hard disk drive and an Expresscard slot, features we were expecting in a performance 'Sonoma' notebook, the well endowed TravelMate 8100 is able to deliver the performance while offering you a complete suite of wireless connections for work and play in almost every location in town.
• Dell Inspiron 700M Notebook  - The 700m has a look that's a little bit different, a little more elegant, than most Dell. Gone are the dull blues and grays, and we are left with a case that resembles the slightly battered offspring of a Powerbook and an iBook.
• 1GB Kingston PC2700 SODIMM - This particular stick is built specifically for Dell Inspiron notebooks (hence the "KTD-INSP5150/1G" label on the sticker). To fit 1GB onto a single board, Kingston used a total of 16 small modules, each 64MB in capacity.
• Corsair Flash Voyager 512MB - Hi-Techreviews.com has posted a review of the Corsair Flash Voyager 512MB memory.
• eVGA e-GeForce 6600 GT PCI-E - nVNews has posted a review of eVGA's e-Geforce 6600GT PCI-E in an SLI setup.
• MSI RX800PRO-TD256 - MSI's RX800PRO-TD256 does not vary much from the ATi-based card specifications and Radeon X800 graphics processor on which the device is based. However, a lot of games bundled with the not-so-shabby card at least merits a second look. These are Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Uru Ages Beyond Myst and XIII. The Japanese bundle comes with Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow instead of Prince of Persia.  To round the bundle off, MSI also includes a CD with 14 game demos. Unfortunately, none of the games are new.
• BenQ PB 6100 projector - Once you get used to having a projector at your disposal, playing games and watching movies is never the same again. I think most hardware enthusiasts will take the plunge eventually. Big is good! So how does the PB6100 fare? Though it doesn't blow me away, I've mostly warmed to using this projector with the one, albeit large, caveat regarding the visual anomalies caused by the DLP rainbow effect. If you have a room where light can be strictly controlled, have at least 14' to throw the image, and can place the projector 12" - 18" off the floor with some ventilation room in the rear, the projector does a very good job for the money. If you can't really fulfill these requirements you either have to make trade-offs that frankly are not worth it, more appropriately, look elsewhere.
• Sony MDR-V700DJ Headphones - The Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones produce serious sound for the most demanding audio-philes. And with a $149 price tag, they'd better. Designed for live DJs, the V700DJ headphones are perfect for professional live performers and casual mixers alike. Their superior sound works well for casual home use as well.
• Saitek X52 Flight Control System - TrustedReviews take a look at the Saitek X52 Flight Control System which is one of the best flight stick setups you can get for under L100 and it even has a built in LCD display.

GUIDES...

• How to assign a drive letter or directory to a shadow copy - Adi Oltean has posted a really cool method to assign a drive letter or directory to a shadow copy. This will allow you to access files that are otherwise exclusively opened by an application. Please note, this will only work on Windows Server 2003 and not in XP because it does not have shadow copy. The ability to do this is extremely useful! This might even let me backup SQL Server's data files without any external tools or shutting down SQL Server.
• Deploying Windows XP Service Pack 2 in Enterprise Environments  - The guide describe planning and implementation considerations for deploying Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) in enterprise environments.
• XP Myths - Myths Regarding Windows XP - A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology. There are numerous Myths floating around the Internet regarding Windows XP, especially relating to Optimizations and Security. Hopefully this site will debunk some of these.
• Sharky Extreme's January value gaming PC buyer's guide - The holiday season has now passed, and for those who weren't lucky enough to find a new system in your stockings, the time has never been better to assemble a new gaming system.
• Ultimate PC Building Revisited - Here's an article about building the ultimate PC. This being an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe system. The first problem is that when you want to put 4 Gig of RAM in the system (4) 1 gig sticks which the system is supposed to be able to handle. Only (2) sticks are ever seen but yet the RAM in my article was on the QVL list originally for running with 4 sticks in Dual Channel mode but if you go look now they changed it from their original QVL list and removed a V from the third column for the Kingston 1024 RAM???

SOFTWARE...

• Kernel 2.4.29 - Check changelog here and download at Kernel.org.
• Ethereal 0.10.9 - Ethereal is used by network professionals around the world for troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and education.
• GAIM 1.1.2 - Gaim (download ~ changelog) is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
• nVIDIA SLI - Test your own Games with SLI - A very cool application was created by 3DChipset forum member; Andrew Poison that lets you - the user - select if you wish to play a game (that is not offically supported in the NVidia SLI-Supported Games List) in SLI mode or not. You can select between AFR and SFR. You can also select to use just a single GPU.
• AutoPatcher XP January 2005 - This release is based on the all-new AutoPatcher 5.0. Although it was made with Windows XP SP2 (English) in mind, it will load on any Windows version or language, showing only the items which match the running environment.
• FileZilla Server 0.9.4e - A lot has changed since the last release of this FTP server. The most important change is the improved list of connected users which now displays more details like the current active transfer details (file, progress, speed)
• Secure-It 1.22 - Secure-It is a local Windows security hardening tool, proactively secure your PC by either disabling the intrusion and propagation vectors proactively or simply reduce the attack surface by disabling unimportant functions.
• Exeem 0.20 Public - eXeem is a brand new Peer-To-Peer program, which is based on the BitTorrent idea. eXeem eliminates the need for trackers as nodes in the program will be taking their role. eXeem also features easy publication of files to the network as well as a rating and comments system. eXeem contains NO SPYWARE.
• DVD Region+CSS Free 5.65 - DVD Idle has updated its DVD Region+CSS Free software to version 5.65.  They added support for the Settec ALPHA DVD and support for a new version of the Sony ARccOS protection.
• RightMark Memory Analyzer 3.46 - The RightMark Memory Analyzer (download) provides the detailed, stable and accurate measurements of the most important low-level characteristics of the CPU/Chipset/RAM subsystem of your PC. Seven types of tests are implemented in the current release of the RightMark Memory Analyzer suite, that allow you to determine the following low-level parameters of the platform.
• CloneCD v5.1.0.0 - This new version (download) fixes some blacklisting issues with CloneCD Tray.
• Hmonitor 4.2.1.2 - Hmonitor has much more functions than MotherBoard Monitor, for example, including thermocontrol features and COM/PerfMon API support.
• Driver Cleaner Professional Edition - Driver Cleaner Professional Editon is a program which helps you to remove parts of drivers that are left after uninstalling the old drivers. The program is for ATI, nVidia, Creative, Realtek, SIS, 3Dfx, S3 and more drivers.
• xpy 0.86 - xpy is a small tool which disables the default threats of a windows xp installation. besides the classic antispy features, xpy closes recent security holes like the remote procure call (rpc) service and the distributed component object model (dcom).
• Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition 4.7.0.6815 - This driver provides support for high-performance Serial ATA RAID 0 arrays and redundant RAID 1 arrays on select Intelr 915, 925, 865, and 875 chipset-based platforms on Windows* XP or Windows 2000.
• Plextor PX-716A v1.04 firmware - Plextor Japan has released a new firmware for its PX 716A. Version 1.04 enables besides 8x speed for DVD+RW and 6x speed for DVD+R DL also 2x speed for DVD-R DL.
• Forceware 71.21 Win2K/XP - A new Forceware with build 71.21 appeared on the web today. Props to the bro's @ osnn.net for noticing them. These drivers are dated the 6th of December. These drivers are not WHQL (Microsoft tested) signed but do have support for all NVIDIA graphics cards, as they are not an official release they should be treated with the same care that you should maintain when using all beta software.