SECURITY...

• Security Update for Internet Explorer for Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Security issues have been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Internet Explorer and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
• An update available for a security vulnerability in the Javaprxy.dll COM object - The vulnerability in the Javaprxy.dll COM object may cause Microsoft Internet Explorer to stop working. This vulnerability may also allow an attacker to run arbitrary code and to gain control of the computer. The Javaprxy.dll COM object has the following class identifier (CLSID): 03D9F3F2-B0E3-11D2-B081-006008039BF0. This security update sets the Kill bit for this COM object.
• Flaw Found in Adobe Acrobat - Adobe has warned of a serious flaw affecting one of the most widely distributed client applications, Acrobat Reader. The flaw leaves users open to attack via maliciously crafted PDF files, which can be spread via e-mail attachments web page links, and can be used to take control of a system. Solution: Update to Adobe Reader 7.0
• New Trojan Knocks Out Symbian Phones - Users of Symbian Series 60 smart phones should be aware of a new Trojan horse that, if not removed within one hour, can cause complete data loss in their wireless devices, security experts warn. Several owners of Symbian-based handsets have caught the Trojan Doomboot.A. after downloading unauthorized mobile phone games containing the malware, says Anton Von Troyer, marketing manager of Finnish antivirus vendor F-Secure. F-Secure warned users on Friday on its Web site that Doomboot.A was in the wild.
• DVD-Audio's CPPM can be got around with a WinDVD patch - It was not long ago that DVD-Audio playback software came to the PC. For example Creative's SoundBlaster Audigy 2 comes with a DVD-Audio as well as WinDVD 's DVD-Audio add-on. So, rather than try to compromise the DVD-Audio's encryption itself, someone has succeeded in making a patch that uses WinDVD to perform the decryption and playback, but instead pipes the decrypted audio output to the hard drive instead of the sound card. The patch which includes several tools requires WinDVD 5, 6 or 7 to work.
• Longhorn locked down to fight hackers - According to Detlef Echert, Microsoft's chief security advisor in Europe, there are several key elements designed to boost security in its next OS. Hardware locking via a dedicated chip is combined with "hardening" of the OS to restrict how memory can be accessed. Security will also be boosted using a technique dubbed User Account Protection, which aims to ensure that computers can be locked so that local users are not given full administrator access by default.
• MS UK defaced in hacking attack - Microsoft's UK web site was defaced late on Tuesday night with a message in support of Venezuelan hacker Rafa. Defacement archive Zone-H reports that well-known defacer Apocalypse hacked into Microsoft's UK web site (microsoft.co.uk) and uploaded a picture with the message "FREE RAFA - HACK IS NOT A CRIME" (recorded in an archive here). The site has since been restored to normal operation and the offending GIF removed.
• Accused Sasser Worm Author Confesses in Court - Sven Jaschan, a 19 year old man on trial for authoring the Sasser Worm, has reportedly confessed to writing the malicious code which caused extensive damage to business and personal data all over the world, according to a German court
• Man Arrested for Using Open Wireless Network - Richard Dinon saw the laptop's muted glow through the rear window of the SUV parked outside his home. He walked closer and noticed a man inside. Then the man noticed Dinon and snapped his computer shut. Maybe it's census work, the 28-year-old veterinarian told his girlfriend. An hour later, Dinon left to drive her home. The Chevy Blazer was still there, the man furtively hunched over his computer. Dinon returned at 11 p.m. and the men repeated their strange dance. Fifteen minutes later, Dinon called police. Police say Benjamin Smith III, 41, used his Acer brand laptop to hack into Dinon's wireless Internet network. The April 20 arrest is considered the first of its kind in Tampa Bay and among only a few so far nationwide.

OFFTOPIC...

• I Set My Siemens C45 Cell Phone on Fire! - I had a Siemens C45 cell phone that didn't work right, in my opinion. I could barely hear who was talking to me and the person on the other side listened what I was saying even worse. It was impossible to have a conversation without at least one “I couldn't understand you, can you repeat please?” Besides that, C45 menu was insupportably slow and confusing.
• Astrologer sues NASA for Tempel 1 'moral trauma' -  Russian astrologer is suing NASA for $300m in damages for "moral trauma" after the agency's Deep Impact mission successfully slammed a probe into comet Tempel 1. Marina Bay has filed suit in a Moscow court claiming that "any variation in the orbit or the composition of the Tempel comet will certainly affect her own fate". She also reckons that NASA has recklessly endangered the future of civilisation. Her lawyer, Alexander Molokhov, told the BBC: "Nobody has yet proven that this experiment was safe. This impact could have altered the orbit of the comet, so now there is a chance that the Tempel may well destroy the Earth some day!"
• Poor diet + pollution = brain damage - Biomedical researchers in the UK are planning new research into the links between poor diet in children and their susceptibility to brain damage caused by pollution, particularly in the developing world. It is known that blood levels of around 10 micrograms of lead can cause a drop in IQ levels, the researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University explain. They hypothesise that low levels of iron can actually increase the absorption of other metals into the bloodstream.
• Some people are profiting off of MMO gold - How does it work? The macros for World of WarCraft, for example, control a high-level hunter and cleric. The hunter kills while the cleric automatically heals. Once they are fully loaded with gold and items, the "farmer" who's monitoring their progress manually controls them out of the dungeon to go sell their goods. These automated agents are then returned to the dungeons to do their thing again. Sack's typical 12-hour sessions can earn his employers as much as $60,000 per month while he walks away with a measly $150.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Europe rejects patent proposal - A government representative said that 648 out of 729 members of the European Parliament voted Wednesday to reject the proposal, called the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive, which would have widened the extent to which software could be patented.
• Nokia to Offer Free Blackberry-style 'Push' E-mail - Nokia is planning to offer free "push" e-mail on all its handsets, according to software vendor Seven, in a bid to boost the use of mobile e-mail. The free service will forward email to the phone as it arrives, making POP and IMAP email easier to use on a mobile phone. If it takes off, it will be a useful revenue boost for mobile operators -- only the application service is free, and users will pay normal GPRS rates for the data sent and received.
• Microsoft tempts developers with Visual Studio 2005 - Andrew Lees, corporate vice president of server tools at Microsoft, said during his keynote address at the TechEd conference in Amsterdam that Visual Studio 2005 would cut the amount of new code by up to 70 per cent by automating processes. He added that applications could be configured to automatically update themselves from a website to ensure fast, automatic distribution of patches and revisions.
• Opera Embedding BitTorrent Client - The next version of Opera, 8.02, will have an embedded BitTorrent client. Opera has released today a Technical Preview of this new version on its FTP directory, though they have made no official announcement as of yet.
• Google Plans to Release Firefox-Ready Tool Bar - After years of offering its browser tool bar only for Internet Explorer, Google is planning to join its competitors in supporting the open-source Mozilla Firefox browser. The tool bar for Firefox will include most of the same features as the Internet Explorer version except for pop-up blocking, which is already built into the Firefox browser.
• How much ATI really paid for its Half Life 2 deal  - According to The Inquirer, ATI gave Valve $2.4 million in cash for the deal. ATI also invested $1.2 million in marketing this great game. And last, but not least, was a cool $4.4 million that ATI and its partners spent for bundles. That amounts to some $8 million dollars. This is a lot of money, I can agree, but ATI never sold so many mainstream and high end cards in its long history as when it bundled them with the justly famous voucher. It sold an incredible lot of 9800XT and 9600XT cards just because of the nice voucher.

HARDWARE... 

• AMD to cut Sempron prices, debut dual-core CPU priced at US$345 - AMD has informed motherboard makers that the unit price (for 1000 unit lots) for its Sempron CPUs will be adjusted downward in early August, with Sempron 2500+ prices dropping more than US$7, according to sources in the motherboard industry. AMD also plans to launch a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processor on August 1 priced at US$345, a third less than its current lowest priced dual-core CPU, the sources indicated.
• Nvidia Preps More GeForce 7 Graphics Chips - NVIDIA Corp. may be preparing a new GeForce 7-series graphics processors in addition to already launched GeForce 7800 GTX product, as the firm's unofficial drivers already list a chip code-named G72, which may turn out to be a more affordable GeForce 7 family member
• ATI Expands All-In-Wonder Lineup - ATI Technologies said Tuesday it has expanded its family of multimedia graphics cards with All-In-Wonder X800 XL. ATI's All-In-Wonder X800 XL features ATI's latest TV-Tuner, which is based on RF technology from Microtune and can receive up to 125 PAL and SECAM channels in addition to FM radio, additionally, the set of connectors also includes SCART support for customers in Europe, as well as THEATER 200 chip that handles Video-in, Video-out features.
• ATI Crossfire Sneak Peak with DFI - Hexus.net compared some Crossfire benchmarks they snagged at Computex with some benchmarks from other cards on a similarly-specced system. Using Supertiling, the default mode for Crossfire under Direct3D, shows that 6800 Ultra SLI is faster. However that's just in 3DMark05, not a modern game title, and that's using a beta driver that might not be there in terms of the performance that ATI have today, internally. It'll be interesting to see where performance is when Crossfire is launched using an official driver, along with NVIDIA hardware running any new driver that NVIDIA may or may not have planned for their hardware.
• $299 Linux PC hits US shelves - Systemax has unveiled its first desktop PC pre-installed with desktop Linux. The budget model is selling in the US for $299. The system builder chose Linspire's operating system for its Venture L335 system which comes with an Intel Celeron D processor, 40GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM.
• G.Skill Extreme PC3200 2-2-2-5 1GB Kit - OCTools take a look at G.Skill's Winbond UTT offering, the F1-3200BWU2-1GBGH. These modules are based on the Winbond UTT chips that are capable of very high frequencies at ultra low latency timings. Specifically targetted for motherboards with high memory voltage options, these modules were made with overclocking at extreme latencies in mind.
• nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream - The Epox 9NPA+ is the fastest board in the roundup at stock speeds. It was also the highest overclocker at stock speeds, and the second highest overclocker when the bus was overclocked. The Epox is an incredible value whether you are looking for a board that will run fast with stability at stock speeds or a board that will satisfy almost any Athlon 64 enthusiast.
• HIS X700 iCooler Dual DVI VIVO 256MB PCI-E - Much like the PowerColor Bravo X700, this HIS X700 iCooler was good, but not breathtaking. Power and performance simply can't come from an X700, no matter who you buy it from. What we have here is a card that's perfect if you're the occasional gamer, someone who loves their dual LCD displays or a home theater enthusiast who just needs their HTPC projected on to a HDTV.
• Hitachi 7K500 - 500 GB SATA 2 Hard Drive - Currently Hitachi is testing 3 Gbits/sec controller on the Silicon Image 3124, Intel ICH7, NVIDIA Nforce 4 and Promise Technology TX300, 2300. one other thing worth mentioning is drives 16 megabytes caches, when playing games such Halflife 2 or Doom 3 where prior to installing the drive the games would hesitate or lag, when the new drive was installed and the games were played under the same settings the games ran perfectly.
• ASUS WL-HDD 2.5 - NAS and Wireless AP - The ASUS WL-HDD is NAS (Network Attached Storage) and AP (Access Point) all in one, at an affordable price. The device supports 2.5 inch hard drives and 802.11g Wireless Networking. It is designed to allow you to add file sharing storage to your network with ease and provide Wireless Networking to a wired network.
• Razer Diamondback Plasma L.E - Razer Diamondback is a high quality mouse with great performance. The higher dpi will benefit professional designers and gamers alike. The design is great, and the Plama LED adds a lot to the appearance. Even though the mouse seems a little small it has good grip thanks to the anti-slip coating and the rubber side rails.
• XFX Xgear Dual Reflex Controller - This is the gamepad that comes bundled for free with GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX, which we have already reviewed. Its layout is similar to Playstation 2 controllers, with two analog sticks, one digital pad, eight buttons, vibrating mode, macro mode, turbo mode and three shortcut buttons (select, start and clear). It uses USB connection and it comes with a very long 10-feet (3 meters) cable.
• Nissan Technology DV-100B DVD Player - With the tumbling prices in this market segment, the one thing that made it stand out - the card reader - was ultimately not executed well enough to make the DV-100B a huge success. On the other hand, the DiVX playback and other capabilities of this player mean that it's a recommended overall package that can be found well below RRP already.
• Ricoh Caplio GX8 Digital Camera -  Its key selling points, apart from its sheer pixel-power, are its 3x optical zoom, 28-85mm (35mm equivalent) lens and its high-speed performance. It is ready to take  pictures in just 1.3 seconds from a cold start, and is equipped with a hybrid autofocus system that can lock onto a subject in one tenth of a second, virtually eliminating shutter lag. Its shot-to-shot times are equally impressive.

GUIDES...

• Introduction to FB-DIMM Memory: Birth of Serial RAM? - FB-DIMM memory (short for Fully-Buffered Dual Inline Memory Module) is a variant of standard DDR2 memory designed for server applications where both large amounts of memory and memory co-ordination and accuracy at high speeds are essential. FB-DIMM memory combines the high-speed internal architecture of DDR2 memory with a brand-new point-to-point serial memory interface which links each FB-DIMM module together in a chain.
• Water block fun: demonRed, the DIY water cooling setup - Guest writer djivesp shows us how he build a complete water cooling setup from scratch, using parts from his old Toyota, and making himself water blocks for CPU, northbridge and his NV6800LE, the last one features 3-barbs and packs quite a punch.

SOFTWARE...

• Microsoft Student 2006 - Microsoft Student 2006 includes the following features: Learning Essentials for Students helps students get to the heart of the assignment by customizing Microsoft Office to meet their unique needs.2 Learning Essentials for Students provides toolbars, templates and tutorials to help teens with a variety of subjects and assignments, from history reports and English papers to physics projects and foreign languages, using Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office PowerPoint. The Microsoft Student 2006 DVD3 is scheduled for availability in July 2005 for an estimated retail price of $99.99.
• Global Contact Access for windows mobile - You can now download Global Contact Access for windows mobile here, but even better than this - Ewan has already done a blogcast showing how it works.
• Memory Leak in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition - A memory leak in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 causes a gradual decrease in available system memory. This loss in available memory causes degradation in system performance. When this behavior occurs, the user must restart the computer
• Microsoft Money 2006 Deluxe Trial - Microsoft Money 2006 makes it easy to stay on top of your finances. You get all your finances, all in one place. Money 2006 works with your checking, credit card and brokerage accounts. Money also helps you understand spending, manage your bills and organize for tax time.
• phpMyAdmin 2.6.3-pl1 - phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you`ll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database.
• About 1.2.0 Firefox Extension Update - Adds the following "about:" options (install) to the Help menu: about:config, about:plugins, about:, about:buildconfig, about:cache, about:cache (Disk), about:cache (Memory), about:credits, about:kitchensink, about:mozilla
• FastStone Image Viewer 2.15 - 7/4/2005 Beta Build - FastStone Image Viewer (download) is an image browser, viewer, converter and editor with an easy to use interface and a nice array of features that include resizing, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, watermarks and more
• Real Alternative 1.42 - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer or RealOne Player from Real Networks. Supported are: RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia (.rm .ram .rmvb .rpx .smi .smil), RealText (.rt) and ReadPix (.rp). It also supports RealMedia content that is embedded in webpages. The very user-friendly installation is fully customizable, which means that you can install only those components that you want.
• Inmatrix Zoom Player 4.50 - After over 10 months of developments, Zoom Player v4.50 (download) has gone final. The complete change list is over 500 lines long and contains numarous new features, functions, fixes, improvements, optimizations, tweaks, and pretty much the kitchen sink. So make sure to check it out!
• SuperEdi 3.7.2 - SuperEdi (download) is a text editor with syntax coloring and build-in FTP client. The build-in directory tree helps you locate files quickly without opening the Windows Explorer. Context sensitive information is available via keyword lookup in any Windows help file.
• Skype 1.3.0.55 - Skype (download) uses P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you to other users. Not to share files, but to talk with them for free. The technology is extremely advanced, but very simple and easy to use.
• 7-Zip 4.24 Beta - 7-Zip (download) is a file archiver with high compression ratio
• Alcohol 120% v1.9.5.3105 - Alcohol 120% (download / changelog) is a combination of both Alcohol 52% and Alcohol 68%. It enables users to both copy and emulate real or virtual CDs & DVDs
• XPepius 2.0.7 - XPepius is a free tools suite for tweaking, optimizing and tuning of Windows XP It helps you increase performance and manage your system using various tweaks and utilities. In addition to the tweaks, the program also offers several tools (Utilities) that include a Start-Up Manager, Uninstaller, Cleanup Center (includes registry cleaner).
• HDDlife 2.5.59 - HDDlife (download) can work in the preventative mode when it checks the health of your hard drives at regular intervals and informs you about the results of these checks in an unobtrusive way. If you get warned about a possible hard drive failure , you will protect yourself against losing your naturally priceless personal data.