SECURITY... 

• Santa delivers more Christmas malware - The Trojan horse MerryX.A is delivered in an e-mail that encourages the recipient to open an attached "animation." While the animation of Santa Claus delivering presents plays, a piece of malware hiding behind the name SQLServer.exe is installed on PCs running Windows, according to security staff at Panda Software SL's PandaLabs. The software transmits information about the infected computer to a remote server, and then attempts to download files, which could include other malware, Panda said.
• Santa worm is coming to IM - A new virus is taking advantage of the Christmas-time custom of sending cards and joke attachments to spread itself among users of instant messenger software. The IM.GiftCom.All, or Santa Claus worm presents itself as a harmless image of Santa Claus and appears to be sent from someone known to the recipient. If victims click the file a worm is loaded on to their computer. The worm then sends the same message to everybody on that person's address list.
• Critical bug found in anti-virus software - The glitch affects 39 different Symantec products - including both home and enterprise versions of its anti-virus software. It resides within the Symantec anti-virus library, which is used by all of the packages. The analyst, Alex Wheeler, discovered that a critical error occurs when the Symantec anti-virus library decompresses files from "RAR" format for analysis. An attacker could exploit the loophole to load unauthorised code onto a computer, and potentially to crack open its defences, he says. Symantec has confirmed the problem and produced an advisory (PDF) of its own.
• Google Plugs Site Security Holes - Google has patched security flaws in its Web site that would have exposed users to phishing and other attacks designed to steal account information, according to security researchers. The possibility for attacks at google.com was present when users encountered two different error pages, the "404 not found" error message and a Web site redirection error message. Google did not properly secure these pages, which exposed users to possible attack by exploiting the 7-bit Unicode Transformation Format character-encoding mechanism, according to Watchfire.
• Watch out With Metadata in Vista, Analysts Warn - Windows Vista will improve search functionality on a PC by letting users tag files with metadata, but those tags could cause unwanted and embarrassing information disclosure, Gartner analysts have warned.
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Security Guide- The Windows Server 2003 Security Guide focuses on providing a set of easy to understand guidance, tools, and templates to help secure Windows Server 2003 in many environments.

CRIME/LAW...

• France on track to legalize P2P downloading -  France's lower house of parliament has voted to legalize peer-to-peer file sharing of films and music on the Internet, unleashing a wave of protest from the country's film, audiovisual and music industry organizations. If the measure passes in the upper house, France would become the first country to legalize peer-to-peer downloading at a time when most Western nations are battling to curb illegal downloading on the Internet.
• Internet worm catches child porn surfer -  A 20 year-old German man has turned himself over to the police for owning child pornography after an email worm warned that he was being 'investigated'. The man had received a copy of a mass email that was sent by the Sober Y internet worm.
• Nazi Ringtone Leads to Jail Sentence - A 20 year old man in Austria has been found guilty of breaking a law against displaying Nazi Propaganda when he used a Nazi salute as a ring tone on his mobile phone. Police came across the ringtone purely by accident after they called him into a police station on suspicion of burglary - and his phone rang while there.
• Crazy Frog hops into trouble - Mblox, the company responsible for distributing the Crazy Frog ring-tone, has been fined L40,000 and told to reimburse disgruntled customers who had to pay a subscription when they thought they were making a one-off payment.
• New Spyware Claim Against Sony BMG - The Texas attorney general said on Wednesday that he added a new claim to a lawsuit charging Sony BMG Music Entertainment with violating the state's laws on deceptive trade practices by hiding "spyware" on its compact discs.
• 3 LA men charged for selling Xbox mods with preloaded games - Three owners of a videogame game shop in Los Angeles have been charged for copyright infringement for selling Xbox game consoles that have been modded and fitted with a large hard drive containing pirated games. The investigation involved undercover agents purchasing a modded Xbox, which came fitted with a hard drive containing 77 pirated game titles for $265.

OFF-TOPIC

• Ingredients of Life Found Around Sun-Like Star - NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope has detected the basic organic building blocks of life in a ring orbiting in the 'habitable zone', that area where Earth orbits the Sun and where water exists on the borderline between gas and liquid, in a nearby stellar nursery.

TECHNOLOGY...

• AMD reports desktop CPU shortage - According to EETimes, AMD has notified certain partners that several of its desktop processors are currently in high demand and will be difficult to purchase. Affected models are the Athlon 64 3500+, 3800+, Athlon 64 X2 3800+, and the Semprons 2600+ and 2800+.
• Seagate to acquire Maxtor - Seagate and Maxtor announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Seagate will acquire Maxtor in an all stock transaction. The value of the transaction is approximately $1.9 billion.
• New WD Raptor on the Horizon? - Hardware sites are buzzing today with news that Western Digital plans to announce a new version of its 10,000RPM Raptor Hard Drives in the new year.  Rumored features of the WD1500AD (Server) and WD1500AH (Gamer) versions include: SATA-II Capabilities w/ NCQ, 16MB Cache, 4.5ms Seek Time, 1.2 million hours MTBF.
• ATI Reveals Radeon X1900 Details Internally - ATI secretly released its Silver Bullets material to AIBs this week and the picture of R580 is slowly coming together. R580, or Radeon X1900 as it is called internally, is expected to "launch" in January according to ATI documentation.
• Limewire improves security by adding feature to filter fakes - Even though Limewire is preparing a version to block the sharing of files without a license, so far they have released a new beta version of Limewire which fights fake files, such as those containing spam, viruses, Trojans and so on. This version incorporates a feature called TigerTree hash, which effectively keeps the integrity of files during download.
• Google Creates Spinoff - Google will create a limited liability company that will own the $1 billion 5 percent equity interest the search engine giant will acquire in Time Warner's America Online subsidiary.  Moreover, as of July 1, 2008, this new company, which Google calls HoldCo, will be able to register for an initial public offering (IPO), according to a document Google filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week.
• Microsoft sheds control of its cable network - NBC Universal and Microsoft on Friday announced a deal in which the media conglomerate will purchase a controlling stake in the MSNBC cable channel.  Under the agreement, NBC Universal, a subsidiary of General Electric, will receive an 82 percent stake in the network, with the option of claiming the remaining 18 percent after two years. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
• Mozilla Seeks Filmmakers For Ad Contest - Mozilla launched the second phase of its ad-making contest, which calls for professional and amateur filmmakers to develop a 30 second, broadcast quality commercial for Firefox.
• PS3 to sell 200 million units in first 5 years? - Business Week has an interesting article up where they say that Sony is expected to sell 200 million units of the PS3 in the first 5 years.
• The 11 mistakes of Microsoft's Xbox 360 discussed - 11 mistakes were made by engineers and techies at Redmond according to the Firingsquad team. Ranging from Overheating of the CPU/GPU to the lack of WMV HD-DVD playback, there are indeed quite a few lackings that should have been solved even before the launch of the Xbox 360 was launched

HARDWARE... 

• CPU - Workstation Processors Duel: AMD Opteron against Intel Xeon || Investigations into Athlon X2
• Motherboard - Abit AW8 BIOS v15 / ITX form factor mainboard with integrated ATI graphics / Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI X16 / ECS KA1 MVP Extreme CrosSFire / EPoX EP-5LDA+ GLi / Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B Radeon X1800 XL 256MB / Gigabyte G1975X / MSI RD480 Neo2 / Intel D975XBX i975X (in German)
• Complete / SFF Systems - AOpen Pandora SFF PC
• Memory - Centon Advanced A2X512S26400LL 1GB Memory / Corsair 2048MB XMS PC3500LL PRO Dual Channel DDR / Corsair XMS Pro Series PC3500LL 2GB TwinX DDR memory / Crucial Ballistix PC3200 2x512mb / GeIL Copper Thermal Compound  / PQI PC3200-2048DBL Turbo Memory
• Storage - Samsung Adds Capacity to Fast-and-Quiet T133 Series || Highpoint RocketRAID 2220 PCI-X SATA-II Controller | Mapower MAP-H31SS 3.5" eSATA External Enclosure / Ultra Portable Disk Enclosures || Corsair Flash Voyager 4GB USB 2.0 USB Drive / Kingston 2GB DataTraveler Elite AES-128 Encrypted USB Drive
• Video -  ATI All in Wonder Radeon X1800XL Multimedia PCI Express / ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 PCI Express(1) / ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 PCIe Edition (2) / ATI Radeon X1800 Crossfire / BFG Tech 7800 Copper Cooled / Club 3D's GeForce 6600 Passive Edition 256MB / Fanless Geforce 6600 / Galaxy GeForce 7800GTX 512MB – An Affordable Option / Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B Radeon X1800 XL 256MB / HIS X1800XT and XL / NVIDIA 6800GS 256MB / PowerColor X800 GTO 16 / Sapphire Pure Crossfire A9RD480 ||  Sicuro DEC-900 Cardbus TV Tuner with FM Radio / ADS Tech InstantHDTV PCI Card
• Monitor - LCD Panels with Response Time Compensation: 7 Monitors / LG Flatron L1981Q Monitor
• Cooling - Arctic-Cooling Freezer 64 Pro / BFG Tech GeForce 7800 Series Copper Cooler / CoolJag JFK-1 Heatsink / mCubed miniNG 2 Channel Fan Controller / Sharkoon Red Shock Heatsink || GeIL Copper Thermal Compound
• Case - Antec P180 Mid-Tower Case / Sharkoon Rainbow TC / Thermaltake Mambo (1) / Thermaltake Mambo (2)
• Mods - mCubed miniNG 2 Channel Fan Controller / SilverStone PP02 Acoustic Cover
• Sound - Logitech Z-4i 2.1 Speaker System || Bluetake BT400 G5 Bluetooth Headset / Gennum nXZEN Plus Bluetooth Headset
• PSU -  Silverstone Strider ST60F 600W PSU / Thermaltake XP480 PSU
• Peripheral - LASER Mouse Three-way Shootout / Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard / Logitech G7 Cordless Laser Mouse / The ButtKicker Gamer / X-Arcade Trackball Mouse (video-review) || Gaming Mouse Pads & Accessories from Func, Steelpad, & IceMat / Icemat mousepad / X-Ray Thunder 8 Mouse Pad
• Networking - D-Link DCM-202 Cable Modem
• Printer - Samsung SPP-2020 Digital Photo Printer / Xerox Phaser 6120 Colour Laser
• Notebook - BenQ Joybook R53 Centrino Notebook / Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t 2513 /  Samsung X20 XVM 1730 V / SLi Nvidia GeForce Go 7800GTX Notebook Coming Soon (thanks dutchcfi)
• Cameras, MP3/DVD players/recorders - Kodak EasyShare P850 Digital Camera / Konica Minolta Dimage Z6 Digital Camera / GrandVision CoolDV J8 || Disney Stick Mix MP3 Player / Creative Zen Micro Photo / NHJ MPM-201 Digital Media Player / Samsung YP-U1Z 1 GB MP3 Player
• Phone/PDA: Toshiba TS803 - 3G Music Phone
• Misc - Kingston CF Ultimate 2GB and 15-in-1 Card Reader / Microsoft XBox 360

GUIDES...

• How FB-DIMM Memories Work - Everything you need to know about the new FB-DIMM memory standard, created to increase the capacity and speed of the memory system.
• What is Blu-ray Disc? - The Blu-ray format will provide consumers with a new optical disc capable of holding up to 27GB on a single-layer disc and 54GB on a dual-layer disc. An estimation that 1 hour of HD video is around 12GB in size means that the single-layer Blu-ray Disc could hold a little over 2 hours of HD video and the 54GB could hold around 4.5 hours of HD video.
• What is High Definition Audio - Everything you need to know about High Definition Audio, a high-quality audio standard present on Intel PCI Express chipsets.
• ffdshow/Avisynth with Limited Sharpen how to guides for HTPC users - The guides are broke up in to three areas, one for DVD playback, another for LiveTV and an Advanced section for more tips, tweaks, options, miscellaneous scripts, Avisynth plug-ins, etc…which will be pertinent to both DVD and Live TV.
• Compression Comparison Guide Rev. 2.0 Part 1 - This guide will examine the performance of the more popular data compressors for the PC. This will allow us to select the best data compressor for our use.
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Security Guide- The Windows Server 2003 Security Guide focuses on providing a set of easy to understand guidance, tools, and templates to help secure Windows Server 2003 in many environments
• ATI Catalyst Drivers of 2005 - The Ultimate Analysis! - check it out

SOFTWARE...

• DirectX 9 End-User Runtimes (December 2005) - This download provides the DirectX end-user redistributable (48MB) that developers can include with their product. This update includes the DirectX for Managed Code Update from the DirectX SDK Update (December 2005).
• OpenOffice.org for Windows 2.0.1 Final - OpenOffice.org (download) is the open source project through which Sun Microsystems is releasing the technology for the popular StarOffice productivity suite.
• Mozilla Thunderbird for Windows 1.5 RC2 - Mozilla Thunderbird (download / release notes) is a redesign of the Mozilla mail component.
• Pegasus Mail 4.3.1 - Pegasus Mail (download) is a free, standards-based electronic mail client suitable for use by single or multiple users on single computers or on local area networks.
• Yahoo! Messenger 7.0.2.120 - download
• YPOPs! 0.8.4 - YPOPs! 0.8.4 has been released! NOTE: Yahoo! Mail Beta is not supported yet. If you are asked if you want to try Beta, please select "No Thanks!". If YPOPs! stops working, check the html files. If one of them has this Beta prompt, please log into Yahoo web site and choose "No Thanks!". After that, YPOPs! should function fine.
• Adobe Reader SpeedUp 1.34 - Adobe Reader SpeedUp is a simple application that was created to help make the loading time of Adobe's Acrobat/Reader software bearable for everyday use. AR SpeedUp only needs to be used once (a process taking only a few seconds) and then your 'Reader will be transformed forever.
• nLite 1.0 RC4 - nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines.
• Windows Vista 5270 Tweak Pack - Windows Vista 5270 Service Pack 1 is a pack that fixes compatiblity issues with Aero Glass on non LDDM drivers.
• K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.46 - K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video.
• Nero 7.0.1.4b  - Nero 7 Premium (mirror1) now offers both the PC and TV media management experience for a complete solution. As usual, there's no changelog.
• Win32Whois 0.9.9 - Win32Whois (download) is a small and efficient Whois client. It is able to retrieve domain information for most of the common TLDs (top level domains). It has it is internal list of servers that it connects to in order to provide a detailed report on a requested domain. This new version adds support for "eu TLD".
• Nvidia Unified (nforce 2/3/4) 8.22 (v5) - This driver set was assembled (remixed) by Guru3D's forum users HLH & Squall and have been tested on NFORCE 2,3 and 4 platforms. It contains all of the latest drivers, install at YOUR OWN RISK of course.
• New official ForceWare BETA drivers 82.12 - This new drivers adds support for GeForce 6800 GS AGP.