SECURITY...

• [!] Microsoft Issues New Security Updates - Microsoft has released 5 new security-focused updates for NT-Based operating systems, including Windows 2000 and Windows XP. All updates are labeled as "Important", and should be applied as soon as possible. 3 Updates are applicable to users of Windows XP SP2. Here are links: Vulnerability in WordPad Could Allow Code Execution || Vulnerability in DHCP Could Allow Remote Code Execution and Denial of Service (NT4 Only) || Vulnerability in HyperTerminal Could Allow Code Execution || Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel and LSASS Could Allow Elevation of Privilege || Vulnerability in WINS Could Allow Remote Code Execution (XP/2000 Not Effected)
• [!] Microsoft Windows XP SP2 "Windows Firewall" Critical Update - This update helps narrow the definition of the My network, or local subnet, restriction option in the Windows Firewall. This is helpful in situations where the Windows Firewall would consider a large network to be on the local subnet because of how the dial-up software configured the route tables. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
• Zafi Worm Hides Behind Christmas Cheer -  A new version of the Zafi e-mail worm is spreading Christmas wishes along with its malicious code, according to antivirus software companies. Zafi.D is a mass-mailing worm that arrives in a .zip file attached to e-mail messages with the subject "Merry Christmas." Instead of a gift, however, the e-mail package delivers worm code that infects Microsoft Windows systems on which it is opened.
• Default Administrative Password in Cisco Guard and Traffic Anomaly Detector - The Cisco Guard and Cisco Traffic Anomaly Detector software contains a default password for an administrative account. This password is set, without any user's intervention, during installation of the software used by the Cisco Guard and Traffic Anomaly Detector Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation appliances, and is the same in all installations of the product.
• Bugs Bring New Dangers to Acrobat Users - Adobe Systems Inc. has warned of two serious security flaws affecting Windows, Mac OS X and Unix versions of its Acrobat software. The bugs could allow an attacker to execute malicious code on a user's system via a PDF file distributed via e-mail, according to security researchers. The first flaw affects Version 6.0.2 of Acrobat Reader, according to an advisory posted to the Bugtraq mailing list by security research firm iDefense, which discovered both bugs. Reader incorrectly parses the .etd files used in eBook transactions so that an .etd file containing special code in the "title" or "baseurl" fields can cause an invalid memory access. (update to 6.0.3)
• MPAA targets core BitTorrent, eDonkey users - The Motion Picture Association of America launched a new legal campaign Tuesday targeting the BitTorrent and eDonkey file-swapping networks, two technologies widely used to trade movies online. Ratcheting up its previous online antipiracy efforts, the Hollywood group is working with law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe to target and arrest individuals who play a critical role in the functioning of each type of network. Criminal actions have already been filed in Europe, including the seizure of seven Net-connected servers, with their operator still wanted by French police, a representative of the French government said. In related news,  Police in Finland have raided the operations of a popular BitTorrent file download site, seizing equipment and arresting four people who ran the site. Around 30 volunteers who helped moderate the site were also arrested. Police say the site had 10,000 users, all Finnish, who downloaded illegally-copied content worth millions of euros.
• Lowe's Hardware Hacker Gets Nine Years - One of three Michigan men who hacked into the national computer system of Lowe's hardware stores and tried to steal customers' credit card information was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in federal prison
• Lawsuit filed to prohibit copyright protection of software - Computer software should not be protected by copyright laws designed for music, literature and other creative works, according to a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court in San Francisco. Intellectual-property consultant Greg Aharonian hopes to convince the court that software makers can protect their products adequately through patents, which provide more comprehensive protection, but are difficult to obtain and expire in a shorter period of time.
• Apple fights RealNetworks' "hacker tactics" - Apple Computer has quietly updated its iPod software so that songs purchased from RealNetworks' online music store will no longer play on some of the Mac maker's popular MP3 players. The move could render tunes purchased by many iPod owners unplayable on their music players. For the last four months, RealNetworks has marketed its music store as the only Apple rival compatible with the iPod, following the company's discovery of a way to let its customers play their downloaded tunes on Apple's MP3 player.

OFF-TOPIC...

• 22-year-old gamer paid $26,500 for virtual island - Project Entropia announced twenty-two year old Australian, Deathifier from the Dark Knights society, as the savvy winner of this historic auction for virtual real estate. The auction began taking bids in late August and ran through the month of December accepting offers from around the world in a race to claim an extensively rendered virtual treasure island. Bidding ended at an astonishing amount of $26,500 US the largest amount ever spent in the massive multiplayer online gaming space.
• Crocodile Bite video - There's a 1.3 MB WMV video clip of a crocodile biting someone bigtime!
• SNFG - Some Nice Flash Games - Snowball Defender (arcanoid), Reflex (remake of a great puzzle game called Reflexion)
• Sucker video - It happens all the time at bars, clubs and parties across the land, even more so at this time of year. Gorgeous looking women! check it out!

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft MSN Explorer QFE Beta - Microsoft MSN Butterfly beta testers will shortly start testing the next revision of the MSN Explorer software. Rumoured as MSN Explorer 9.20 there will be minor changes and the addition of features like PhotoMail. PhotoMail allows you to embed images into your email and annotate them, apply effects to them etc just like you would in Microsoft Word. MSN Beta testers will be receiving the MSN Explorer Beta CD shortly and it's expected that the beta will run until the end of Q1 2005.
• Nintendo to Bring Music, Video to DS Game Machine - Nintendo will begin selling an adaptor for its DS and GBA handheld game players to allow them to play music and video, the company said, matching a popular feature on Sony's portable game machine. The DS, which by itself is strictly a game device, will be able to play video in the MPEG-4 format and songs in the MP3 format by inserting a memory card into the adaptor, which is plugged into a slot in the machine.
• NEC, Toshiba Claim Memory Breakthrough - Flash memory is currently favored for portable devices and memory cards because it retains data after a device is switched off. Several companies, including NEC and Toshiba, are developing a type of memory called MRAM (magnetorestitive RAM) that uses magnetic fields to store data. MRAM can retain data when switched off, and can also recall data faster, work longer, and potentially be produced at a lower cost than flash memory, according to its proponents. MRAM could replace flash and DRAM (dynamic RAM) by as early as 2010, its backers say, but only if certain technical problems are solved first.

HARDWARE...

• ASUSTeK Ships VIA K8T890 Mainboards - After some misunderstandings between ASUS' divisions, the company has started to actually ship its first A8V-E Deluxe mainboard based on VIA's K8T890 core-logic, creating some choice on the market for those, looking for PCI Express-supporting mainboards for AMD64 processors.
• Fujitsu Intros Innovative 100GB HDD for Mobiles - The new Fujitsu MHV2100AH 2.5" drive offers 100GB capacity with 5400rpm functionality giving users more performance compared to 4200rpm hard disk drives, but with low power consumption increasing the time that users can spend away from an outlet. The MHV2100AH hard disk drive consumes only 1.9W when writing; 0.6W in idle; about 2.6 bels of noise; can survive 300G/2ms operating shock; 900G/1ms non-operating shock and 1.5ms track-to-track seek time.
  Dual Xeon Sweetness Unwrapped, The Asus PC-DL Deluxe - Whether you're looking for a fast, stable platform to run at stock speeds or if you want to overclock like crazy the Asus PC-DL Deluxe would be a good choice. The BIOS limitations are the only real detriment to this board and those are easy enough to overcome with a little time and effort.
• Wireless HD Enclosure - The WL-HDD2.5 will change your perception on data storage. This latest hard disk drive box enables wireless file sharing through 802.11g OFDM technology, enabling fast data transfer at 54Mbps. It is also backwards compatible with 802.11b devices and can be adopted in wired environments as well.
• [!] NVIDIA's GeForce 6200 with TurboCache - The relatively weak performance of the GeForce 6200 with 32-bit/16MB TurboCache demonstrates that the TurboCache scheme isn't magic. NVIDIA isn't quite as able to mask system memory access latencies as one might hope, and bandwidth pressure isn't dramatically relieved by pixel shaders in today's games. Another reviews can be found on AnandTech, bit-tech, Gamers-Depot, Hexus.net, HotHardware, TGH (overview only) and Planet 3DNow!.
• Taking SLI and X850 XT PE to Bloodline  - HEXUS.net has compared a SLI system from Scan Internation, and a HEXUS built rig featuring a Radeon X850XT PE.
• Albatron GeForce 6800 GT - If you are looking for a video card for the holidays, you should definitely take a look at the Albatron 6800 GT. When push comes to shove, it performs like a champ and can hold its own against just about anything you throw at it.
• Nvidia Geforce 6600GT AGP - For the extra AU$100 or so, the 6800 will give you better performance, but the 6600GT still showcases impressive results for its price range. AGP users right now looking for an upgrade from their older MX/5200/9600 etc series videocards are far better off buying the best value option available as a move to PCI-Express could be in store shortly down the track, and the 6600GT AGP seems to offer plenty of value.
• eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT SLI - So now that you have seen the numbers and graphs is SLI worth the extra $200 video card? Right now I would say no simply because drivers aren't there yet. I would however suggest that if you want to upgrade PCI-Express with an SLI option would be an extremely wise choice.
• Seagate Barracuda 160GB Sata internal 7200rpm HDD - Xtreme Computing has posted a review on the Seagate Barracuda 160GB Sata internal 7200rpm Hard Drive
• LG GSA-4163B 16x All-Format DVD Writer - With the LG GSA-4163B, you'll enjoy the latest and fastest DVD rewritable speeds, in addition to great compatibility with all the major DVD formats available right now. It's basically a future proof product that is very worthy of your investment and with a competitive price tag of just S$149, the GSA-4163B has just the right set of qualities in both features and price for anyone who is looking for an all-rounder DVD writer.
• Cooler Master Real Power RS-450-ACLY Power Supply - The Cooler Master Real Power RS-450-ACLY power supply has some laudable strengths. General power delivery capacity, stable line voltage regulation, and very high efficiency are among them. Its performance with those parameters is excellent. The "Human Computer Interface" power meter really is little more than a selling gimmick, but it tells something. Just keep in mind that it reads AC input wattage, always a bit too high. The DC power consumed by your components is at least 30% less.
• Altec Lansing inMotion iM3 Portable Audio System - Falling in line with other iPod aftermarketers, Altec have struck upon a stylish and effective design for external speakers. And this isn't their only design; two other Altec Lansing inMotion portable audio systems can be found at their website.
• Samsung SC-D107 digital camcorder - The SC-D107 ($400) is the top line camcorder in the series. Some of its many features include a 20x optical zoom lens (digital zoom to 900x) with image stabilizer, 3½" rotating LCD and color viewfinder, low-light recording settings, built-in video light, 4-in-1 memory card slot, and MPEG4 recording. All this is packed into a sleek, compact MiniDV camcorder that doubles as a digital still camera.

GUIDES...

• PC buyer's guide Christmas 2004 edition - So you've managed to scrape together some money and ready for a new PC? Well then here is your guide! Whether low end or high end, find a guid to build a computer for the likes of Half-Life 2 and Doom III. This is a guide to putting together a complete computer, which means speakers, keyboard, mouse and monitor are included.
• ATI Catalyst 4.12 Performance Analysis - TweakTown compared these new drivers with their normal array of benchmark.
• 10 Golden tips for secure online shopping - TCMagazine has compiled 10 golden tips (the link seems to be temporary dead) for safe shoppin on the internet.

SOFTWARE...

• HijackThis 1.99 Final - HijackThis is a general homepage hijackers detector and remover.
• VirtualDub 1.6.2 - VirtualDub (changelist ~ download) is a video capture and processing program. It features fast capturing, process files larger than the 2 gigabyte limit, optimized for linear editing, support for Motion-JPEG, MPEG-1 video and layer 3 audio, real-time and near-realtime video processing, video job queues, and much more.
• Nic's XviD Codec Build 14.12.2004 - A new build of XviD is available - download.
• SPFDisk (Special Fdisk) Partition Manager - It's basically like fdisk but has more options, and is more user friendly.
• FreshUI 7.25 - Fresh UI is  free Windows tweaking tool. This new version adds hidden options for Explorer Search Settings section. Just install it over the old version.
• CPUFSB 2.2.15 - It is for changing the FrontSideBus only - download.
• NVTweak (formerly Coolbits) 1.6.1 - NVTweak (formerly Coolbits) unlocks many extra options in the NVIDIA control panel/driver, including but not limited to - Overclocking, AGP & Hardware settings, Fan control, Temperature settings, Debugging, Twin View, Video Mixing Renderer, OpenGL 2.0 support, 3D viewer types (for 3D Stereo drivers), and more.
• ATI Catalyst Beta 3 driver package for Win XP 64 and AMD64 - ATI released the third beta driver for the 64-bit version of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. The new driver supports the Radeon X800, X700, X600, X300, 9800, 9700 Pro, 9600TX, 9550 and 9500 series.
• Adobe Acrobat 6.0.3 update - This update addresses several potential vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat Professional and Standard versions 6.0.0-6.0.2. Note that currently there are no known malicious exploits of these vulnerabilities.
• Plextor PX-716a Firmware v1.02 - This new firmware improves write quality on DVD media, write quality at 12X on some 8X rated media and performance to execute AutoStratagy.
• ForceWare 67.22 Win2000/XP - This ForceWare driver has revision build 67.22. At least GeForce series 6 has a WHQL tag (Microsoft tested and approved). It was posted as a driver for NVIDIA's targeted at the professional Quadro series; yet after inspecting the .inf entries in the driver we can see that it supports all regular GeForce graphics cards.
• Latest Bios updates - TC Mag have poted the latest BIOS updates listed by brand.