SECURITY... 

• ISPs asked to help clean up Sober worm  - Although Sober is no longer trying to replicate, antivirus company F-Secure believes ISPs must warn infected customers so they can disinfect themselves. Infected PCs were programmed to download new instructions from the Internet last week, which would have heralded another attack. This update did not actually appear online, but infected machines are still trying to download it.

CRIME/LAW...

• Annoy someone online--two years in jail? - It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity. In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.
• Florida spammer hit with $11.2B judgment -  Robert Kramer, the owner and operator of CIS Internet Services in Clinton, Iowa, has won an $11.2 billion judgment against a Miami-based spammer who sent millions of illegal e-mails advertising mortgage and debt-consolidation services, according to court documents.

OFF-TOPIC

• Swedish Pirates Found Political Party - Swedish software pirates have formed a party and are preparing for September's elections for parliament.
• Pfizer to use RFID tags on Viagra to prevent fakes - In an effort to prevent counterfeiting, Pfizer Inc. said it has started to ship Viagra bottles in the U.S. that feature radio chips under the labels
• Computers, Long Hours and Vision Problems? - check it out

TECHNOLOGY...

• CES Coverage - @ AnandTech (Day 1 2 3 ) / @ TechWareLabs (Day 1 2 3 4) / @ FutureLooks / AMD Zone Gallery / Sony CEO Talks About The PS3 at Hexus + PS3 images
• MSI's MXM SLI Card - It seems that MSI has found a way to put two MXM modules together in an SLI configuration without the need for any complicated hardware modifications on the MXM modules. As we found out, MXM SLI is just as simple as putting two MXM modules together.
• ATI and NVIDIA launch new mobile GPUs - ATI launched the Mobility Radeon X1400 and Mobility Radeon X1300 featuring Avivo technology and supporting Shader Model 3.0. Acer will be among the first to market with notebooks featuring the new graphics processors. NVIDIA rolled out the GeForce Go 7800, GeForce Go 7600, and GeForce Go 7400.
• Nvidia gets set to launch Geforce 7300 - The card still has four pipelines and should be announced in February if not earlier. It is meant to replace Geforce 6200 at the lower-end, as you might imagine.
• Intel confirms 1333MHz bus for Woodcrest - Intel has told its OEM partners that it will launch the Woodcrest server processor with a 1333MHz front side bus in the third quarter of this year.
• Intel hits Pentium D 900 glitch - TechReport reports that the first set of CPUs in the Pentium D 900 family might not have Enhanced Intel Speedstep and Enhanced Halt State enabled. That has led to claims that the TDP of the chips could up by as much as 15 watts.
• Adobe Intros Lightroom Beta - Adobe Systems has introduced the public beta of Adobe Lightroom, designed to deliver a complete photography work-flow, mainly to professional photographers.
• Aero Glass is the final UI for Windows Vista - In this week's PowerUser.TV podcast has an interview with Microsoft developers who have confirmed that there will be no major change to the look and feel of Windows Vista from what is being shown in build 5270. In other words, Aero-Glass is it.
• Microsoft Explorer 7.0 looks and feels like Firefox - The key thing is tab browsing that looks and feels like you are using Firefox. Even the search button at the left hand side looks and fells like this free browser. Just as in Firefox you can ad search engines.
• Microsoft recommends ATI hardware for Vista - The chaps over at The Inquirer have managed to see a rather interesting Microsoft document that recommends to people who want to show off Vista to use ATI over Nvidia.  It says that: "ATI is preferred to Nvidia at this time due to superior driver support".
• Is Google DRM crippling culture as great as it seems? - Google's DRM will make its first appearance as part of a new video downloading service. Page revealed that customers will be able to buy TV shows from CBS, NBA basketball games and a host of other content with Google serving as the delivery broker for the video.
• Lenovo claims 11 hours battery life for new Thinkpads - The battery life can be extended to up to 11 hours, according to the manufacturer, if the devices are quipped with an optional and additional battery. Despite using T2400 dual-core processors (1.83 GHz), power consumption is down about 37 percent if compared to the previous product generation, Lenovo claims. Intel's T-series Core Duo processors are rated at a thermal design power of 15 to 24 watts.
• Canon & Toshiba demo SED TV - Well, Canon and Toshiba have been demonstrating a yet another display technology, this time SED (Surface conduction Electron-emitter Display). This works in pretty much the same way as a CRT TV, but with the exception that each phosphor has its own dedicated electron emitter, unlike a traditional CRT which has one main electron gun. As a result, these electron emitters can be placed in close proximity to their designated phosphors, resulting in a very thin display, but with all the advantages of a traditional CRT display, such as deep blacks, 1ms response and a contrast ratio of up to at least 100,000:1, but without the weight and depth of a regular CRT TV.
• Panasonic Unveils Blank Blu-Ray Media Prices - Single layer, recordable discs will debut at $17.99 and $42.99 each respectively. Rewriteable varieties will see $24.99 and $59.99 price tags per disc. While initial prices seem high in comparison to DVD and HD DVD formats, Sony, the main developer and supporter of Blu-Ray, claims that once mass production takes place the price differences will quickly erode.

HARDWARE... 

• CPU - Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955
• Motherboard - Albatron K8SLi / ASRock 939NF4G-SATA2 GeForce 6100 / ECS KN2 SLI / MSI RD480 Neo2 / ECS KN2 SLI nForce SLI X16 / Gigabyte GA-G1975X (Intel 975X Express) / Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro SLI AMD Athlon 64 Socket 939 PCIe / MSI's RD480 Neo2
• Complete / SFF Systems - Pandora - The AOpen Mini
• Memory - Corsair 2GB XMS2
• Storage - Maxtor DiamondMax 200GB HDD(1) / Maxtor Diamondmax 10 200 GB HDD (2) / Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 - 500GB Hard Disk / Western Digital Raptor WD1500 / The Western Digital Raptor X HDD || Corsair Flash Voyager 1GB flash drive / Corsair Flash Voyager 4GB flash drive / Crucial Gizmo USB 2.0 Flash Drives / Kingston's microSD Flash Memory Card || NEC ND-4550A DVD±RW
• Video - Asus Radeon X1800 XT PCIe / ATI PowerPlay Benchmarked / ATI Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire Evaluation  / Gainward GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB PCIe / Gigabyte Radeon X1800 XT / Gigabyte GeForce 6600 DDR / PowerColor X1600 XT & X1300 PRO / PowerColor Radeon X800 GTO 128MB PCIe / Sapphire Radeon X850 CrossFire
• Cooling - Arctic Cooling Freezer 64Pro heatsink / Artic Cooling Accelero X2 VGA cooler / Artic Cooling Fans / Aerocool High Tower Series HT-102 CPU Cooler / Coolink U8-120-1600 CPU Cooler / Evercool CopperMan LGA775 Heatsink / OCZ's new phase-change cooler / Thermalright V1 Ultra VGA Cooler / Thermaltake CL-P0200 Silent 939 K8 Cooler / Titan Eagle Aluminum & Copper VGA cooler (1) / Titan Eagle (2)
• WaterCooling - Thermaltake BigWater SE Liquid Cooling Kit (1) / Thermaltake Big Water 745 (2)
• Case - I-Star D-Storm Series Rack mount Server Case / Raidmax Pure Color 02 Case (video-review) / XG Dragon ATX Case
• Modding - Sansun Thermal Monster Fan Controller / Super Flower Digi-Master Front Panel
• PSU - CoolerMaster 550W SLI Real Power Power Supply / Coolmax Fanless 400W PSU / Enermax Liberty 620 Watt PSU(1) / Enermax Liberty EL620AWT 620W(2) / Enermax Liberty 500 / Nexus NX5000 500W Power Supply / SinTek 500-watt SLI Power Supply / Spire Rocketeer III 500W PSU
• Sound - SteelSound 5H Headphones
• Peripheral - Act-On MicMouse / Das Keyboard vs. KeyTronic / Fatal1ty Gaming Mouse || IceMat 2nd Edition Black Mouse Pad
• Networking - D-Link DSL-G624M - Wireless Router
• Printer/Scanner - HP Color LaserJet 3000 printer /  Fujitsu fi-5220C Workgroup Image Scanner / Samsung SPP-2040 Dye-Sub Photo Printer
• Misc - Sweex External 4 Port USB 2.0 Mini HUB / Crucial Hi-Speed USB 12-in-1 Card Reader
• Notebook - Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi Dual Core Notebook / Innovative Dual-core Notebooks Debut at CES
• Camera, MP3/DVD players/recorders - Canon PowerShot A620 Digital Camera / Samsung Digimax L55W (widescreen camera) || Samsung YP-T8Z 1Gb Mp3 Player / SupportPlus Q-BE MP3 player

GUIDES...

• The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide Revision 8.7.1 - Adrian has updated his premier BIOS optimization guide.
• Inside Pentium M Architecture - Learn how Pentium M processor works
• All Pentium M Models - A series of quick reference tables containing the main specs of all Pentium M models released to date.
• All Athlon 64 Models -  A series of quick reference tables containing the main specs of all Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64 X2 models released to date.
• Want a Cool and Quiet PC? Dunk it in Oil - THG has published an article (+video) showing how they employed their own approach to the liquid cooled computer. To offset the loss of normal airflow around their Athlon FX-55 and GeForce 6800Ultra, the mad scientists in the lab decided to fill the case up with 8 gallons of cooking oil.
• Quest for Lag Free Gaming - In this article, Tech-Hounds explore what can we do to avoid lag, stuttering, and performance - memory wise
• Xbox Saves On Xbox360 - A How To - Xboxhacker.net has posted an article on how they got one Xbox save to work on the Xbox360. This is not for the amateur though, as it involves mouting drives and using linux.

SOFTWARE...

• atari800 emulator v2.0.1. - This is the version 2.0.1 of the Atari 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 emulator for Unix, Linux, Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari TT/Falcon, MS Windows, MS WinCE and systems running the SDL library.
• Vista Transformation Pack 3 - Vista Transformation Pack 3 is out. With the usual array of high quality skins, and effects software (sidebar, glass windows, transparent clocks), this one's bound to be more popular than any of its predecessors.
• BitTorrent 4.3.5 Beta - A new beta for BitTorrent is available - changelog / download
• Skype 2.0.0.69 - Skype (download / changelog) uses P2P technology to connect you to other users. Not to share files, but to talk with them for free.
• Net Transport 2.02 - Net Transport (download) is a faster, exciting and the most powerful downloading tool that you ever saw, now support the most pop Internet protocols(HTTP / HTTPS, FTP / through SSL / SFTP etc.)
• FreeUndelete 2.0 - FreeUndelete (download) is a freeware data recovery program for deleted files.
• TaskInfo 6.2.2.186 - TaskInfo (download) is a poweful utility that combines and improves features of Task Manager and System Information tools.
• Unhide - a Forensic Tool to Uncover Hidden Processes  (Linux) - Unhide is a forensic tool to find hidden processes and TCP/UDP ports by rootkits / LKMs or by another hidden technique.
• Mp3tag 2.35 -  Mp3tag can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists, and more.
• VirtualDub 1.6.12 - VirtualDub (download / AMD 64-bit version) is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters.
• AnyDVD update to 5.8.1.1 - AnyDVD (download) works in the background to automatically remove the copy protection of a DVD movie as soon as it's inserted into the drive, allowing you then to backup the movie using a DVD backup tool such as CloneDVD.
• Driver Cleaner Professional Edition 1.3 - 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.
• XviD Codec XviD-1.2.-127 Beta - XviD (download) is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec.  This new beta adds Experimental SMP support (2 threads hardcoded.
• Update for Windows XP (KB900485) - Install this update to resolve an issue in which you receive a “stop 0x7e in aec.sys” error message on a computer that is running Windows XP Service Pack 2. The error may occur during startup, or after the system has started. AEC.SYS is the acoustic echo canceling driver.
• Microsoft IntelliPoint and Intellitype 5.5 - Microsoft IntelliType Pro software provides full functionality for the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro, Internet Keyboard Pro, and Internet Keyboard. It also gives you the power to customize your keyboard Hot Keys and settings