SECURITY...

• U.K. to issue public virus alerts - The British government has created a Web site with virus alerts and security advice for home PC users and small businesses. The site, called ITsafe, will provide free information on the latest virus threats as well as advice on Internet surfing, e-mail use and protecting personal and business data.
• Virus hidden in fake FBI email - The FBI is warning internet users to beware of a virus masquerading as an email from the US law enforcement agency. The scam emails tell the recipients that their surfing has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Centre and that they have accessed illegal websites. Recipients are urged to open an attachment and answer some questions, but the attachment contains a computer virus.
• Microsoft Confirms IE Phishing Flaw - According to a Microsoft spokesperson, Windows XP SP2 requires the URL of pop-up ads to display in the title bar when a pop-up has been opened without the address bar. "Our early analysis indicates that only pop-up ads that contain extremely long URLs can be spoofed in this scenario," the spokesperson confirmed.
• Microsoft Patches "Blue Screen Of Death" In Windows XP SP2 - The problem, which has actually been public since December 2004, also affects Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. In some cases, installing third-party anti-virus or firewall software -- Microsoft didn't name makers or package titles -- can bring down the operating system in a Blue Screen of Death with a cryptic error that reads "Stop 0x05 (INVALID_PROCESS_ATTACH_ATTEMPT)."
• Office 10 applications & flashdrives can be used to browse restricted drives (Win2k) - After you establish a group policy to restrict access to a drive by selecting the Hide these specified drives in My Computer and Prevent access to drives from My Computer options, you can use a Microsoft Office program to browse and read the contents of the drive.
• More Security Problems for phpBB - An update of phpBB has been released to address new security holes in the open source application. "One of the potential exploits addressed in this release could be serious in certain situations and thus we urge all users to upgrade to this release as soon as possible," the phpBB Group said in its advisory. The security fixes address multiple bugs that disclose the full path to system files in phpBB, which is powered by the PHP server-side scripting language. A vulnerability reported by iDefense could, under some configurations, allow malicious users to view system files.
• Multiple Vulnerabilities in RealArcade - The vulnerability lies in the handling of RGS files. Each RGS file is defined using an integer of a 32 bits that specifies the length of a GUID string and a name of a game to install. When the user launches a RGS file he can choose if to continue installing or not.
  The vulnerability allows to overwrite the return address of the vulnerable function which in turn can be used by an attacker to execute malicious code.
• Changes in Windows XP Product Activation - On February 28, Microsoft will disable Internet activation for all Microsoft Windows XP product keys located on the Certificates of Authenticity (COA) labels distributed by large, multinational OEMs. The first phase of this Product Activation policy update will affect product keys from the top 20 Direct OEMs only. This policy will go into effect on February 28th with additional updates throughout the year to extend this policy to all OEMs authorized to use SLP. This change will affect all Windows XP product keys already shipped from the top 20 OEMs in the market today as well as shipments going forward.
• Silence Fuels Speculation on Microsoft Security Plan - Microsoft's silence on its Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) architecture has some industry insiders wondering if the technology has been substantially delayed, or even axed. Microsoft unveiled NGSCB, formerly known by its Palladium code name, in 2002. The technology, Microsoft has said, uses a combination of software and hardware that boosts PC security by providing the ability to isolate software so it can be protected against malicious code
• Arrest, But no Relief From IM Spam - Anthony Greco of Cheektowaga, New York, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on February 16, and charged with violating the federal CAN-SPAM Act, after the 18-year-old allegedly sent over 1.5 million instant messages advertising mortgage refinancing services and adult pornography to users of MySpace.com's IM service, according to a statement released by U.S. Attorney Debra W. Yang.
• Microsoft says sorry for AntiSpyware error - Microsoft has publicly apologized and compensated Web directory Startpagina.nl, one of MSN's main competitors in Holland, after the software giant's anti-spyware product incorrectly flagged the site as malicious.
• Free SSL Certificate Project - Most web servers, such as Apache, IIS and others are capable of running the 128-bit secured and encrypted SSL protocol. All you need, in most cases, is a SSL certificate to make it work. StartCom is going to provide you with this certificate through a simple web based interface wizard and sign up process free of charge. Together with the installation instructions, you'll have your secured web site running within a few minutes.

OFF-TOPIC...

• The History Of The Computer - Unlike most devices, the computer is one of the few inventions that does not have one specific inventor. Throughout the development of the computer, many people have added their creations to the list required to make a computer work. Some of the inventions have been different types of computers, and some of them were parts required to allow computers to be developed further.
• Frozen Bacterium Has Implications for Mars -NASA - A newly discovered life form that froze on Earth some 30,000 years ago was apparently alive all that time and started swimming as soon as it thawed, a NASA scientist reported on Wednesday, in a finding he said has implications for possible contemporary life on Mars.
• Hydroelectric power's dirty secret revealed - The green image of hydro power as a benign alternative to fossil fuels is false, says Éric Duchemin, a consultant for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "Everyone thinks hydro is very clean, but this is not the case," he says. Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels.
• The Power of Nukes - This video shows nukes in all of their amazing albeit destructive beauty. If only people could forget the destructive power of nukes and focus on the good they could achieve.
• Compression algorithms harnessed to fight HIV - HIV mutates rapidly, thus evading the human immune system. This means that vaccines developed to counteract one strain may not be effective against another variant. But the researchers hope that algorithms capable of finding patterns in digital information could also help identify key genetic features across many different strains of HIV. This could enable them to engineer an HIV vaccine that is effective against several strains at once.
• Battlestar Galactica Season 2 This Summer - SCI FI Channel announced that the second season of its hit original series Battlestar Galactica will premiere this summer with 20 new episodes, after earlier confirming their commitment to the show.
• Quentin Tarantino to direct CSI season finale - Quentin Tarantino has signed to direct the season finale episode of CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, says The Hollywood Reporter. Tarantino also has come up with an original story for the episode, which is expected to shoot in early April and air May 19, according to "CSI" executive producer Carol Mendelsohn.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Internet Explorer 7 Preview 1 - From a factual basis, here's what we know about IE 7 right now: IE 7 was originally scheduled for Longhorn. The new features we're going to see in IE 7 were originally going to be available only as part of Longhorn, IE 7 will be focused on security, not new features. Like the version of IE that Microsoft shipped in XP SP2, IE 7.0 will consist, mostly, of security-oriented features. One of these features will be an anti-phishing technology. IE 7 will be free. Like previous versions of IE, IE 7 will be free.
• WinZip Companion For Outlook Launched - WinZip Computing has introduced WinZip Companion for Outlook, which is designed to make it easy for Outlook to zip and encrypt attachments to their outgoing e-mail messages.The WinZip Companion can be configured to zip files automatically, to ask if the user wants them zipped, or to manually zip and attach files. Toolbar and menu items control the program's functionality on a message-by-message basis.
• How to Kill Linux - While chatting over dinner with the executives of a middleware company during the recent RSA conference for encryption and security in San Francisco, I heard about a secret project. It concerned the development of a version of Linux that runs smoothly as a task under Windows. The project was completed and then shelved. Whether it will ever reemerge is doubtful, but it does offer some interesting possibilities and hints as to what Microsoft may be up to with MS-Linux
• Peer Impact P2P signs deal with four major labels - Wurld Media, provider of Peer Impact P2P software, has completed a deal with four major music lables including Sony/BMG and Universal Music Group. In case you don't know, Peer Impact is an application that allows the downloading of music legally, but with a twist. You can potentially earn money if the music you like and buy, is uploaded to another peers computer. Details are not clear as the program is presently in the beta stage.
• German Search Engines Self-Regulating - Heise reports the German search engines Google.de, Lycos Europe, MSN Germany, AOL Germany, Yahoo.de, T-Online and T-Info today in Berlin announced the forming of a self-regulating organization (Babelfish version) under the hood of the German FSM (the "Voluntary Self-Control for Multimedia Service Providers"). (thanks Slashdot.org)
• Xbox 2 set to feature removable hard drive - reports - Microsoft's next-generation Xbox console is set to feature a removable hard drive bay, according to online reports today, which will allow users to upgrade their entry-level systems to include mass storage capabilities.
• Apple pipes in new iPods - The company introduced a higher-capacity, 6GB Mini, along with new 30GB and 60GB iPod Photo models (photo), which can use an adapter to connect directly to digital cameras and display photos. The Minis also feature a boost in battery life.
• AMD to demo a dual-core desktop chip - The chip, code-named Toledo, will feature two separate Athlon 64 processing cores on the same piece of silicon. It will start appearing in PCs in the second half of 2005, said Theresa DeOnis, desktop brand manager for AMD. Putting two cores on a chip will allow a computer to perform two tasks at once, she said, or run specially tweaked applications faster. Windows XP Professional will be the operating system of choice for many dual-core desktops, as it is already threaded to run two processors.
• Dell No Longer Plans to Use AMD Processors - CEO - Following Intel Corp.'s release of Intel Pentium 4 processors 600-series as well as yet another lineup of Intel Xeon DP, the world's largest computer maker Dell Inc., who exclusively use Intel's microprocessors in its products, said the company does not have plans to introduce systems powered by AMD processors.

HARDWARE... 

• NV44a is native AGP 6200 - NV44 PCIe is what we know under the Geforce 6200 TC brand but the AGP version won't be TC - Turbo Cache compatible, as this is a PCIe game only. It still might be called Geforce 6200. Nvidia needs a good card in a market that brings a lot of money to the company and has to fight ATI's offering in this league. Now, that's the Radeon 9250 but we heard that ATI might have a new low end AGP player soon as well.
• First pictures of ATI's 512MB Radeon X850 - EliteBastards just received the first images of the 512MB variant (pic#1 / pic#2) of ATI's Radeon X850 board.
• Evesham Duel SLi gaming PC - The star of the show internally is the pair of GeForce 6800GT cards, located in the two PCI Express slots on the Asus A8N-SLi motherboard. There is in fact another PCI Express slot in between these but it is totally obstructed by the large bulk of these cards. Evesham has selected to use Leadtek cards, probably for the simple reason that it was able to secure supply of this brand. This is slightly unfortunate as while these cards certainly perform well, they make an awful lot of noise. In fact as well as a CPU fan, there's a 120mm rear fan, a front fan, and even one on the motherboard Southbridge chip.
• Intel Pentium4 3.73GHz EE - From the past few pages of benchmarks, its quite clear that the performance of the 3.73GHz EE is not what one would expect from Intel’s highest-end desktop CPU which is about 300Mhz faster than their previous EE CPU. This was bound to happen as Intel moved the EE to the 90nm based Prescott core which has a longer 31 stage pipeline. We saw the same thing when the normal Pentium4 shifted from Northwood to Prescott.
• AMD's Athlon FX - CPU Scaling to 3GHz and 250MHz dHTT - AMD recently released their latest Opteron running at 2600MHz, the same speed as the Athlon FX-55. With one Opteron speed hike usually comes the next one on the desktop, which for Athlon FX means 2800MHz and FX-57. Apply the logic above and we can examine the performance of FX-57 before launch, using an existing FX processor and its unlocked multipliers. With FX-55, all that means is the use of the 14x multiplier at the standard 200MHz dHTT (derived HTT, calculated by the use of the base HTT clock and clock divisors). While it's not quite a front-side bus, since the memory controller always runs at core frequency, it's close.
• Pentium 4 at 5.2GHz - Due to diminishing returns the Pentium 4 processor needs a whopping 5.2GHz clock speed to keep up with AMD's flagship processor. So was it a good decision on Intel's part to announce it will not be shipping a 4GHz processor? We think so, as the Pentium 4 was just never going to best AMD's Athlon 64
• OCZ's DDR Booster - OCZ's DDR Booster is a supplemental power supply for your DDR memory that plugs into an empty DIMM socket to improve memory stability.
• ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition - Looking back at our tests on the X800XT, X800 Pro, 9800XT and so on, it's easy for me to say that the X850XT Platinum Edition is the best and the fastest video card we have ever seen. The card has everything any computer enthusiast could ever want, but like most things it's not completely perfect. I hate to be nitpicky, but I feel that the cooling system could be a little better by using a larger copper heatsink. With the amount of heat this card produces, better cooling couldn't hurt.
• Gigabyte Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition -  Legion Hardware take a look at the Gigabyte Radeon X850XT PE. This is not only the fastest graphics card ATi currently has on offer; it is also the most expensive. The average Radeon X850XT PE can be had for anywhere between $500 and $700 US.
• Sapphire Radeon X850 XT - Traditionally Sapphire's retail cards haven't varied very far from ATI's reference design, after all, in many cases, ATI has farmed out production of their boards to Sapphire, therefore it was no surprise to us to see that Sapphire's RADEON X850 XT was so similar to the X850 XT reference board
• Dual MSI NX6600GT-TD128E SLI videocard -  PC Stats has posted a review of Dual MSI NX6600GT-TD128E SLI Videocard
• BenQ DW1620A DVD±RW/R Drive - This overall nice impression is somewhat spoiled by some flaws concerning DVD burn operations which I hope will be corrected in future firmware updates. Another point in favor of the BenQ is its wide functionality. Besides Plextor's devices of the 712 and 716 series, the BenQ DW1620 is among the most feature-rich optical drives in the market.
• Asetek WaterChill Antarctica KT12A-L30 Water Cooling System - The Asetek WaterChill Antarctica KT12A-L30 kit includes three water-blocks: for the CPU, GPU and the chipset's North Bridge. They are all designed alike: a copper sole with a milled channel for the passing of the liquid plus a thick acryl cap the 0.5” Push-on fittings are attached to.
• Logitech MX1000 Mouse - Cleverly packaged, and with out-of-the-box use, the MX1000 appeals to graphics professionals, gamers and mainstream users alike; comfortable and easy to use, the SetPoint software only extends its functionality.
• Slappa Optical Disc Storage - So, putting the name to one side, what Slappa produces is a range of high-end storage and transport solutions for your digital media. OK, so that's a fancy way of describing CD/DVD cases, but calling the Slappa products CD cases seems to be selling them short - these cases really are a cut above the your average optical disc storage solution and sport a number of very useful features.
• Canon PowerShot SD300 - Offering a 4 megapixel output and 3x optical zoom, the SD300 has a lot to offer. On top of the basic still recording modes that we have come to expect from current digicams, the SD300 offers a versatile movie mode that can record at 640x480 at 30 fps. It can even record at 60 fps with a resolution of 320x240
• Kreisen LT-30FMP HDTV - Kreisen's LT-30FMP has a lot to offer and should not be a disappointment for those that do research before purchasing. Because Kreisen uses panels from both Samsung and LG.Philips, you are sure to get a great looking picture. PC Users will love how the LT-30FMP doubles as a PC monitor and with the advanced PIP options; you can watch television at the same time.

GUIDES... 

• AMD Cool'n'Quiet How-To - EN staff member Troy Fontaine has put together a quick and easy guide on how to put AMD's Cool'n'Quiet technology to use. If you're finding yourself confused trying to get it working, this guide should help get you on the right track.
• Making Windows XP Start Faster - Whenever you start your computer, you are faced with a few moments of thumb twiddling while Windows XP boots and prompts you to log on. Although you should expect to wait for a few moments, sometimes Windows XP seems to boot rather slowly. In fact, you may notice that over a period of time the PC that used to roar to life seems a bit sluggish instead. Fortunately, you can perform several techniques that help Windows XP get the bootup speed you want. This chapter explores how to put these techniques to work.
• Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.9.0 - Clean Spyware and Viruses + Optimize Windows XP to improve both work and gaming performance safely. Windows XP's default configuration is far from optimized. This guide will help you improve your overall system performance.
• How To Make A Slipstreamed Win XP SP2 Disc - What is the solution? "Slipstreaming" is the process of taking that old, non SP2 (or in my case not even SP1) copy of Windows XP and upgrading it to a fully patched (well, close to fully patched) version that can be installed in one-step
• ForceWare Driver 75.90 Performance Comparison - Origo3D have published their ForceWare 75.90 Driver Comparison (translated by Google) They tested ForceWare 75.90 against ForceWare 71.50 ,71.25 ,71.80, 71.81 and 67.71 using a Geforce 6800 Ultra.

SOFTWARE...

• Critical Update for XP and 2003 on Windows Update - You receive the Stop error "Stop 0x05 (INVALID_PROCESS_ATTACH_ATTEMPT)" in Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2003. This patch has been available since nov 2004, but is now available on windowsupdate and autoupdate.
• phpMyAdmin 2.6.1-pl1  - phpMyAdmin (changelog) 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
• NetServer 0.1 Beta 3 - You want to get hosting for your website? You can't afford a hosting service for your website or you don't like the services offered by free hosts? You have a PC at home that you can connect to the Internet 24/7 ?You need a development platform for your PHP scripts? Download NetServer and your PC will become a Web Server, MySQL Server, FTP Server, Mail Server in 5 minutes.
• DVD Rebuilder 0.74 - One click DVD backup tool that uses CinemaCraft Encoder Basic/SP or QuEnc(ffmpeg) encoder or ReJig transcoder engine. This tool helps you to do a full dvd backup(movie, extras, menus) of your DVD9s to one DVDR using one of the best video encoder available, CinemaCraft Encoder.
• BSPlayer 1.2 Build 815 - BSplayer (download) is a Windows player that plays back all kinds of media files ( avi / mpg / asf / wmv / wav / mp3...) and specialises in video and divx playback.
• Fraps 2.5.2 - Fraps is a tool that lets you monitor current framerates in a corner of the screen for programs using DirectX or OpenGL technology. It also allows you to easily take screenshots of games, make movies of gameplay, and manually determine the average framerate between two points.
• BWMeter v2.3.0 - BWMeter is a powerful bandwidth meter, monitor and traffic controller, which measures, displays and controls all traffic to/from your computer or on your network. Unlike other products, it can analyze the data packets (where they come from, where they go, which port and protocol they use). BWMeter can create statistics for all computers in your network, measure, display and control all LAN traffic as well as download / upload from the internet.
• Screamer Radio 0.3.6 - Screamer Radio (download) is a simple to use Internet radio player and recorder. Supported stream formats include Shoutcast/Icecast (mp3 and ogg) and Windows Media Audio
• Nokia Lifeblog 1.50.8.2 - Nokia Lifeblog is a PC and mobile phone software combination that effortlessly keeps a multimedia diary of the items you collect with your mobile phone.
• nLite 0.99.8b - nLite is an all-in-one GUI utility that will give you the ability to permanently remove unwanted components such as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Media Player, MSN Explorer, MSN Messenger and a variety of other components from your own Windows CD. This results in a slimmer Windows CD, faster Windows installation, more hard disk space, and is also known to free up RAM resources when using a cut-down version of Windows
• Matrox Parhelia/P650/P750 AGP/PCI 1.08.00 driver - Matrox has released new Matrox Parhelia drivers - download