SECURITY...

• Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program enforced from July 26 - If you use a pirated Windows Operating System and download new updates and drivers from the Microsoft download centre, you may be in for a surprise from July 26. In a global initiative aimed at nudging users to shift to genuine Windows software, Microsoft will kick off its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program from July 26.
• Microsoft Investigates New XP SP2 Flaw  - A newly discovered and as-of-yet unpatched security vulnerability in Windows XP could let an attacker remotely crash computers with WinXP SP2, with the default firewall turned on. The flaw affects the Windows Remote Desktop Service, which lets users access their Windows PC from a remote location. An attacker could remotely exploit the problem to crash a victim's PC in what's known as a denial-of-service attack, according to a posting on the Security Protocols Web site earlier this week. The user would then see the Windows "blue screen of death."
• Hackers attack Mozilla site to spread spam - Hackers attacked a site promoting Firefox last weekend in order to commandeer it to send spam, the Mozilla Foundation said on Friday. The attack was limited to community marketing site SpreadFirefox.com. In a statement, the Mozilla Foundation said the unspecified security vulnerabilities were exploited to mount the attack. SpreadFirefox.com was taken down after the attack was discovered on Tuesday, 12 July but has now been restored online. The Mozilla Foundation said the break-in on 10 July by unknown attackers did not affect other mozilla.org web sites or Mozilla software.
• Sophos Anti-Virus ZIP Archive Denial of Service Vulnerability - A vulnerability has been reported in Sophos Anti-Virus, which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service). The vulnerability is caused due to missing validation checks on the "Extra field length" value when scanning a ZIP archive compressed using the BZIP2 algorithm. This can be exploited to cause an infinite loop that consumes large amount of CPU resources via a malicious ZIP file with an extra field length value of "0xFFFF".
• Worm spells double trouble for PCs - The new pest, Lebreat, is a combined network worm and mass-mailing worm, F-Secure said. Once run on a PC, it installs a backdoor for hackers, downloads the mass-mailer code and attempts to launch a denial-of-service attack that targets security giant Symantec's Web site, the Finnish antivirus specialist said. The malicious code is also known as Breatle and Reatle at other antivirus companies.
• Patches issued for Kerberos flaws - The bugs all affect version 1.4.1 of Kerberos v5, and impact third-party software using the affected components, MIT said. MIT published patching instructions in its advisories and said the problems would be addressed in the forthcoming version 1.4.2.
• Vulnerabilities in Cisco's VOIP system - Cisco Systems Inc. has disclosed that a core component of its enterprise VOIP system is vulnerable to several serious security flaws. The flaws could allow remote attackers to compromise a company's VOIP network, redirect or listen in on calls and carry out other malicious intent, according to Cisco and Internet Security Systems (ISS), which discovered the flaws.
• Startup offers free Wi-Fi security - WiTopia quietly started offering its SecureMyWiFi service free of charge for home users and small business just a couple of weeks ago. The gratis level of service supports one wireless router or access point and up to five users.

OFFTOPIC...

• Training Tae Kwon Do With My DVD Player - My pet, which played only the DVDs it felt like 'in the mood' for playing - a chronic problem on the optical unit for this particular model, I learned from other friends with the same problem -, has finally drop dead. So, the time has come... After several months thinking what I would do with it, I finally destroyed it.
• Ten year-old becomes Microsoft engineer - Arfa Karim Randhawa, aged 10, has become the youngest person to be certified as a Microsoft engineer. Randhawa passed her Microsoft Certified Professional examinations last year. She met Bill Gates this week and was taken on a tour of Microsoft's Redmond campus.
• Disney World Collecting Fingerprints - Disney World is now requiring all visitors to have their index and middle fingers scanned to gain entrance to the park. This started for season pass holders, but is now required for everyone.
• Robinov on a new Conan movie - Though Arnold Schwarzenegger's got too much else on his plate to take up sword-fighting again - Warner still want to bring "Conan the Barbarian" back to the multiplex.  Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Warners production president Jeff Robinov, who with director Chris Nolan has successfully reinvented the "Batman" franchise, says he's hoping to do the same with the "Conan" franchise. Waiting for a "Conan" script from an unnamed action writer-director (rumoured to be Robert Rodriguez), Robinov is committed to producing the film within the next year.
• Comic-Con: V For Vendetta Audio Interview - Natalie Portman, producers Joel Silver and Grant Hill, and original graphic novel co-creator David Lloyd presented Warner Bros.' V For Vendetta at Comic-Con International in San Diego today and ComingSoon.net/SuperheroHype.com got a chance to talk to them (23MB ~MP3) about the anticipated adaptation, opening November 4th.
• Marvel, Xbox 360 ink for Web game - Marvel Enterprises and Microsoft announced a partnership Thursday at Comic-Con International in San Diego to bring a massively multiplayer online role-playing game to its new Xbox 360 game console in 2008.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Philips Pioneers Long-Lasting LED Streetlamps - Philips has put up the first streetlamps that use light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which last four times longer than normal street lighting, the Dutch electronics group said on Friday. With 50,000 light hours, LED lamps do not have to be changed for 12 years when lit for an average 11 to 12 hours a day.
• Firefox Continues to Spread - Firefox increased its market share to 8.71 percent, up from 8 percent in May, while IE's share shrank to 86.56 percent from 87.23 percent, NetApplications.com, an Aliso Viejo, California, maker of applications for monitoring and measuring Web site usage, said this week in a statement.
• Mass layoffs loom for HP - HP is expected to initiate a corporate restructuring within the next two weeks that could see as many as 15,000 layoffs.
• Dell guilty of 'misleading' advertising - The complaint centred around broadcast ads by Dell which began with the statement that Dell used Pentium 4 processors. The advert then continued that Dell computers were available from L349 without mentioning that this was for PCs using Intel's low cost Celeron processor.
• Dell Rejects Spyware Charge - Dell has rejected allegations that it's PCs come pre-loaded with an intrusive application that spies on users' surfing habits. The equipment manufacturer said there was nothing untoward about My Way Search Assistant despite complaints from customers that the toolbar impairs computer performance, changes browser settings and is difficult to remove.
• Dual-vision TV a peacemaker - A new type of television will provide a hi-tech peace treaty for those endless family rows about who gets to watch what: the world's first liquid crystal display that shows two completely different images depending on where you are sitting. Equipped with DualView - a British technology designed at Sharp's laboratories in Oxford - a flat-screen TV can be showing EastEnders to everyone sitting on the right-hand side of the sofa, while those on the left (and listening with headphones) could be playing a video game or watching the football. The crucial factor is the angle from which the viewer watches the screen.
• Konica Minolta unveils cheaper digital SLR camera - Konica Minolta said its new camera will retail for about 100,000 yen ($890) in Japan for the body only. Canon, Nikon, Pentax Corp. and Olympus Corp. have already introduced digital SLRs in that price range. The new camera will be launched worldwide in August and September, sold under the name "alpha sweet" in Japan, "Maxxum 5D" in North America and "Dynax 5D" in Europe. Konica Minolta expects to initially produce about 50,000 units per month..
• CyberLink supports UDF 2.5/2.6 formats for Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD generation - CyberLink announced today support for the Universal Disc Format 2.5 and 2.6 (UDF), the burning standard for the next generation of disc formats - Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD respectively.

HARDWARE... 

• R520 is a dual slot card - Many sources who have seen one have confirmed that ATI's next generation card looks just like its previous Radeon X800XT PE card. The reference design implies that you will need dual slot cooling. Chip will be clocked incredible high and our sources implies that will end up much higher than 600MHz plus than we suggested before. Some of the cards have left ATI's headquarters but R520 clock speeds are not settled as it's a matter of yields. We know that ATI will be getting in for a hard launch sometime in September time, so it has to have the real hardware as soon as it launches.
• Nvidia's G71 is also dual slot - The "Faster G70", which is how the G71 is being called internally now, targets almost insane clock speeds. We have learned that several boards achieved a clock speed of 800MHz, which just goes to prove that tweaks being done in 110nm G71 core will make R520 tremble, and force ATI to respond with its 32-pipe R580 as soon as possible.
• AGP is not dead - According to some research done by The Inquirer, they believe that the dying AGP interface is still putting up a good fight in terms of the current top selling ABIT motherboards in the UK. The AV8-3rd Eye appears to be ABIT's best selling motherboard at the moment - it's based on the K8T800 Pro chipset. The AV8, without the Guru clock is also placed in its top 10 selling motherboards, at number 7 in fact. Both second and third best sellers are also based around VIA's K8T800 Pro chipset, with the KM400A and KV8-Pro taking those spots.
• Graphics Cards Maker Revamps NVIDIA GeForce 7800 Cooling System - EVGA is currently gearing up to use Asymmetric Cooling System, which is may be targeted to provide more efficient cooling compared to reference design and also minimize chances of damage during installation. The new cooler fully encapsulates the board, giving it rather exotic outlook and protecting it against incautious handling. However, a cooling system that covers the whole board may have its drawbacks: large radiator on the backside may prevent proper dissipation of heat at least in some computer cases.
• MSI launches 64-bit AMD Turion Mega Book S270 - Micro-Star International (MSI) yesterday announced the availability of the Mega Book S270, a wide-screen notebook that supports 64-bit AMD Turion 64 mobile technology. The Mega Book S270 will come in tow configurations, priced at NT$47,900 (US$1,499) and NT$39,900 (US$1,252). The NT$47,900 Mega Book S270-W019TC features an AMD Turion 64 1.6GHz CPU, a wide-screen 12.1-inch display, 512MB of DDR333 memory (upgradeable to 2GB), an 80GB HDD, three USB ports and a built-in SD/MS/MMC three-in-one card reader.
• Mushkin 1GB XP4000 2-2-2 REDLINE Dual Pack - The amazing thing with these modules is that we can even run it at these overclocked speed (270MHz) at the most extreme latencies of CAS 1.5-2-2-5 rock solid. This is the first time we have had DDR running at this incredible timings at these speeds.
• Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE - TrustedReviews posted a review of the Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE.
• MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum - With this motherboard, users need not to upgrade to a PCI-E graphics card because it supports AGP 8X at its fullest. So if you are planning to upgrade to AMD 64 platform without having to buy a new graphics card or a 24pin power supply, the K8N Neo2 Platinum should definitely be in your buy list.
• BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC - Perhaps the single most compelling aspect of the entire BFG bundle is the fact that the MSRP is identical to that of  'run-of-the-mil' 7800 GTXs. A very close second is the awesome bundle BFG has included with this top-of-the-line card: a lifetime warranty, a full version game and video editing/authoring application, t-shirt, Teflon “Slick Pads” for your mouse, two DVI adapters, a TV adapter, and an HDTV adapter. While some of these items are to be expected with any new video card, BFG really has raised the bar.
• EVGA GF 7800 GTX - Anandtech has posted a review of the eVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX card which has its core clocked higher than NVIDIA's reccomended settings at 450 MHz, 20MHz higher than reference clock of 430MHz. The eVGA card was overclocked to 475MHz and 1.25ghz and run through Doom III, Battlefield 2, Half Life 2 at the highest of resolution with 8xAF.
• MSI's NX7800GTX - The 7800GTX is an impressive GPU, which shows off powerful features, advanced pipelining, and incredible image quality. It automatically enters as the top performer in the desktop graphics market, and it can give many a professional workstation product a serious run for their money, in both image precision and OpenGL performance.
• Nvidia Quadro FX 3400 - The Quadro FX line also includes high-precision dynamic range, new standards for image quality in addition to rotated grid anti-aliasing, a new anti-aliasing algorithm that enhances the image quality of images and helps with performance when anti-aliasing enabled. In addition to that 256MB of DDR3 memory featured on teh 3400 FX with also two DVI connectors that can be used with dual link allowing a resolution of 3840x2400.
• Diamond Multimedia XtremeTV PVR600 - The Diamond XtremeTV PVR600 is a nice bundle of hardware and software. With a little work, you can add Personal Video Recorder abilities to your PC, and still maintain a stable system while you pause, rewind and record live TV. The package does not include everything you need, and it requires an additional $100 investment to use all the advertised features with full functionality. If you are building a home theater PC or just want to add TV to your laptop, check out the Diamond XtremeTV PVR600.
• Western Digital External USB 80Gig Hard Drive - This external hard drive is about double what an internal hard drive would cost, but if you think about the cost and time it would take to burn 80 gigs worth of information to DVD, and you have the ability to delete and rewrite to the hard drive at will and the fact it is portable you will soon realize that the drive is a good value.
• HP dvd640e DVD Writer - This drive is one of the first drives to support the new LightScribe feature/technique. Further this drive supports 16x DVD+R writing, 8x DVD-R and 2.4x DVD+R9 DL writing technology, allowing double layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written.
• WRT54G Wireless-G broadband router - The Linksys WRT54G appears to be really packed with many powerful features. You can control when and for how long each PC is given access to the Internet. You can also control the amount of bandwidth allocated to each device or LAN port! If you like, the router can filter out specific websites domains or all websites with certain keywords. This router certainly comes with a lot of features to play with.
• Samsung SPP-2040 dye-sub printer - Print quality is very good with natural and accurate colours printed without dots. The dye sublimation technique means ink is transferred as a vapour from the backing film to the paper, so you get a 'continuous tone' print, very similar to a classic, silver halide photograph.
  The printer lays three different colours onto the paper: yellow, magenta and cyan in that order, and then it lays a clear transparent layer over the top to protect the printer from light and ozone attack. The cover layer also gives the print an attractive, glossy coating. Even with only three-colour prints, black is well reproduced.
• Pinnacle Showcenter 200 Brings HD To The Living Room - Pinnacle's new Showcenter 200 brings HD features after "broadcasting" sound, video and photographs around the home. More compact, the 200 also provides a front-mounted USB socket (for connecting a hard disk) and uPnP compatibility.
• Ricoh 8.2 megapixel camera has fast shutter action - GX8 is a slim and compact 8.2-Megapixel digital camera that commands one of the world's fastest shutter response time, super-close macro mode and a fast start-up time of 1.3 seconds.

GUIDES...

• Unlock SLI Capability On nForce 4-4x Chipset - Using a conductive pen, grease, and even pencil, short a resistor on the right side of the chipset as shown above will unlock the SLI capability by splitting into two x8. As such, pairing the nForce4-4x board with a dual GPUs card solution like the Gigabyte 3D1 or ASUS EN6800-DUAL, it can run SLI.
• Cable tidying guide - Are all those IDE, SATA, PSU, HDD, DVD, USB, LCD, PCIE, VGA, DVI, SCART, RF cables getting on your nerves? Want to do something to tidy them up a little? Whether behind your TV or inside your rig, this guide will show you the different types of cable tidying products and what they're good for.
• Digit-Life's 3Digest for June 2005 - check it out!
• Mozilla Firefox extensions you should have - This list may introduce you to new extensions, or extensions that you didn't know the purpose of. There are 100's of quality extensions out there, so definitely spend some time looking through them. This list is in alphabetical order, not in order of preference.
• Catalyst 5.7 comparisons - Catylist roundup can be found on Origo3D (German) and Technic3D (German)

SOFTWARE...

• PCMark05 review - All in all, there isn't much to be said about PCMark05 that hasn't already been said about PCMark04 - It's a good, solid benchmark which offers a plethora of information to anyone wishing to benchmark either entire systems or certain components or subsections of a system. This new iteration of the benchmark is clearly a case of evolution rather than revolution, and rightly so - If it ain't broke, why fix it?
• PHP 5.1 Beta 3 - PHP 5.1 Beta 3 is now available! If all goes well, this beta release will be followed by a release candidate within a couple of weeks.
• AutoPatcher XP July 2005 - AutoPatcher is a comprehensive collection of patches, addons and registry tweaks that give you peace of mind in the knowledge that your Windows system is up to date, even before you connect it to the Internet. It's designed to quickly patch a system with the most current updates and tweaks available, and requires no user interaction once you have selected what to install. This release is based on the all-new AutoPatcher 5.1. Although it was made with Windows XP SP2 English/Portuguese/Norwegian in mind, it will load on any (English/Portuguese/Norwegian) Windows version, showing only the items which match the running environment.
• Belarc Advisor 7.0r - Free Personal PC Audit - The Belarc Advisor (download) builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your Web browser.
• nLite 1.0 beta 5 - This new beta supports Direct Hotfix Integration and much more,
• X-Setup Pro 7.1 - X-Setup Pro 7.1 is now available and beside bug fixes and some small improvements, it brings the all new Scripting feature.
• Unlocker 1.6.6 - This application (download) unlocks in-use files, allowing functions to be performed on theme.
• Notepad++ 3.1 - Notepad++ (download) is a free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.
• Win32Pad 1.5.8 - Win32Pad (download) is a feature filled text editor that is written with a programmer in mind. Its main purpose is to provide enough functionality that is missing from notepad without sacrificing file size and performance.
• SecureCRT 5.0.1 - SecureCRT (changelog / download) gives you an encrypted SSH session with both SSH1 and SSH2™ servers. SSH security goes far beyond the basic secure logon, rerouting data or local applications using TCP/IP ports through an encrypted channel. The VCP utility secures file transfers using SFTP.
• Portable Firefox 1.05 Beta - Portable Firefox is a fully functional package of Firefox optimized for use on a USB key drive.
• Thunderbird 1.05 released - Mozilla Thunderbird (release notes / download win32 | linux), the mail client that 'plays nice with the browser', just got the same security and stability updates that its Firefox sibling recently received.
• Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.15a - Nero (download ~ mirror1US ~ mirror2US ~ mirror3US) is a flexible, reliable, and easy-to-use application designed to write both data and CD audio to CD-R and CD-RW discs. You can also download new versions for NeroMIX 1.4.0.34a, Nero Media Player 1.4.0.34a and NeroVision Express 3.1.0.14a.
• Rightmark RAMTester v1.0 beta2 - The program works with just about every kind of mainstream RAM out there (SDR, DDR, RDR), and it's free to download - what are you waiting for? Head over to its homepage, and find out how hard your RAM really is.