Thursday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 11:10 PM CEST - Sep,04 2003
- Post a comment / read (2)
- Five new flaws for Microsoft - Microsoft has released
a quintet of new
patches, the bulk of them for applications. Only one is rated 'critical',
with two 'important', one 'moderate' and one 'low priority'. The 'critical'
flaw is in Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) technology which
could allow hackers to take control of Windows PCs. The two 'important' flaws
also affect key applications. The first concerns a buffer overflow problem
with a WordPerfect converter and affects all versions of Office 97 and above.
The second patches a flaw in all versions of Word currently supported and
could allow a specially crafted macro to take control of a host PC. Users of
Access are also advised to patch a 'moderate' flaw in the 97, 2000 and 2002
versions of the software. The final patch is a 'low priority' fix for Windows
NT4, 2000 and XP. A flaw in the network built input/output system (NetBIOS)
may reveal random data when queried by specially designed malware. (thanks
VUNet) [patch#1
~
patch#2 -
patch#3 -
patch#4 -
patch#5)
- Romanian Student Suspected as the Blaster F Worm coder - Fifteen
years behind bars for a crime that took but 15 minutes to execute. This is the
maximum prison sentence
facing 24-year-old Romanian Dan Dumitru Ciobanu, suspected by authorities
of developing the low-grade Internet worm "Blaster.F" that security experts
suspect took him maybe a quarter of an hour to write. The penalty once again
has stoked the debate about appropriate sentencing for a crime that until
recently was dismissed by law enforcement officers as a relatively benign
prank by tuned-in teenagers trying to prove a point. But with a wave of
increasingly strong Internet bugs, including last month's original Blaster
worm and the Sobig.F virus, inflicting billions of dollars in damage, a
zero-tolerance sentiment has begun to emerge. In Romania, a person found
guilty of the new cybercrime law, which covers online fraud, hacking and
virus-writing, faces a sentence of three to 15 years, more than twice the
maximum sentence for rape.
- First Look at Eudora 6.0 - If you're shopping for an e-mail client,
you might want to consider an old friend:
Eudora is releasing version 6.0, its first significant upgrade in almost
three years. The newest version of the longstanding e-mail program provides
new tools to help you stop the onslaught of spam, deal with long e-mail
threads, and in general get organized. Eudora 6.0 is available in three
versions: The full version costs $50 per year ($40 as an upgrade from earlier
versions); a sponsored version is free but includes ads; and a light version,
also free, doesn't contain ads, but offers fewer features. For example, it
lacks an automatic spelling checker.
- Surprise! Sony's AIBO Is a Dog -
The $1,599 Sony AIBO ERS-7 is $300 more than the previous version (the
ERS-210A listed for $1,299), has a white, nearly hour-glass figure, a more
curved, canine-like face, floppy, translucent ears, and a tail that wags
almost naturally when you pet the electronic pooch. This is also the first
AIBO that Sony is willing to refer to as a dog. Company officials said that
there was a real effort this time to make the AIBO's movements more doglike;
designers even studied the way dogs move
- PHP growing surprisingly strongly on Windows. - Although PHP is
universally thought of as implying Linux, Apache and MySQL, nearly 7% of PHP
sites (when counting by ip address) run on Windows.
This has doubled over the last year, and on its current growth trajectory
PHP will overtake Cold Fusion as the most popular non-Microsoft scripting
language used on Windows during the next year.
- Phoenix Developing DRM-Equipped BIOS - BIOS maker Phoenix
Technologies said
it is currently shopping a digital-rights-enabled BIOS system to top PC
OEMs, the most aggressive use of DRM technology to date. Phoenix executives
said Wednesday that they've developed a prototype version of its Core
Management Environment (cME) using DRM technology in conjunction with Orbid
Corp., a DRM technology provider. The software was designed to assist content
providers to authenticate and track software moving from PC to PC
- EPoX 4PDA2+ v2.0 - HotHardware has posted
a review of EPoX 4PDA2+ v2.0 motherboard.
- ASUS GeForce FX 5900s - V9950 & V9950 Ultra review - The
differences between the two 5900 variants are actually rather small and so can
be encapsulated now, rather than in some lengthy explanation. The Ultra model
has 256MB of onboard RAM and a core clock speed of 450MHz, whereas the
standard version comes with 128MB of RAM and a clock speed set to 400MHz.
Other than that, the two products are exactly the same. However, many vendors
often choose to enhance their editions with additional features so we shall
take a
closer look at the Asus V9950s.
- MSI CR52-M 52/32/52 CDRW Review - Since the CDRW occupied most of
the disc, we can see
the CR52-A2 inching closer to its maximum thoroughput. The drive tops out
at about 51x, and averages about 39x through the disc. CPU usage was low as
well, so the drive shouldn't drag your system to a halt when reading data CDs.
- Samsung 1710/1750 Laser Printer Review - Keptech has put up a
Samsung 1710/1750 Laser Printer review.
- Gaming Rigs Round-Up - There are a few in the world that truly make
a unique product worth buying and claiming its uniqueness. Alienware, Falcon
Northwest, Overdrive PC, Voodoo PC, and Zeus PC are a few to mention.
Each
offers a different kind of machine, and not some kind of production line
PC that never stands out from the rest.
- Esselbach Storyteller CMS System ~ MG Edition 1.21 -
Storyteller CMS (download)
is a powerful Website Content Management System written in the PHP scripting
language and designed for high traffic websites. It supports up to 99 websites
in the same database and is ready for the next MySQL generation with InnoDB
tables.Main Features:
- Eudora v6.0. -
Eudora is the best email program for people who get lots of email. Eudora
now is licensed in three ways -- Sponsored mode, Paid mode and Light mode.
- AntiVir Personal Edition 6.21.09.20 (Updated) -
The AntiVir Personal Edition offers the effective protection against
computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single
PC-workstation. In order to make possible an easy operation, the AntiVir
Personal Edition is developed to the essential points.
- WinDVD Platinum 5.1 B05.011 (expensive shareware) -
WinDVD Platinum 5 (download)
is the ultimate DVD software player, providing you with the finest quality
video and audio playback
- GAIM 0.68 -
Gaim (download)
is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and
Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN
Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
- Tweak FX 1.31 Rev 2 -
Tweak FX
is a configuration tool for Windows XP. It uses plugins- like XTeq X-Setup. Up
to now Tweak FX contains more than 35 plugins and you can add more from:
smilianov.dir.bg.
- W32.Blaster.Worm Removal Tool 1.0.6.1 -
Removal tool to clean the W32.Blaster.Worm infections. It will terminate
the viral process, delete the worm files, dropped files, and delete the
registry values that were added
- DVD Plus Identifier v2.2 -
DVD Plus Identifier
retrieves and interprets the ADIP of DVD+R and DVD+RW discs. Since the
packaging of a disc is not a reliable way of identifying it (e.g. different
brands can still have the same manufacturer and some discs don't even have any
labeling whatsoever) "DVD Plus Identifier" now offers a 100% reliable method
to distinguish between discs.
- Free Via Hypertransport Analyser v1.0 for AMD64 - This tool,
the
HyperTransport Analyzer, can be run on any AMD64 based system regardless
of vendor, and displays the actual bus width and frequency, both upstream and
downstream, of the HyperTransport link between the CPU and Chipset.
- ATI Catalyst 3.7 Drivers - A new ATI Catalyst drivers (WinXP
~
Win2k ~
Win9x/ME) are out! . The ATI Catalyst software suite is the ultimate in
performance and stability. The release notes for this release can be found
here ~ specific corruption, slowdown or AA fixes are included for games
like UT2003, Neverwinter Nights, and TRON 2.0.
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Updated:05:39 PM CEST Jun,09
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