SECURITY...

• SSH Claims for New Secure Shell Draw Open-Source Ire - SSH Communications Security announced this week the availability of Version 5.0 of its SSH Tectia client/server solution and SSH Tectia Manager 2.0. The SSH Tectia is available on Windows, Unix, Linux and IBM mainframe z/OS environments. SSH Tectia can be centrally managed with SSH Tectia Manager.
• New security proposed for do-it-all phones - The proposed standard doesn't just protect user data. The security hardware also enables copyright protection, according to the TCG, a feature demanded by the entertainment industry. This so-called digital rights management technology could mean access to more exclusive content on cell phones, but it could also limit the content that will play on devices.
• Symantec updates Norton Suite - Symantec released the latest version of its Norton security software on Monday, adding a new "protection center" to its Norton Internet Security 2006 applications suite. The Norton Protection Center aggregates a variety of security information and offers the selection to consumers so they can choose which security features they need to enable.
• MultiTheftAuto Privileges Escalation and DoS Vulnerabilities - The MTA server has the remote administration option enabled by default. The problem is the existence of an undocumented command (number 40) which allows the modification or the deletion of the content of the motd.txt file used for the message of the day. This is the only command which doesn't check if the client is an administrator so anyone without permissions has access to it.
• Detailed Firefox and IE vulnerability report - check it out

CRIME...

• Teenager foils RIAA P2P lawsuit - Candy Chan, a mother from Michigan, had been facing a heavy fine after she was sued for file sharing by Priority Records on behalf of Sony Music and Warner Brothers. But the court has dismissed the case 'without prejudice', meaning that she cannot be prosecuted again. The case began when Chan's IP address was found on a P2P network, along with an email address. But after the suit was filed Chan pointed out that the email address belonged to her 13 year-old daughter. She objected when the prosecution then tried to sue her child.
• Sophisticated phishing targets Yahoo users - A new phishing method is targeting users of Yahoo Inc.'s Web site by recording their username and password while logging them into a legitimate area of the portal, according to Websense Inc., a Web security software firm.
• Swedish warez site shut - Hollywood's top film association said Monday it had succeeded in shutting down a Swedish website alleged to have pirated over 15,000 movies and television episodes. The Motion Picture Association (MPA), the international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced the shutdown of "BlueCrap," described as "a highly trafficked Internet 'warez' server used to swap movies, television programming and other copyrighted materials.
• Resellers raided over 'fake Cisco kit' - Police have still released no details about computer firms they raided earlier this month netting equipment worth £500,000. The raids targeted a computer firm near Rochdale which was visited by police, trading standards and representatives of several international companies. Companies in Reading, Flintshire and Manchester were also raided. The Rochdale raid saw computer components worth £100,000 confiscated but the police and trading standards are still not naming the firm concerned. Initial reports suggested illegally copied software was the target of the raid, but it now appears it was counterfeit hardware.

OFF-TOPIC

• Bill Gates Donates $40m To Old School - Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, is to donate $40 million to his old school in Seattle. Lakeside is a fee-paying school and the money from Microsoft will go towards scholarships for children in the local area.
• Xbox 360 Origen secret finally revealed - The Origen Xbox 360 site has counted down, and it appears to be promoting a contest for European gamers to win a trip to an Xbox 360 launch party in the U.S.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Xbox lost Microsoft $4 billion over 4 years - The Xbox game console is hot, but its division has lost $4 billion in four years and isn't yet in the black.
• Windows Vista to boot in 2-3 seconds - Fast On and Off is one of the more than welcome new features of Vista. Microsoft says computers with Windows Vista should start and shut down just as quickly and reliably as a TV. This means bootup times of typically only 2 to 3 seconds. One of the reasons for this is because Windows Vista will process login scripts and startup programs and services in the background, enabling you to start working right away. /Ed.note: 2-3 sec ? :-) A nice marketing claim ;)/
• Sun to Launch StarOffice 8 - Sun will officially announce the release of StarOffice 8, its open-source-based office productivity suite, on Tuesday. Will this help grow desktop-app mindshare for open source and Sun?
• Google Video Integrates Media Player - Google has improved its Google Video service by eliminating the need for users to download software to play back videos, the Mountain View, California-based company has announced. The service's videos now play within a Web browser without the need for additional software, says Peter Chane, senior business product manager for Google Video.
• Intel, Microsoft back HD-DVD - Intel and Microsoft have joined Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC, and others in backing the HD-DVD standard.
• CMO claims it developed world's highest screen resolution LCD TV panel - Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) claimed it has developed a 56-inch LCD TV panel that has the world’s highest resolution and expects to volume produce the panel in the third quarter of next year. The quad full high definition (QFHD) panel has a 3,840×2,160 resolution, featuring 8.29 million pixels, which is four times the resolution of current high-definition (HDTV) panels (1,920×1,080).
• Are holograms in your storage future? - Imagine storing 20,000 X-ray images on a disk the size of a credit card. That's one grand promise stirring up the buzz over holographic storage for the enterprise.
• Copyright Crackdown - Sony BMG and EMI have begun shipping compact discs using technology that limits the number of copies you can make of any disc to three. And you can't port songs from affected CDs to Apple IPod players unless you request a workaround from Sony.
• BitTorrent goes legit - BitTorrent, the company that created this year's hottest p2p file sharing software, is raising $8.75 million in venture capital from Menlo Park (Calif.)-based Doll Capital Management in order to create a legal digital distribution system using the technology.

HARDWARE... 

• Memory - Corsair versus OCZ Value 512MB DDR400 Cas 2.5 Memory Shootout / Crucial Ballistix PC2-8000 (videoreview) / OCZ Technology Gold Series 1GB PC3200 Dual Channel Memory / OCZ PC3500 Gold GX RAM / OCZ Rally 2GB Flash Drive
• Motherboard - 3-way P4 955 chipset Mobo Shoot-out / ASrock K8NF4G-SATA2 / ASUS P5WD2 Premium Motherboard with Wi-Fi and TV Tuner / Asus A8N-SLI Premium / Biostar NF4SIE-A7 nForce4 SLI IE / DFI NF4 SLI & Ultra Infinity
• Complete / SFF Systems - Dell Dimension XPS 600 / Velocity Micro Gamer's Edge 1500 Evaluation
• Storage - Western Digital WD360GD versus WD740GD Hard Drive comparison / Iomega NAS 200d Series - 320 GB with REV Built-in || Blu-ray Vs. HD DVD / Plextor PX-740A internal E-IDE DVD±R/RW drive / Toshiba Dual Layer DVD 6x Drive || OCZ Rally USB2 Flash Memory
• Video - ASUS N7800GTX TOP / HIS Radeon X700 Pro IceQ Turbo AGP(1) / HIS X700 IceQ 128MB GDDR3 AGP(2) / MSI NX6600 Diamond
• Monitor - Dell 3400MP Projector
• Cooling - Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler / Thermaltake Swing VB6000 / Zalman Fatal1ty Cooler Series
• WaterCooling - AMD & Intel water cooler heatsink system install / Danger Den RBXA64 & Maze4 Chipset Water Block / Evercool Ultra Water Cooler W-202 / Vantec Stingray Watercooling Kit / Thermaltake Bigwater SE Water Cooling Kit / Zalman Reserator 1 Plus Water Cooling System (for SLI)
• Case - AeroCool CoolView ATX/BX Computer Case / Codegen Group Briza-97 Mid Tower ATX Case
• PSU - EZ Power Supply Tester 2 / MGE Vigor 500W PSU / SilverStone Zeus 650w power supply ST65ZF 650w PSU  / XG Magnum 500W Fanless PSU
• Sound - Altec Lansing AHS602i Gaming Headset(1) / Altec Lansing AHS602i Gaming Headset(2) / Creative Gigaworks ProGamer G500 speakers / Grado SR225 Headphones /
• Peripheral - Logitech G7 Cordless 2000 DPI LASER Mouse / Logitech Cordless Desktop S510 / Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop v3.0 / Optorite ML100 Corded USB LASER Mouse
• Misc - APC Biometric Password Manager / Nyko PSP Charger Case / Game Boy Micro
• Cameras, MP3/DVD players/recorders - SanDisk 1 GB Digital Audio MP3 Player

GUIDES...

• How a CPU Works - Learn how a CPU works in an easy to follow language, including topics such as clock, memory cache, CPU block diagram, an overall view on the basic CPU units, pipeline, superscalar architecture, out-of-order execution and speculative execution.
• BrightSide High Dynamic Range Display Technology - Learn about a display technology proposed by BrigthSide that enables high dynamic range on LCD monitors.
• The Future of Voice Communication - Can you see the vision? Johnny walking down the street with his new Skype[ish]-watch built with a tiny mic and speaker/headphone jack. He just bought Halo 6 and wants to tell his friend Billy all about it. So he dials up Billy and while he’s waiting to connect he hears a short ad for the soon to be released Xbox 720.
• NVIDIA Forceware 81.26 Beta: Single Core vs Dual Core Comparison - There is a very healthy 22% boost in Doom 3 performance with this new set of drivers, and this is the same on single and dual core. It seems in Doom 3, we don't see the advantage of the Dual Core on the 81.26 drivers.
• XP Myths - Myths Regarding Windows XP v1.2.6 - There are numerous Myths floating around the Internet regarding Windows XP, especially relating to Optimizations and Security. Hopefully this site guide debunk some of these

SOFTWARE...

• 7-Zip 4.28 Beta - 7-Zip (download) is a free file archiver with high compression ratio.
• AbiWord 2.2.10 - AbiWord (download) is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, and so forth.
• Messenger Plus! 3.60.144 - Messenger Plus! Extension (download) is a program that adds functionalities to the MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger chat program. Some of the added features are logging, personalized Away Messages, transparency effects, and a feature to minimize all MSN Messenger windows to the system tray.
• LDC++ 1.00 v2a - LDC++ is a DC++ mod which is based on the DC++. Since DC++ is open source, you can download the source code and start modifying it.
• Toolbar for Firefox 1.0.20050923 - Google Toolbar increases your ability to find information from anywhere on the web.
• MozBackup (Mozilla Backup) 1.4.3 Beta - MozBackup (Mozilla Backup) is a utility for creating backup of Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Netscape profiles. It allows you to backup mail, favorites, contacts, etc.
• FuturixImager 5.5 Beta 4 - FuturixImager (formerly Futuris Imager) is compact and simple image viewer. It is capable of opening more then 45 graphical formats, including all popular ones (GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, JPEG2000 and so on).
• VideoInspector 1.7.1.89 - VideoInspector (download) is a tools designed to provide you with as much information as possible about your video files. With VideoInspector you'll know why your video files has no sound or refuses to play correctly.
• VideoLan 0.8.4 Beta 1 - VideoLAN main goals is MPEG streaming on a network, but it also features a standalone multimedia player.
• DVD Region+CSS Free 5.9.5.0 - This program enables you to watch and copy any region-coded/CSS-encrypted DVD movies on any DVD drive. Word is: New: Option "Remove Structure Protection" now supports a new version of "Sony ARccOS protection" as found on "Lords of Dogtown" (US).
• WinPatrol 9.7.3.0 - WinPatrol uses a heuristic approach to detecting attacks and violations of your computing environment. Traditional security programs scan your hard drive searching for previously identified threats.
• CWShredder 2.16 - A small utility for removing CoolWebSearch (aka CoolWwwSearch, YouFindAll, White-Pages.ws and a dozen other names)
• remover.exe 1.004.0131 - Removal tool detects and removes many worms, trojans and backdoors: Mytob, Mydoom, Beagle, Netsky, Sasser, Blaster Zafi, Mabutu, Startpage and meny others.
• What's Running 2.1.1.0 - Explore processes, services, modules, IP-connections, drivers and much more through a simple to use application
• SIV (System Information Viewer) 3.06 - System Information Viewer is a general Windows utility for dumping lots of useful Windows, Network and hardware info - CPU info, PCI info, USB info, Machine Info, Hardware Sensors, Networked computers, Operating System Information and more
• RightMark CPU Clock Utility v1.8 - RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock) is a small GUI application designed for real-time CPU frequency, throttling and load level monitoring and on-the-fly adjustment of the CPU performance level of the supported CPUs via processor's power management model-specific registers (MSRs).
• Creative SB Audigy unified BETA driver v2.08.0002 - Creative have released a new unified series Beta driver with OpenAL support, sporting version 2.08.0002 and offering improved OpenAL support for the Audigy series of cards on Windows 2000 (SP4) and XP (SP2).
• NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver v1.7805 - The NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the NVIDIA ForceWare driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with better performance and image quality. The Driver has support for all Geforce cards.
• Radeon Omega Drivers 2.6.71 - Radeon Omega Catalyst Drivers will provide gamers with an alternate set of drivers, ones that have more options and features than the original sets. The drivers contain optimizations, extra features (like OC capabilities), more resolutions and internal tweaks that can give them the edge in a gaming enviroment over the normal drivers, which are often tailored for synthetic benchmarks.
• ATi Catalyst 8.18 BETA - Station-drivers released a new ATI Catalyst 8.18 beta. They changed it a bit to work on all ATI cards available.
• New firmware for DVD burners - ASUS: DVD-E616A Firmware v1.06 / LG: GCC-4522B Firmware v1.04 / LiteOn: SOSC-2483KX Firmware, SOHW-832S Firmware, SOHW-832SX Firmware / Samsung: SH-M522C Firmware version TI04, TS-H492C Firmware version CI04.