SECURITY...

• Microsoft claims disabling Internet activation won't be an issue - As reported earlier, the updated program calls for the top 20 PC makers to activate Windows XP on every system before it ships. If a customer has to reinstall the operating system, as long as they use the restore disks from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), activation will be automatic, said Keith Beeman, director of worldwide license compliance for Microsoft.
• 8 More Bugs Found In Firefox And Mozilla - Don't panic folks, if you installed the 1.0.1 version of Firefox you’re fine. Now if you haven’t installed then you could be screwed.
• Three more Bagle variants on the loose - Three newly discovered variants of the Bagle virus are running wild on the internet, security experts warned today.
• Virus Top Twenty for February 2005 - Many antivirus experts believe that email worms are slowly dying out and being replaced by network worms with Trojan capabilities. February statistics confirm this trend. On the one hand, this could be the result of a successful campaign waged by av vendors against email worm outbreaks. The antivirus industry implemented a number of innovative technologies to halt email worms in their tracks: detecting worms in password protected archives, preliminary analysis of incoming emails with executable attachments and so forth.
• Artists break with industry on file sharing - A prominent group of musicians and artists, breaking with colleagues and the major entertainment studios, is urging the Supreme Court not to hold online file-sharing services responsible for the acts of users who illegally trade songs, movies and software.

OFFTOPIC...

• Star Wars Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) Trailer on March 10th - The much anticipated full release trailer for Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith is on its way. Consisting of over two minutes of new footage from the movie, the full trailer will soon appear on television, on starwars.com and in theaters. First, on Thursday, March 10th at 8 p.m., be sure to tune in to FOX to catch an all new episode of "The O.C." During the broadcast, FOX will air the Episode III trailer.
• Vin Diesel working to reduce budget for Hannibal - Diesel is in soft pre-production, a term that probably means pre-pre-production, for Hannibal, a project he has been trying to get going for some time. It appears he got a budget returned from a studio quoting something like $217million...perhaps they were actually thinking of dropping Elephants by helicopter onto the top of the Alps? Diesel is having none of it. (thanks TheMovieBlog)
• TV Ads For Violent Games Banned Before 9PM In UK - The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was asked to investigate after receiving eight complaints about two adverts featuring game extracts. They were shown before 2100 GMT when children could have been watching.
• Mel Gibson buys Fiji island - The director of "The Passion of the Christ" and star of the "Mad Max" films purchased the 5,411-acre (2,164-hectare) Mago Island from Japan's Tokyu Corp. for about US$15 million (euro11 million).
• 10 Dirtiest Foods That Can Make You Sick - Men's Health magazine has identified the 10 dirtiest foods--from bad burgers and dangerous deli meats to hazardous health foods

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Gears Up for Windows x64 April Launch - Microsoft Corp.'s officials expressed at Intel Developer Forum the company's strong intention to release its long-awaited operating system for computers based on the so-called x86-64 chips that can execute 32-bit and 64-bit code natively in April.
• Internet Explorer 7 not just for Windows XP - Despite previous indications, the upcoming Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) will be available for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 SP1, as well as Windows XP SP2.
• Online Community Set To Leap Beyond Solar System - Today craigslist announced plans to offer its users the opportunity to have their postings transmitted trillions of miles beyond the confines of the Solar System. craigslist currently handles 5 million earthly postings each month, from 8 million humans, in 99 cities and 19 countries on the planetary surface.
• Sony Ericsson talks up Walkman MP3 phone - The W800 Walkman handset features a high quality digital music player with up to 30 hours battery life, and a 2-megapixel camera, the company said. The device is compatible with the MP3 and AAC music file formats, and comes with a 0.5GB Memory Stick Duo giving it capacity for around 150 music tracks. It also comes with Disk2Phone software to transfer music from CDs onto the phone via a PC.
• Nokia unveils raft of new handsets - The 6230i adds a 1.3 megapixel camera and push-to-talk to the 6230. It is capable of recording up to one hour of video on a removable MMC and has a high resolution 208x208 pixels display. The on-board music player supports MP3, M4A and AAC files and sits alongside an FM radio with Visual Radio. There is also a hands-free speaker. With Bluetooth and tri-band support, the 6230i will cost around EURO350, excluding taxes. There were 339.80 million subscribers of mobile phone services and 315.63 million fixed-line telephone accounts in China, as of the end of January 2005
• China had 339.80 million mobile-phone users by end of January 2005 - There were 339.80 million subscribers of mobile phone services and 315.63 million fixed-line telephone accounts in China, as of the end of January 2005

HARDWARE... 

• ATI announces Radeon HyperMemory cards - ATI is announcing two HyperMemory products, the Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory, and the Radeon X300 SE 256MB HyperMemory. Both are native PCI Express parts and use the same RV370 SE GPU as other Radeon X300 SE cards. Both cards have a 325MHz core clock, a 300MHz memory clock, and a 64-bit local memory bus. They differ in the amount of memory they have on-board. The "128MB" HyperMemory card comes equipped with 32MB of local memory, while the "256MB" card gets 128MB. With a $59 suggested retail price and a projected sub-$50 street price, the Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory is perhaps the most promising HyperMemory card. If its price hits $50, the Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory card could look pretty good against the TurboCache competition.
• IDF Spring 2005 coverage - IDF Spring 2005 Day 1 Keynote | Craig Barrett's keynote@AnandTech | Day 1 Coverage@X-bit Labs | Intel's dual core info &PCPer.com | PentiumD Info@AnandTech
• Apple Mac mini - The Mac mini is a master stroke by Apple – it's essentially a headless iMac, supplied without a monitor, keyboard or mouse, enabling users to get on the Mac ladder for less money than ever before, by reusing their existing peripherals.
• AOpen's XC Cube EY855-II mini-barebones system - AOpen's XC Cube EY855-II is an attractive small form factor system with many of the common SFF features (USB 2.0 and Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet and an AGP slot) and at least one very uncommon feature: a 479-pin socket suitable for a Pentium M.
• INTEL 660 3.6Ghz & 3.73GHZ EE 64bit - As mentioned previously, Intel's prescott line of processors have been known to be rather warm. I found that the new 6XX based processors did indeed run a bit cooler at full load and did run quite a bit cooler at idle when compared to the full speed idle processor speeds applied with the older LGA775 Prescotts and Extreme Edition processors. Another review can be found on TrustedReviews.
• Mid-Range PCI-Express shootout - The BFGTech GeForce 6600GT OC was able to be clocked to 589/1180MHz from its default 525/1050MHz clocks. The clock speeds that we have attained here fall in line with what other reviewers have been able to gain from this video card.
• ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT - This is the new benchmark in multimedia performance cards, and while its $500 price tag may seem a little high at first, when you factor in everything you're getting, it's actually a pretty solid value.
• ATI TV Wonder Elite - The ATI TV Wonder Elite features full hardware MPEG-2 compression, a 3D comb filter and full personal video recorder capabilities. Bundled with our review unit is ATI’s own Remote Wonder Plus remote control, the RF receiver, ATI’s Catalyst software drivers and a special version of Cyberlinks PowerCinema media software.
• PowerColor Theater 550Pro TV Tuner - The PowerColor Theater is 550Pro is a very nice piece of hardware. MSRP is a very reasonable $99 USD and video quality is very good in general although the video seems a bit on the soft side. The filtering algorithms used by ATI seem to be effective the videos have very little noise and color bleeding seems minimal.
• Leadtek PX6800 TDH - If you don't plan on investing in an SLI setup then I would suggest the X800 since you can currently find it for about $30 cheaper if you really hunt around for good prices plus it is a bit smaller and felt more stable when experimenting with overclocking. If you are going to give SLI a shot or are even considering that option then the 6800 is the way to go for sure. You can find the Leadtek PX6800 TDH 256MB PCIe video card for about $350.00.
• Chaintech AV-710 Sound Card - This sound card is based on the VIA Envy 24 chipset, the AV-710. There isn't much to be found on the card, either; the most obvious part is the large IC in the middle of the board - the 24 bit Envy itself in all its glory. This is the HT-S version, unlike the HT, which can be found on high end gear like M-Audio Revolution.
• Intel P4 Aircooling - Heatsink Roundup Q1 2005 - MadShrimps compared 11 different P4 heatsinks made by Thermalright, Spire, Primecooler, Zalman, Evercool, Vantec and Titan. Using different fans at low and high speed they try to find the best bang for the buck, best performer and most silent HSF combo out there.
• Asetek Waterchill Watercooling - Can watercooling bring down that nasty temperature below 45-50 Degrees C? Of course Asetek can and even better.
• Antec Phantom 350W Fanless PSU - Antec did it right with the Phantom; this is one fanless PSU that's hard to top.
• TTGI PLUG-N 550W 14cm Fan Power Supply - There are lots of optional features with the PLUG-N line of power supplies, the most popular being: Active PFC or Passive PFC, Electronic Fan Speed Switch, and the Fan Delay System. Active PFC is a regulatory requirement in many European countries so technically it wouldn't be an "option", in the US many people like to have the feature but it is definitely not a requirement. The electronic fan speed switch allows for adjustable fan speed settings (Auto, Silent, Turbo), and the fan delay system keeps the fan running for 5 minutes after the system is shutdown, both of these options are highly recommended.
• A4 Tech Wireless Battery Free Optical Mouse - I'm sure quite of you are wondering how well this NB-30 works for gaming, well to be honest, it's OK. I'm not going to say it's great, because going of the mousepad will kill you. But besides from that the response times are very good, and the mouse is accurate. Small movements are easily spotted, so you won't see yourself moving your mouse around like a DJ on steroids.
• Ultrasone HFI-15G headphones - While Ultrasone products are not really aimed at gamers, it's hard to not justify their use in any audio application due to the high fidelity and reasonable pricing. Yes, they are more expensive than your typical ‘gamer headset', and lack a microphone for whatever you might need it for, but the cost isn't that far out there.

GUIDES... 

• Optimizing PC Hardware for Gaming - Part 2: Cooling - This is the second part of the VIA Gamers Arena "Optimizing PC Hardware for Gaming" article (the first part focused on driver updates and BIOS tweaks). The second half will cover what is possibly the most vital aspect of any gaming rig. This is of course the cooling properties of not only the case but also other internal system components such as the processor, graphics card and even power supply. Even the more recent motherboards are beginning to generate quite a lot of heat causing even more issues for both processor and case cooling.
• Current Problems with Linux - Why do this article? Well, in the interest of being fair.Yes, it is easy to dismiss Windows users as whiners, and people who can't be bothered to learn about their machines, but life is not that simple, is it?
• How to remove Windows XP Service Pack 2 from your computer - This article describes how to remove Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) from your computer.

SOFTWARE...

• Linux Kernel 2.6.11 - Linus Torvalds has just announced the availability of the newest Linux kernel release, 2.6.11 (download). The newest addition to Linux that's stirring up some excitement is the inclusion of Infiniband support.
• SiSoft Sandra 2005 (1050) -  SiSoft Sandra 2005 Guru3D.com edition - SiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. This is the special Guru3D.com distribution edition.
• Win32Whois 0.9.3 - Win32Whois (download) is a small and efficient Whois client. It is able to retrieve domain information for most of the common TLDs (top level domains). It has it is internal list of servers that it connects to in order to provide a detailed report on a requested domain
• PeerGuardian2 Beta 2 - PeerGuardian 2 is Methlabs' premier IP blocker for Windows. With features like support for multiple lists, a list editor, automatic updates, and blocking all of IPv4 (TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc), PeerGuardian 2 is the safest and easiest way to protect your privacy on P2P. Plus, by integrating with Blocklist.org, lists are built custom just for you. (thanks NeoNSX)
• Media Player Classic 6.4.8.3 - Media Player Classic (download Win2K/XP version / Win9x/ME version) is similar to windows media player 6.4 but with features pertained to minimalist advanced users. It also supports DirectX 9 and VFW drivers for capture.
• QuickTime Alternative 1.41 - QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player. It also supports QuickTime content that is embedded in webpages
• Real Alternative 1.31 - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install the official RealPlayer. You do need a media player that is capable of playing RealMedia files. The included Media Player Classic supports it. Supported are RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealVideo (.rm .ram .rmvb), RealText (.rt), and ReadPix (.rp). Not fully supported are: Streaming smil files (.smi .smil) and Realmedia embedded in webpages.
• K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.20 - K-Lite Mega Codec Pack combines the contents of three codec packs: K-Lite Codec Pack Full, QuickTime Alternative, and Real Alternative. It also includes some extra features: BSplayer.
• ASUS Smartdoctor 4.64 - ASUS has a new version of their Smartdoctor monitoring utility for Windows available. This one supports all ASUS ATI and NVIDIA based videocards in Windows 2000 and XP.
• Xtreme G 71.84 (ForceWare)  - This is the Xtreme G driver (download) which includes many performance and Image Quality tweaks. These are modified NVIDIA ForceWare drivers for Windows 2000 & XP. Modified drivers simply means that the author takes official or beta drivers from the manufacturer and starts to tweak them for either better image quality and or performance.
• ForceWare 71.84 Win2000/XP - This new driver set was released as BEta driver by NVIDIA. The driver supports the entire range of graphice cards to date and most Mobile and Quadro cards also.
• BIOS updates - PCTuning.cz has posted a lot of new motherboard BIOS updates