SECURITY... 

• Windows porn worm spreading fast - Security firms are warning about the W32/Nyxem-D worm which pretends to be a pornographic email attachment. Emails containing the worm come with a variety of subject lines, including 'School girl fantasies gone bad', 'Fwd: Crazy illegal Sex!' and 'Arab sex DSC-00465.jpg'. The attachment is a .PIF file with a similar variety of salacious file names.
• Cisco Security Agent Vulnerable to Crafted IP Attack - A malicious attacker may be able to send a crafted IP packet to a Windows workstation or server running CSA 4.5 which may cause the device to halt and/or reload. Repeated exploitation will create a sustained DoS (denial of service).
• Linux Kernel Socket Buffer Memory Exhaustion DoS (Exploit) - Local exploitation of a memory exhaustion vulnerability in Linux kernel versions 2.4 and 2.6 allows local attackers to cause a denial of service condition, the following exploit code can be used to determine whether your system is vulnerable or not.
• Microsoft downplays Windows Wi-Fi 'anomaly' - A design flaw in Windows XP and Windows 2003 systems with built-in wireless capabilities could be exploited by hackers to lure Wi-Fi users into connecting to malicious wireless networks, according to Microsoft Corp., which recently completed an investigation of the issue. In a statement, Microsoft said that its investigation of the flaw has "determined that customers who have connected to an 'ad hoc' wireless network in the past that was not protected with wireless encryption could be lured into connecting to a malicious advertised 'ad hoc' wireless network under limited circumstances." But those using firewalls and a fully updated system should be at "reduced risk" of attacks following such ad hoc connections, Microsoft said.
• Microsoft Refutes Windows 'Back Door' Claim - Microsoft has denied allegations that the Windows Metafile (WMF) bug is actually a "back door" planted by the company's developers so they could secretly access users' PCs.  The charges were raised last week by Steve Gibson, security researcher best known for his ShieldsUp Web site, in a podcast. Program manager Stephen Toulouse wrote a detailed explanation of the "SetAbortProc" function's vulnerability, and said that the flaw was an inadvertent bug, not coding by design.
• Firefox's Ping Attribute: Useful or Spyware? - The Mozilla Team has quietly enabled a new feature in Firefox that parses 'ping' attributes to anchor tags in HTML. Now links can have a 'ping' attribute that contains a list of servers to notify when you click on a link. Although link tracking has been done using redirects and Javascript, this new "feature" allows notification of an unlimited and uncontrollable number of servers for every click, and it is not noticeable without examining the source code for a link before clicking it. (thanks Slasdot.org)

CRIME/LAW...

• Cyber criminals target pixel-student - MillionDollarHomepage.com has been subjected to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by malicious hackers who have caused the site to be extremely slow loading or completely unavailable since last Thursday, 12th January 2006," the site's 21-year old owner Alex Tew wrote on his blog.  Blackmailers at first asked $5,000 to avert an attack on the site. They launched their DDOS attack after Tew declined to pay and later demanded $50,000 to stop it. The refusal to pay on Wednesday lead the attackers deface the site, replacing the regular page with a message stating: "don't come back you sly dog! " The website later on Wednday was up again an appeared to be running normally.

OFF-TOPIC

• NASA mission hits pay dirt with comet dust - Officials at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Tuesday confirmed that the Stardust spacecraft succeeded "beyond expectation" in bringing back to Earth the most ancient cosmic particles of the solar system.
• Brain scans reveal men's pleasure in revenge - A lust for vengeance may be hardwired into the male brain. Scans of brain activity suggest that men experience greater satisfaction than women in seeing cheaters get their comeuppance - at least when the punishment is physical.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Delays XP SP3 -  Microsoft has apparently pushed back the scheduled release date of SP3 to the second half of 2007. Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer had originally announced that the 3rd service pack for XP would be released before the launch of Longhorn (now Windows Vista). Update: Bink.nu has received this response from MS: "Microsoft did not have any prior plans to release SP3 in 2005 or 2006. It was reported almost one year ago that Steve said SP3 'might' ship before Windows Vista; however, since that time the focus has been and continues to be shipping Windows Vista. We are tentatively targeting the second half of 2007 to release XP SP3."
• Firefox 2 "Bon Ocho" alpha due in February - The first alpha version of Mozilla Firefox 2 codenamed "Bon Ocho" will be released on February 10, 2006 while the final public release of Firefox 2.0 is expected in middle of this year.
• Corel Unveils WordPerfect Office X3 - Corel Corporation has announced the availability of the new Corel WordPerfect Office X3 family of desktop productivity software - the newest version of the alternative to Microsoft Office.
• Google Talk activates XMPP server-to-server communications - It appears Google Talk has started federating with other Jabber servers. Gary Burd, a Google software engineer, flipped the switch to connect the Google Talk Service to the public XMPP network this morning. Google Talk users can now chat with users on other XMPP services and vice versa.
• MS Office 12 impressions - PCWolrd tried out the first beta of Microsoft's major overhaul of Office 12--and for the most part, they liked what they saw. Pretty interesting article - check it out!
• Fastest DVD to iPod software launched - Makayama Interactive announces the availability of iPod Media Studio 2.0. The new version is 300% faster than other products and it adds greater flexibility to the user interface. In less than 45 minutes a DVD can be transferred to the iPod.
• Microsoft issues official statement: No Blu-ray for Xbox 360 - According to the statement, Microsoft believes the HD DVD format is the best choice for its consumer and thus is the reason behind planning to launch an external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 later this year. It also mentions that Microsoft has absolutely no plans to take on support for any other optical format on its Xbox 360, however they do mention that the console is a future proof system in that they can adopt its functionality to suit its customer's needs.
• Cingular Phones Windows Mobile - Cingular, the largest mobile carrier in the United States , on Wednesday introduced the Cingular 2125, a cell phone that comes equipped with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system
• Seagate Ships Momentus Perpendicular Storage Drives - The new design overcomes that obstacle by arranging the way that bits of data are physically stored on the drive. By arranging the particles vertically not only is potential drive capacity increased, but fewer components are needed which reduces overall power consumption. For laptop users, that's an important concern. Originally scheduled to be available in February, Seagate Momentus drives are available immediately in 4,200, 5,400, and 7,200 RPM drives with capacities of up to 160GB.
• NVidia launches the 7300GS - It is a four pixel pipe, three vertex unit not-monster of a card, but it has a respectable 550MHz core clock and 400MHz memory, give or take a little depending on OEM. The card is based on the 7-series GPUs, so all features from the family, barring SLI, should be present
• Crossfire X1900 XTX faster than SLI 7800 GTX 512 - It is simply faster in most ways, even when you use a lot of FSAA and Aniso. After weeks of absence, Nvidia just managed to ship some of Geforce 7800 GTX 512 cards in retail but ATI's R580 will end up cheaper and it is able to beat up 7800 GTX 512 SLI on performance. Nevertheless, Nvidia has one more SLI to release. It has G71, possibly called Geforce 7900 SLI that is meant to compete R580 based X1900 XTX Crossfire system.
• All Geforce 6, 7 series to support H.264 - The new driver will allow all Geforce 6 and 7 series to play H.264 content. Yes, this means each and every card from Geforce 6200 to 7800 GTX will play H.264. I still wonder about NV40 based cards as they had some troubles with WMV files before. ATI R5XX generation can play H.264 but not the older R420/430/480 generations
• Neomind Brainwave Visor - The Neomind looks like a Geordi LaForge (Star Trek Next Generations) visor. The glasses use visual and audio impulses to stimulate the brain. It can be used to improve learning or to relax. The glasses are supposed to be able to connect to a PC or mobile phone and correspond with a learning software that runs on those devices

HARDWARE... 

• Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce4 SLI XE || Asus A8N-VM CSM / Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe / EPoX EP-8NPA SLI AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754 PCIe SLI motherboard / Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal / MSI RD480 (1) / MSI RD480 Neo2 (2) / VIA VT310-DP Mini-ITX dual CPU mainboard
• Complete / SFF Systems - Evesham Technology SilverEDGE 300NH Server / iMac 17 Core Duo / MESH Titan X1800 FIRE system / Polywell MiniBox 939NP Media Center PC
• Memory - Crucial Ballistix Tracer RAM / Corsair 2GB XMS-3500LLPRO Memory Kit Pictorial / Corsair 4000PT 2GB DDR500 Dual Channel Memory
• Storage - Seagate Momentus 5400.3 Perpendicular Recording Hard Drive || SanDisk 1GB miniSD memory card || BenQ DW1655 16x DVD+-RW Double Layer DVD Writer
• Video - ASUS EAX1800XT TOP / ATI Radeon X1600 XT and X1300 Pro / MSI Geminium-Go (MXM SLI Card) / MSI 7800 GTX 512MB / Inno3D GeForce 6800GS SLI / Inno3D GeForce 6600 DDR2 / Powercolor X1300 Pro Video Card in CrossFire mode / Sapphire Radeon X1800XT / XFX GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB / XFX GeForce 6800 GS XXX Edition(1) / XFX GeForce 6800 GS (2)
• Monitor/TV - Acer Ferrari 20" widescreen monitor / HP LP2065 LCD Monitor
• Cooling - Thermalright V-1 Ultra VGA Cooler / Thermalright HR-01 Cooler / Zalman VF700-Cu LED
• WaterCooling - TTIC NPH WB K8-1 CPU Water Block
• Case - Antec P180 case / ASYS Freedom Case / Cooler Master Stacker 830 case / NZXT Lexa case / Silverstone TJ05 case / Techsolo TT-15 Gehäuse Case (in German) / ThermalTake Eclipse DV VC6000 / Thermaltake Tai-Chi System Case
• Modding - Logisys Black Remote Multifunction Panel / Sunbeam LED Case Feet
• PSU - Antech Neo HE 550W PSU / Antec NeoHE 430 Watt / Enermax Liberty 400W High Efficiency PSU / Ultra X-Connect X2 550W PSU (video-review)
• Sound - M-Audio Studiophile LX4 2.1 Speaker System
• Peripheral - Gaming Mouse Roundup || Ideazon ZBoard Customizable Gaming Keyboard / Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 / Creative Fatal1ty 1010 Mouse
• Miscelanous - Jackson Armor's Armor Card / Logitech Harmony Advanced Universal Remote for Xbox 360
• Printer/Scanner - Samsung SPP-2040 Digital Photo Printer
• Networking - Hawking Technologies HBB1 Broadband Booster
• Notebook - Evesham Voyager C550 Napa Notebook / Fujitsu Siemens LIFEBOOK P7010 Notebook || Titan G3T Universal Notebook Cool Pad
• Camera, MP3/DVD players/recorders - CES 2006 Camcorder Round-Up / Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H1 Digital Camera || SDI iHome iH5 Portable Audio & Video || Onkyo DS-A1 Interactive Remote Dock
• Phone/PDA - Orange SPV C600

GUIDES...

• Intel product ID guide v1.2 - The interactive Intel product ID guide got today an extensive update, with which can be simply identified all current processors of the company Intel. Beside the new CPU models also the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition and the Intel Xeon processors are now integrated.
• All Turion 64 Models - A series of quick reference tables containing the main specs of all Turion 64 processors released to date.
• Opteron 165 - Upgrade to X2 - While the X2 3800+ is going for ~$322, the Opteron 165 with 1MB of cache rather than 512Kb; 1.8 Ghz versus 2.0 Ghz may well be a draw. Unless, the Opteron 165 has more OC headroom than the X2 3800+, I am crossing my fingers and hope that this is the case.
• Laptop or Desktop? Which Should You Choose? - check it out.
• Will Core Duo Notebooks Trade Battery Life For Quicker Response? - Is Faster Notebook Performance Worth Shorter Battery Life?
• WiMax vs WiFi - Techware Labs explores the differences between two wireless technologies, Wimax and Wifi.
• Choosing the Right Printer Driver - Select the correct print driver for the job.
• BF2 and NFS:MW dynamic shadow rendering issues with ATi RADEON series - It seems that there are a few dynamic shadow rendering issues with the games BattleField 2 v1.12 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted
• Quake 4 1.05 beta 2 patch dual core performance with netdemos - Again Nvidia's dual core support is currently hindered in Quake 4 but once this issue is resolved we will rerun our benchmarks and update accordingly.
• Streaming DivX through the Xbox 360 - This is not a mod solution or an Xbox 360 hack. This works purely using the extensibility points of Media Center and freely available tools from MS. i.e. no warranties will be voided and, when Vista MCE comes out, we'll be able to radically improve this. Aren't APIs wonderful?

SOFTWARE...

• AutoPatcher XP January 2006 - AutoPatcher XP is an installation package designed to get your Windows XP system up to date quick and easily. This update package features a slick looking GUI and and can be customized to install as much or as little as you please.
• AVG Free 7.1.375 Build 691 (Free Anti-Virus) - AVG Free for Windows (download) is a free anti-virus protection tool developed by Grisoft for home use. We invite you to join the millions of satisfied customers worldwide who have downloaded the software and now enjoy the benefits of AVG Free for Windows.
• 3DMark06 Build v1.0.2 - As promised, Futuremark today released 3DMark06 Build v1.0.2
• Netscape Browser 8.0.4 - Un updated version of the Netscape Browser is available for download.
• Vista Visual Styles Pack 3.0 - For those who already have UXtheme or another Windows skinning engine patch in place, the Vista Visual Styles pack (download) concentrates all the goods in one place, with none of the fluff. The self-contained package will install no less than five new visual styles for your Windows installation: Aero Style (Glass - 50xx), Aero Style (Glass - 51xx), Aero Style (Glass - 52xx), Aero Style (Vista - Beta 1), Aero Style (Vista - Beta 2).
• QuickTime Alternative 1.68 - QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install QuickTime Player from Apple. It also supports QuickTime content that is embedded in webpages.
• MediaCoder 0.3.4 - MediaCoder is a free audio/video batch transcoder, putting together many excellent audio/video softwares from the open source community into one friendly GUI.
• CloneCD 5.2.6.1 - CloneCD (download) is a powerful CD-Copy program. It writes in Raw mode, which allows it to have total control on the data written. Therefore, it will produce real 1:1 copies of your CDs. Fixed: CD writing "on the fly" did not work correctly (bug introduced in 5.2.3.2), Program could hang on startup.
• CloneDVD2 v2.8.5.1 - The download version of CloneDVD 2 software no longer accepts serial numbers (like the one found on the serial card in your retail box). If you want to update a box version of CloneDVD software, you need to first exchange your serial number for an online key (this exchange is free of charge).
• ATI Tray Tools 1.0.5.820 - ATI Tray Tools (download) is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which then allows instant access to options and settings.