Early Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 12:06 AM CET - Mar,12 2003
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- Bad passwords open new can of worms - A spike in Internet traffic
caused by
a worm over the weekend can be largely blamed on bad passwords and poor
security practices, security experts said on Monday.
The Deloder worm, which spreads by communicating with Windows computers
that have file sharing enabled, may have spread to perhaps as many as 10,000
systems using a list of 86 passwords to break into computers running
WinNT/2k/XP. While not an epidemic, the attack did highlight that people
frequently choose easily guessable passwords to guard their computers'
security.
- Support wanes for antipiracy chips - Chipmakers have not completely
abandoned efforts to create such copy protection features, but developers now
say that they're ready to move ahead with what some call a second best
alternative in order to feed surging demand for chips bound for new multimedia
devices such as MP3 players, cell phones, and PDAs.
This
so-called soft coding--putting antipiracy rules into software that is more
accessible to users--is slower and less secure, but lets companies adapt to
rapid changes in the market more easily, developers say.
- Toshiba Boosts Pocket PC Flash Memory - Toshiba American
Information Systems'
new Pocket PC e750 series builds on the promise of the older e740 product
that helped the company make strides in the handheld market despite a product
recall. The e740 PDA was Toshiba's first unit with integrated 802.11b wireless
connectivity, and the new e750 also comes with that technology. It features
32MB of NAND flash memory dedicated to data storage, out of a total of 96MB of
memory, said Craig Marking, senior product marketing manager for Toshiba.
- A Host of Options - PCMagazine has
reviewed 7 nationwide Web site-hosting services that have all the options
small and midsize organizations need.
- Microsoft Unveils Office 2003 Beta 2 - Microsoft expects to
distribute about
500,000 copies of Beta 2, and is offering it publicly through its TechNet
site and an Office preview site. New features in the works include Business
Contact Manager, an Outlook add-on intended for small-business users who want
more-powerful tools for customer relationship management (CRM) but don't need
a more sophisticated and expensive multiuser app such as Act or Goldmine. In
addition, Microsoft has release some MS Office 2003 Videos:
Excel 2003 XML Mapping Video ~
Word 2003 XML Mapping Video ~
Building Managed Solutions Behind Excel 2003 Workbooks Video ~
Building Managed Solutions Behind Word 2003 Documents Video.
- AMD targets NT 4.0 users with Opteron -
AMD will target
users of Windows NT 4.0 with its 64bit Opteron processor, due for release
on 22 April. The strategy highlights the diverse approaches of AMD, which is
encouraging firms to make a gradual move from 32bit to 64bit worlds, and its
larger rival Intel, which expects firms to make a sharper change because its
64bit Itanium processors slow the performance of 32bit applications.
- Nforce 2 BIOS problems confirmed and fixed -
Users of a
new Shuttle Nforce 2 based machine had reported problems with the BIOS.
They had been trying to overclock their machines only to find that, once they
went past a certain point, the machine would stop working. Hard Tecs 4U, a
German site, unwittingly uncovered the missing jumper. They had reviewed six
Nforce 2 motherboards from different manufacturers and managed to kill all of
them. The only one that was easy to recover was an MSI K7N2-L board which has
the jumper. Using the jumper sets the BIOS back to a 100MHz FSB safe mode.
Other people had discovered that you could use a 100MHz FSB processor, for
example a Duron, in a motherboard that had stopped working to get it going
again. And there lies the problem. Setting the FSB too high can stop
Nforce 2 motherboards from POSTing. Once the motherboard has stopped POSTing,
the only way to get it going again is to reset the FSB back down to 100MHz.
Only most motherboards don't have the jumper so you can't do that.
- Mitsumi to release 485FTE - first 54x CDRW -
The
Mitsumi 485FTE CD-RW drive offers a highly reliable 54X write speed, 32X
rewrite speed with the power and performance of a 54X read speed. The Mitsumi
54x32x54 CD-RW drive's Enhanced IDE interface can be installed easily and is
fully compatible with almost any PC for true plug-and-play capabilities.
- Sony BDZ-S77 blue-ray recorder preview - Most news sites have
recently posted that SONY Japan Corp is going to start sales of first
household blu-ray DVD recorder, 23 GB, in Japan on April 10, 2003. The
manufacturer-recommended price runs into US $3800.
SONY BDZ-S77 DVD recorder based on blu-ray media is probably positioned
for the Japanese and US consumer markets with their digital satellite
broadcasting bringing high-definition TV to a growing number of houses. SONY
BDZ-S77 has a built-in digital BS (broadcasting satellite) tuner for digital
satellite television. In addition to 2 hours of high-quality video you can
record MPEG-2 AAC 5.1 sound from digital satellite boadcasting. One-layer
one-side optical blu-ray disc can contain 23 GB.
- Samsung 172B 17" LCD Review - Techware Labs has posted a review of
the
Samsung 172B 17" LCD monitor.
- Samsung Syncmaster 191N 19INCH TFT LCD Monitor Review -
Tweaknews.net has posted
a review
on the Samsung Syncmaster 191N 19INCH TFT LCD Monitor. "Now let me add
this up. Improved 191N analog technology which is better than the older
digital 191T, same great looks and a US$200-$300 price cut? I don't think
there is even a question that this product deserves the Tweaknews.net's seal
of approval, the "Top Rank Award". Better and cheaper are always a good thing
in my mind, wouldn't you agree?"
- VIA chipset targets Athlon XP 3000+
- VIA has unwrapped
its latest Apollo chipset, the KT400A, which it claims is the fastest
single-channel DDR chipset designed for AMD's Athlon XP 3000+ and more than
ten per cent faster than previous Apollo offerings. The chipset comprises
VIA's FastStream64 memory controller, developed to reduce memory latency
without forcing vendors to provide dual-channel DDR memory banks. FastStream64
supports DDR at 200-400MHz. The KT400A provides an AGP 8x graphics channel,
and supports 200-333MHz processor bus speeds.
- The VIA KT400A Special - AMDBoard informed us that its VIA KT400A
special page is now online. The page offers the 3 following choices:
KT400A
Preview ~
KT400A
Special Page with previews from around the world and
Soyo KT400A
Dragon Ultra first KT400A specifications and photo.
- New copy-protection released in the UK - Soldiers of Anarchy - In
the thread, started by CDFreaks forum member logicwatch,
a new
copy-protection has possibly been discovered on the UK release of the game
'Soldiers of Anarchy' version 1.1.2.177: "you CANNOT use dpm on alcohol it
will hang at 98%. you CANNOT make a bwa using blindwrite again it hangs with
"error reading during measurement at sector 8150. you CANNOT make a normal
image using clone cd or alcohol..."
- Reclaiming Resources under WinXP - WinXP, like its predecessors
works very quickly after a fresh install. Unfortunately, as time goes by,
things tend to slow up as your hard drive gets clogged and more applications
decide to run in the background without as much as a by your leave. Removing
some of these items allows you to regain systems resources, Hard Drive (HD)
space and Memory (RAM) and as an added bonus, they can provide free
performance gains.
This article attempts to provide step-by-step instructions for the
unfamiliar, an aide-memoire for the old and the bold!
- Sound Forge Studio 6.00e Build 237 -
Sonic Foundry has released
an updated
version of their audio content editing software called Sound Forge 6.0e.
- AVG Free Edition 6.0 Build 461 -
AVG Free Edition 6.0 Build 461 has been released.
- K-Lite Codec Pack 1.9 Release Candidates -
K-Lite Codec Pack 1.9
Test Builds are available. These are NOT the public final versions yet.
For testing purposes only. Uninstall the old version first.
- MAME v0.66 -
MAME stands
for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and currently runs 1800+ classic (and
even some not so classic) arcade games! Believe it or not, MAME now even runs
Neo Geo Games.
- Alcohol 120% 1.4.2.308 -
Alcohol 120% is a CD/DVD emulation and recording software that allows
users to copy a visible and invisible discs. It enables users to create 31
virtual CD/DVD-ROMs to play discs without needing a physical disc.
- TaskInfo 2003 v5.0.0.86 RC3 -
TaskInfo2002 is
combination of Task Manager and System Information Utility, It visually
monitors different types of System information in Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
- BPS SpyWare/Adware Remover 7.0 -
BPS Spyware/Adware Remover is a multi Adware, SpyWare, Trackware,
Thiefware & Big Brotherware removal utility with multi-language support. It
scans your memory (for active memory ad components, which are not stored on
your hard drive and last only as long as the computer is powered up), registry
and hard drives for known SpyWare parasites and scum-ware components and lets
you remove them safely even ad component DLLs.
- Rage3D Tweak 3.8b -
Rage3D Tweak v3.8b
(download) has
been just released. What is the Rage3D Tweaker? Rage3D Tweaker is a Radeon
Tweaker program designed to fit right in with the other ATi option tabs in the
Advanced Display Properties accessed through the Control Panel.
- VIA Hyperion 4in1 v4.46 (released 10 March 2003)
- VIA Tech has posted new,
updated set of VIA
4-in-1 (Release
Notes) set of chipset drivers
- Realtek ALC AC97 Audio Driver 3.41 - Realtek released
version 3.41 driver (.de
Mirror) for their ALC AC97 audio chipsets. The driver supports all ALC
series audio chipsets from ALC100 up to ALC650.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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