SECURITY...

• Microsoft fixes serious Windows flaws - Microsoft has issued alerts on several security flaws in Windows, the most serious of which could allow an attacker to gain control over a victim's computer:
  • MS05-038: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer [critical]
  MS05-039: Vulnerability in Plug and Play Could Allow Remote Code Execution and Elevation of Privilege [critical]
  • MS05-043: Vulnerability in Print Spooler Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution [critical]
  • Vulnerability in Telephony Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution [important].
  **Microsoft has just pulled several of the patch downloads from their site. Information pages seem to be up pending a re-release.
• Windows 2000 update problems force re-release - Microsoft will re-release an update for Windows 2000 due to problems with the current version, the company has confirmed

TECHNOLOGY...

• Group Launches New DVD Security Features - The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a partnership of electronics manufacturers and Hollywood studios including Hewlett-Packard Co. and 20th Century Fox, said it plans to fight piracy by embedding an identification mark on movies, music and video games that can only be read by equipment that carry its technology.
• Current Windows Vista Aero will Degrade OpenGL Performance - Microsoft's current plan for OpenGL on Windows Vista is to layer OpenGL over Direct3D in order to use OpenGL with a composited desktop to obtain the Aeroglass experience. If an OpenGL ICD is run - the desktop compositor will switch off - significantly degrading the user experience.
• Macromedia drops FreeHand from bundle - FreeHand, Macromedia's popular illustration tool, has been omitted from the company's upcoming developer suite, dubbed Studio 8. Macromedia executives cited "extensive research with our customers" as the reason behind the decision, and not its impending acquisition by Adobe Systems--which current sells a competing product called Illustrator.

HARDWARE... 

• A Look at NVIDIA's nForce 4 SLI X16 - The SLI chipsets feature two x16 PCI-Express slots capable of handling full sized graphics cards. The downfall to this setup is the splitting of bandwidth between the two cards. While two cards were in use, each x16 slot was effectively split into an x8 in order to provide bandwidth to each. Following the announcement of NVIDIA's new nForce 4 SLI X16 chipset this is no longer an issue. The new chipset will provide extra PCI-E bandwidth as well as advanced I/O options
• Acer Ferrari 4000 Notebook - As far as weight and dimensions go, the Ferrari 4000 is pretty much identical to the TravelMate 8104WLMi. You're looking at 363 x 265 x 34mm (WxDxH), with a weight of just over 2.8kg. So, it's not the smallest or lightest notebook around, but it's still ok for carrying around with you all day - something that I've done with it on many occasions. FYI, Amazon sells Acer FERRARI 4005WLMI AMD TUR 64 1GB for only $2,128.95.
• Rockdirect XTI 3.8 Performance - Users looking for ultimate notebook performance should seriously consider Rockdirect's XTI series. Taking into account overall performance, the XTI 3.8 is the fastest notebook we've tested thus far.
• OCZ EL DDR PC3500 Gold GX - These OCZ DDR433 memory modules are 100% hand-tested to ensure their stability at this frequency with such extreme timings
• GeForce 7800GTX: EVGA's KO Edition - The EVGA e-GeForce GTX KO comes out of the box with a core clock setting of 490MHz and memory clock of 1.3GHz. It also sports a modified heat sink and a new look, a first for our 7800 series. We're excited to see how this card performs and overclocks compared to the other 7800s. It's safe to say that it should outperform the 7800s that we've reviewed so far, but we'll be seeing by how much in the performance section later on.
• Gainward's overclocked 7800GTX - The improved core and memory clocks meant that we could attain a higher level of playable image quality in Far Cry - it was possible to attain a smooth gaming experience at 1600x1200 with HDR lighting turned on.
• MSI NX7800 GTX SLI - Half-Life 2 is really showing its CPU limited colors when you have two MSI NX7800 GTX video cards in SLI. The CPU literally cannot keep up with the power of these video cards. What you can do, on the other hand, is simply enable very high image quality settings.
• PowerColor X800 GT - Even though X800 GT carries memory chips that are almost maxed out on frequency, we get a whopping core overclock which makes a quite an impact in todays games. Let's just hope every retail X800 GT will overclock like our PowerColor sample.
• Sapphire X700 Pro Graphics Card - NVIDIA's 6600GT, which is its main competition, outperforms the X700 Pro in almost all games and settings except under heavy load in Doom III and Half-Life 2. Surprisingly enough, the X700 Pro, which should be a top performer in Half-Life 2, takes the backseat to NVIDIA's 6600GT except under 1600x1200 with AA and AF turned on where it's competitive, although it doesn't lead in this setting either.
• Samsung SpinPoint MP0804H Hard Drive - The Samsung MP0804H has certainly gone through a lot and it shined in its tests. When used as an external unit, its faster than NAS units and has a lot more capacity than typical flash drives. As an internal drive, I felt an immediate rejuvenation in performance.
• Lite-ON SOHR-5238S CD-RW drive - The Lite-On SOHR-5238S is a very capable drive when it comes to CD-R media, the burn quality is very good indeed. The SOHR-5238S is also a very fast and reliable reader and can also read protected media well. Digital Audio Extraction quality is also a plus point with this drive and consistently impressed us with the DAE speed and quality. The SOHR-5238S is let down by poor CD-RW write quality, and this is really the only bad point about the drive.
• HDA Digital X Mystique 7.1 Gold sound card - EliteBastards take a look at HDA's Digital X Mystique 7.1 Gold discrete sound card, the first of its kind to support real time Dolby Digital encoding via its Dolby Digital Live support.
• Saitek PC Gaming Mouse - The Saitek's big selling point is that it offers increased resolution over standard mice - 1,600dpi rather than the conventional 800dpi. This is in keeping with the resolution on offer from the likes of Razor Diamondback and Logitech's gaming mice.
• Casio EX-P505 digital camera - The EX-P505 isn't a cheap camera, in fact at around £315 it is in the upper end of the market for 5MP models, but it does have a lot to offer for the money not least its extraordinary movie modes.
• Nokia 8800 - There is no real technical reason why you should want to own an 8800. Its old technology in a new shell and even that loses its appeal very quickly.

GUIDES...

• Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide v2.0.2 - Clean Spyware and Viruses + Optimize Windows XP to improve home, work and gaming performance safely

SOFTWARE...

• FastStone Image Viewer 2.20 08-08-2005 Build - FastStone Image Viewer 2.15 (download) is an image browser, viewer, converter and editor with an easy to use interface and a nice array of features that include resizing, renaming, cropping, color adjustments and more.
• VirtualDub v1.6.10 - VirtualDub (download) is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video.
• Real Alternative 1.43 - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer or RealOne Player from Real Networks. Supported are: RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia (.rm .ram .rmvb .rpx .smi .smil), RealText (.rt) and ReadPix (.rp).
• K-Lite Codec Pack 2.51 - The K-Lite Codec Pack is a free collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. The very user-friendly installation is fully customizable, which means that you can install only those components that you want.
• AIM Ad Hack 4.12- With this small file (download) you can effectively remove all the ads from AIM (Updated for AIM version  5.9.3861)
• Yahoo! Messenger 7.00.00.426 - download
• Netscape Browser 8.0.3.3 - This new version fixes all security and bug fixes through Firefox 1.0.6 and also a bug disabling downloads for many users,
• WinRAR 3.50 - WinRAR (download) is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.
• NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver v1.7776 - The NGO nVidia Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the nVidia Forceware driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with a better performance and better image quality.