SECURITY...

• Google Patches Desktop Search Flaw - Google Inc. said on Monday it has fixed a software flaw that could allow hackers to view information contained on personal computers running the No. 1 search engine's desktop search software.
• Popular File-Sharing Site Shuts Down - One of the Web's most popular file-sharing sites has shut down less than a week after Hollywood announced a flurry of lawsuits against operators of such Internet servers. A note posted on Suprnova.org, which facilitated sharing among users of the BitTorrent program, said the site was "closing down for good.'' The collection of links to downloadable files, including music, movies and books, was taken down.
• BitTorrent file-swapping networks face crisis - The disappearance of the big sites is unlikely to eliminate BitTorrent swapping altogether, but it does bring to a close an era of operating in the open without fear of legal reprisals. The resulting shift to the underground will likely make files harder to find, as traders move onto private networks or smaller communities, file-swapping insiders said.
• New IE hole could perfect phishing scams -  A newly reported security problem in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Web browser allows attackers to create a fake Web site that looks exactly like a genuine site. The vulnerability lets an attacker display any Web site while the address bar in Internet Explorer displays a trusted Web address -- https://www.paypal.com, for example -- and even shows the icon indicating that Secure Sockets Layer security technology is in use, security researchers warned on Thursday.
• Spammers ordered to pay $1 billion - A federal judge has awarded an Internet service provider more than $1 billion in what is believed to be the largest judgment ever against spammers. AMP Dollar Savings Inc. of Mesa, Arizona, was ordered to pay $720 million and Cash Link Systems Inc. of Miami, Florida, was ordered to pay $360 million. The third company, Florida-based TEI Marketing Group, was ordered to pay $140,000.
• NASA hacker jailed for six months - A US man has been jailed for six months for a 2001 attack on the web systems of space agency NASA which cost $200,000 to fix. Gregory Aaron Herns, 21, from Portland, Oregon, hacked into the network at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to store movies he had downloaded. The intrusion caused systems to crash and took technicians hours to fix, according to reports. In court last Friday, Herns admitted his guilt and apologised for the inconvenience he caused.
• Apple Sues Over Web Leak of Advance Products - Apple Computer Inc. is suing anonymous people who leaked details about new products by posting information on the Internet, court documents showed on Friday.
• Hotmail dumps McAfee's antivirus for Trend Micro - According to Microsoft, e-mails and attachments sent or received by any of Hotmail's 187 million Web mail customers will be scanned in real time by Trend Micro's antivirus software beginning Monday.
• Quantum cryptography keeps hackers away - Quantum cryptography is the ultimate example of small-is-beautiful technology: information is encoded at the subatomic level on individual photons, the smallest known units of light. They can then be sent on optical fibre networks from one computer to another. To snoop on such messages undetected, a hacker would have to defy the laws of quantum mechanics.

OFF-TOPIC...

• EA Trying to Buy Ubisoft Shares - This morning it was revealed that EA is trying to acquire 19.9% of the Ubisoft shares owned by Dutch investment company Talpa Beheer B.V. If approved by the US Antitrust department, the buyout would instantly make EA the biggest shareholder, ahead of the Guillemot brothers.
• Video game makes life of Brian $10,000 richer - Playing video games has certainly enriched the life of Brian McMahon this weekend, after the New Yorker scooped a $10,000 cash prize for winning Remington's first Titanium Bowl ESPN NFL 2K5 video game tournament.
• First Half-life 3 screenshot? - check it out (pic)

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Anti-Spyware Preview - Paul Thurrott has thrown up a great preview of Microsoft's plans for Anti-spyware. In the preview he details the current technology from Giant Software and what Microsoft is planning to do with it.
• Google Launches Print Service - Google Print is integrated with standard search results; for example, a search for literary classic Romeo and Juliet leads to the follow page from Google Print. Google only show content related to the search query - in cases where there are multiple results, excerpts are shown. Currently in beta testing, Google are working with publishers to get as much content into the system as possible; they are offering the scanning service for free.
• Scoble To Gates : Make a New Media Player - Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble has written a open letter to Bill Gates on the subject of media players. Published on his blog, Scoble outlines a lengthily list of goals for the company to do in 2005; the ultimate aim being to have a brand new, iPod beating media player in 5 months time.
• Samsung SDI Develops World-Largest 102-Inch PDP - Samsung SDI said Thursday it has developed the world¡¯s largest high definition PDP at 102 inches, setting a new world record in the field. The new product boasts high brightness with 1,000 candela per square meter and some core parts, which have been developed for this product, were used to improve PDP¡¯s brightness, luminescence efficiency and coloring, key characteristics of the TV panel.
• NVIDIA PureVideo Technology announced - NVIDIA today announced NVIDIA PureVideo technology, a combination of hardware and software technologies designed to raise the bar on the video capabilities of today's desktop and notebook PCs. The addition of PureVideo technology to the GeForce 6 Series of graphics processing units (GPUs) allows for accelerated playback of MPEG-2 and high-definition (HD) video content at home-theater levels of quality, resulting in crisp, vibrant and stutter-free video on any display.

ARDWARE...

• Wal Mart offers sub-$500 Linux laptop - Wal Mart is taking pre-orders for a sub-$500 notebook that comes loaded with Linspire and OpenOffice.org. The 14" laptop has a 1GHz VIA C3 processor, 128MB of memory, 30GB hard drive, CDROM, and a promised battery life of 1.5 hours.
• NV48 to emerge in 2005 - DigiTimes is reporting that NVIDIA has not canned its NV48 graphics chip. The chip is expected to debut in the second quarter of next year and face off against ATI's high-end offerings. Built using 110-nano process tech, NV48 should be cheaper to manufacture than the 130-nano chips that power NVIDIA's current GeForce 6800 series.
• Twinhan DTV MagicBox and VisionDTV review  - Instead of dropping all your coin on a simple MP3 player, why not get a personal media player that not only plays MP3s, but also plays AVIs, displays pictures and records TV shows! With a 30GB internal hard drive, the Pavio does all that and possibly more.
• Acer TravelMate 3201XMi - TrustedReviews take a look at the Acer TravelMate 3201XMi which is a fairly well priced Centrino machine with a Moblity Radeon 9700 graphics card and a few other neat features.
• Corsair XMS Twinx1024-4400C25 1GB DC Kit - The modules themselves are rated for PC4400, 2.5-4-4-8 at 275MHZ. This speed is rated much higher than their older XL series that were sold in PC3200 or PC4000 ratings. These higher guaranteed speeds may be due to the change in PCB and TCCD chips. Previously, Corsair used the JEDEC reference PCB design for the XL series which did not clock as well as the Brainpower PCBs.
• Nvidia nForce 4 SLI: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe - It is clear that the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe is the first and best SLI solution on the market. The power of the nForce 4 chipset gives it a leg up at the beginning. The feature list is long and impressive, and Asus is the king of motherboards by volume.
• ASUS V9999 Gamer Edition - This card performs very good in all benchmarked games we used and all games can run at a resolution of 1600x1200 without Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering. When you like the image quality over the speed then all games are recommended to run at 1024x768 with Anti-Aliasing at 4x and Anisotropic Filtering at 16x to ensure your frame rates will not drop below the 20 to 30fps, your gaming experience may not be influenced by low frame rates!
• ATI X850 XT and X800 XL reviews - BeHardware takes a look at the ATI X850 XT and X800 XL video cards
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Mobile GPU -Adrian's Rojak Pot has posted a review of ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Mobile GPU.
• Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 160GB HDD - Overall, Maxtor's DiamondMax Plus 9 is a bit of a gamble. Performance is definitely on par with the competition, but it runs warmer, has a short 1 year warranty, and unknown/unlisted platter densities
• Pioneer DVR-A08XLA 16x DVD±RW  - The DVR-A08XL can write to both DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x. At this speed, it took the drive less than 7 minutes to write an entire 4.7GB DVD. While a big improvement over Pioneer's 8x DVD±RW, it wasn't nearly as fast as the CAV enabled writers from NEC and MSI. Nevertheless, the DVR-A08XL performed pretty well with other types of recordable media. The drive had no problems holding its own with DVD+RW and DVD-RW media and, thanks to its 4x DVD+R DL writing speed, it took less than 27 minutes to burn an entire 8.5GB DVD.
• FreeCom DVD+/-RW 16x Double Layer Burner - Xtreme Computing has posted a review of FreeCom DVD+/-RW 16x Double Layer Burner.
• OvisLink 5-Port SOHO GigaBit Switch - The Ovislink Live Pure Gigabit Switch is really a good product with excellent performance. If you do a lot of file transfers between the computers on your LAN, you might want to consider investing in a Gigabit switch now that the price has come down to a reasonable level. One thing you will need to take into consideration (beyond making sure you have Gigabit NICs or a onboard Gigabit LAN), is that you have at least CAT 5e or better network cabling, regular CAT 5 cable is not rated beyond 100Mb.
• Epson Stylus Photo 300 photo printer - This is a big printer, almost up to all-in-one dimensions, with a conventional paper path flowing from a 120 sheet, near-vertical tray at the rear, through to a telescopic output tray, which folds down from the front of the machine. At bottom right behind a hinged and sprung acrylic door is a set of memory card slots and a USB port, for connecting either a digital camera supporting PictBridge or an external Zip or CD drive.

GUIDES...

• Choosing a graphics card, ATI Radeon, Nvidia GeForce? - This is not meant as a War & Peace tome about graphics cards from ATI or Nvidia that are available but as a handy guide to help you make a choice.
• DDR2 vs. DDR: Revenge Gained - As for recommendations about the choice of memory, all DDR2 SDRAM kits presented in this review deserve your attention, but we would want to specifically mention the PC2 4200 Enhanced Bandwidth Platinum modules from OCZ that feature an excellent speed and overclockability.
• Mobile GPU Guide - Adrian's Rojak Pot put together a Mobile GPU Comparison Guide for those of you contemplating replacing that desktop with a portable gaming machine.
• The ABC's and 123's of Firewalls & Ports - How Ports Work To get the most out of online gaming through a secure connection, you have to have some idea of how games communicate over the Internet and how a firewall works. Don't worry; this discussion won't get inaccessibly technical. I'll stick to layman's terms. To start with, let's look at how programs talk to each other over the Internet. All Internet-aware programs communicate with each other through ports. What, exactly, is a port?
• Cyril's Non-exhaustive Guide to New Hardware Technologies (Part II: New serial technology, PCIe and SATA) - check it out.
• Hard Drive Crash? The Essential - Your worst nightmare just became a horrifying reality. You keep hearing that little voice in your head mockingly shout "you should have backed that stuff up" The voice keeps echoing throughout your head as you perform a quick inventory all of the important information that you just lost…..your client database, a years worth of e-mail, your entire inventory database, even your family photos.
• Low-End Buyer's Guide - The goal of this guide is to outline an entire low-end computer system for around $750. This includes the internal hardware, input devices, monitor and speakers. The components we have chosen for this system are what we consider to be good all-around products with the best bang for the buck.
• Ten to Avoid - The Worst Products of the Year - Every gift guide is the same. Each focuses on the great products you can buy to make Mom, Dad, Sis, or the boss happy. But when you get to the store, they always seem to be out of the best stuff. So you're forced to make compromises and do the best you can out of the dreck that's left. Here are two handfuls of devices to avoid at any cost this holiday season, culled from the worst-scoring products we tested this year.

SOFTWARE...

• Update for Windows XP Service Pack 2 - After you install Windows XP Service Pack 2, some 1394 devices (such as digital cameras that use S400 speed) may not perform as expected. Install this update to help prevent this issue. A
• Volume Expansion Using Diskpart.exe - Description of how Microsoft IT regularly uses the Diskpart.exe utility to dynamically increase disk volume capacity on servers running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. The Diskpart.exe utility extends disk volumes without downtime or application interruption, thereby increasing availability and decreasing costs.
• WinXP Product Key changer - Lost your Windows XP Product Key? The Product Key Editor allows you to view any Windows XP Product Key instantly. Filled in the incorrect key, the Product Key Editor will allow you to change any Volume License Product Key. Unlike other Product Key applications, Product Key Editor works with Windows Service Pack 2.
• PHP 5.0.3 and 4.3.10 final version - The PHP Group has released the final versions of the next PHP 4.x and 5.x releases. If you missed it last week, I strongly recommend you to upgrade.
• OpenOffice 2.0 Preview Release - A preview release of OpenOffice.org 2.0 (check this preview @ TheInquirer) was released, which has new features like better MS-Office compatibility, an Access-like program and a more.
• The GIMP 2.2.0 - The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
• Paint.NET v2.0 - Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows XP. Paint.NET is jointly developed at Washington State University with additional help from Microsoft, and is meant to be a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with all Windows operating systems. The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with GDI+ extensions.
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal 5.0.227 - download.
• A-Ray Scanner 2.0.1.2 - A-Ray Scanner is new protection scanner. It is able to detect many new protections such as StarForce, TAGES, SafeDisc, Securom, ProtectCD, Slovak Protector and many others.
• Trillian 3.0 Final Build 966 - The multi-network Trillian IM client (download) allows you to seamlessly integrate all of your communications traffic in a single, sleek package. Some of the features in this version: Basic Messaging with AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, LAN, Mobile Messaging, File Transfer, Mail Notification, Group Conferences, Videochat, SecureIM and many many more features to enjoy in this brand new release.
• Mozilla 1.7.5 - Mozilla is an open-source web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability.
  Mozilla.org coordinates the development and testing of the browser by providing discussion forums, software engineering tools, releases and bug tracking.
• PowerStrip 3.56 - PowerStrip 3.56 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards .
• ASUS SmartDoctor 4.60 - ASUS SmartDoctor is designed to satisfy two major goals. One is to monitor graphic chip Status, altering users about abnormal events, such as fan malfunction or chip overheat.
• AMD N-Bench 3.1 - N-Bench is a CPU Benchmark program, developed by AMD, that is capable of displaying 3D graphics. It consists of a "Demo mode" that plays back beautiful 3DCG movies and a "Benchmark mode" that measures CPU performance
• Hack the Catalyst and Find a SM3 Chip - If you use a disassembler with the "ati3duag.dll" you can find code that set the DX Caps for a SM3 chip. VS: 3.0 with 1024 slots (NV40: 544) and only pointsampling (like NV40) / PS: 3.0 with 512 slots (NV40: 4096) (thanks manik)
• AMD Athlon 64 Processor Driver v1.1.0.18 for Windows XP - AMD Athlon 64 Processor Driver for Windows XP allows the system to automatically adjust the CPU speed, voltage and power combination that match the instantaneous user performance need. Download this Setup Installation program (EXE) to automatically update all the files necessary for installation. This package is recommended for users whom desire a graphical user interface for installation. This .EXE driver is a user friendly.
• Realtek RTL8139(A/B/C/D/8130)/810X Series Drivers - Realtek have released new Drivers for the RTL8139 (A/B/C/D/8130)/810X series, version 6.20 for windows 98/ME/ 2000/XP! Dated 2004/12/17.
• Realtek ALC AC97 Audio Driver 3.67 WHQL  - This driver supports all ALC series audio chipsets from ALC100 up to ALC861. It is used as onboard sound on many motherboards.