Morning Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 12:32 PM CET - Feb,16 2004
- Post a comment / read (3)
- Profanity, partner's name hidden in leaked Microsoft code - It
makes it easier" on hackers, said Ken Dunham, Malicious Code Intelligence
Director for security firm iDefense. "Instead of trying blindly to get in, now
you can just go in, see the lines of code, run it, test it." Dunham and others
spent hours looking for clues in the code, a mix of assembler, C and C++
programming languages. The leaked Windows 2000 code contained 30915 files and
a whopping 13.5 million lines of code, he said. And the Windows NT breach had
95,103 files and 28 million lines. Both were available as zip files being
exchanged readily on the Internet, Dunham said.
"You have a mixture of good code and junk that doesn't make sense," he
said. "It looks like someone was playing around with it." It's not clear
whether numerous profanities that are written into the code -- invisible to
front-end users of the programs -- were put there by Microsoft developers or
those who got their hands on the files after them.
- Off-topic: Space Burial - Celestis is the name of a company that is
offering space burials for
some $11K USD. "Celestis makes possible a new choice in truly
unforgettable memorial services. Cremated remains can be launched into space;
to orbit around the Earth; to fly to the Moon; or to travel into deep space.
Celestis is the world leader in providing these unique space memorial
services" (thanks Slashdot.org)
- AsylumLAN 15 - So you said that you would never go to a LAN with
more than 100 people. Well, with 200 gamers at a LAN party, you'll definitely
break free of that down-in-the-basement-hanging-out-with-your-buddies feel. If
you haven't been to an
AsylumLAN event, you're missing out Indiana's best big little LAN Party.
- Canon PowerShot S230 Digital Camera review -
The S230 is a great value in a small form factor. It features a host of
manual controls for those who prefer to do some tweaking, but the automatic
mode is perfect for those looking for nothing more than a nice point and
shoot. Images are crisp, clean and quite impressive for the size and price. We
had very few complaints with the S230, notably the time between pictures can
be a little long when using the flash and the shutter lag that we experienced
when the camera was in anything but automatic mode.
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+ review -
The AMD
Athlon 64 3000+ is one fast processor. Throughout testing, everything was
stable and very smooth. Compared to my old Athlon XP processor, the AMD Athlon
64 3000+ provided smooth games than before (before was jerky), applications
opened faster and provided smooth processor execution, and the practical
things I do were way faster.
- XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra 256MB Video Card review -
Digit-Life recommend this card only for hunters for hardware rarities and
curious samples: "The Club3D Volari Duo V8 Ultra is still a raw product. How
could they release such a card? The drivers are unsteady and need a lot of
work, and the architecture itself does not realize its capabilities. Although
the fillrate shows that both chips work it looks as if we had a uniprocessor
card in the real applications. Even one chip with 8 pipelines and clocked at
330 MHz must look much better! Maybe the second chip is spare? If the first
one burns the second could replace it, is it so? But what for does the card
have all those internal buses? :) "
- Gainward GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Golden Sample Ultra/960 Dual-DVI 128MB
review - Hexus.net have done
a review of the Gainward GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Golden Sample Ultra/960
Dual-DVI 128MB.
- Rheobus comparison: Evercool and Coolermaster - If you are looking
for
ways to silence your PC, then read on to find out which one of these fan
controllers is up to the job. MadShimps also have tested QuietPC
92mm AcoustiFan.
- Arctic Cooling Super Silent 4Pro L - .
This is an efficient, quiet and good looking heatsink. If you are looking
to quiet things down while still looking good and keeping your processor
safely cooled, the Super Silent 4Pro L might just be what you need. I know the
silence has sounded good enough to me that I might just leave this one in
place for a while.
- AOC LM729 17-inch TFT LCD review -
For the price of only S$768, there is hardly any other 17" LCD display
that offers such convenient features for viewing angle adjustments (which we
think is critical for your well-being in long-term usage). One should also not
overlook the many conveniences associated with the 90 degrees pivot
capability. In portrait orientation, we reckon that DTP users or even those
who delve in pages of documents would find this feature practical. Other
noteworthy extras would be the small stereo speakers integrated at the bottom
of the LCD display (again ideal for the basic sound needs in the typical
office setup) and the inclusion of a DVI-I cable within the package. A
three-year warranty covers parts with the first year providing on-site service
and "carry-in service" in the last two years. Overall, we found the AOC LM729
an affordable and fairly good monitor for the targeted group of office users.
- CloneDVD 2 "Sneak Preview" - This really isn't a preview, but more
of
an announcement. Check it out if you like copying DVDs.
- The Tweaking Experience 2.1 -
The Tweaking Experience brings together all tweaks for Microsoft Windows
XP/2000 such as Internet, Miscellanious, System Performance and User Interface
related tweaks into a single easy-to-use centralized helpfile. Version 2.1 is
a fresh new start, with more then 25 new tweaks, pocket pc and mobile tweaks.
- DVDFab 1.52 -
DVDFab lets you make
perfect quality DVD movie backups the smart way! Backup your entire DVD -
including menus, trailers, and special features - on one or multiple discs. In
this new version Nero Burning ROM or CopyToDVD can be used instead of internal
burning engine.
- RockXP - With
RockXP
you can: Retrieve your XP Product Key, Change your key and product ID, Save
your activation file, Info on your machine like build and computer name.
- UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 1.1 -
Microsoft has never released a service pack for Windows98 SE. But Alper Coskun
made a Service
Pack for Windows98 SE users. It contains all Windows98 SE updates from
Windows Update site and more. It is a self-extracting and self-installing pack
like Microsoft's update files. Thus, you cannot choice files individually.
Uninstallation is possible from Add-Remove Programs. IT IS ONLY FOR -WINDOWS
98 SECOND EDITION ENGLISH-. It contains only operating system updates. It does
NOT contain Internet Explorer 6, DirectX 9 and Media Player 9.
- PC Wizard 2004 v1.60 -
PC WIZARD (download)
is a powerful system information utility designed especially for detection of
hardware. It's able to identify a large scale of system components and
supports the latest technologies and standards. This tool is periodically
updated (usually once per month) in order to provide most accurate results. PC
WIZARD is also an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer
system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU
performance, hard disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance.
- ASUS SmartDoctor 2 4.0 -
ASUS
SmartDoctor2 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.
- Nvidia Forceware Driver 56.55 - This is a
Windows 2000/XP reference driver set that was found on Gainwards FTP. All
NVIDIA graphics cards to date are supported with this new ForceWare/Detonator
driver set and this is going to be one popular set to download.! The build
date for this NVIDIA Display Driver version is 56.55, 01/29/2004. The
chaps at Bjorn3D have
compared 56.55 against
53.04 - "Not much of a change except for FP32 where we see a gain of 2
FPS. Next up was Aquamark3 benchmark. Quality wise, I haven't noticed any
anomalies, though I've looked only at 2-3 screenshots. With 56.55 drivers,
there was a 5-10 FPS gain. UT2004 demo didn't look pretty performance wise.
Antialiasing looked a bit borked at level 4 - most 'vertically' angled edges
were not antialiased at all. "
|
Updated:03:22 PM CEST Jun,21
(new)
