Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 04:12 AM CEST - Sep,24 2004
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- Microsoft To Provide IE Patches for Windows XP Only - Microsoft
this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft's IE Web
browser
available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system,
Service Pack 2. The upgrade to XP from any previous Windows versions is
$99 when ordered from Microsoft. Starting from scratch, the operating system
costs $199.
- Example of JPG Exploit & Shellcode -
check it out!
- Macromedia Products Not Affected by MS JPEG/GDIPlus Issue -
Although some Macromedia products do install a vulnerable version of
gdiplus.dll, no Macromedia product uses this Microsoft graphics library to
process JPEG images, therefore
there is no security risk.
- Hackers hit credit card company - Cyber Extortionists
launched a
denial of service attack against a major credit card company after the
company ignored a note demanding they handed over cash or be shut down.
According to Computerworld, the attack targeted the company's payment gateway
service. A few days before the attacks, a snail mail post arrived asking for a
substantial amount of money or else the attacks would begin. Authorize.net
sent the letter to the FBI.
- Symantec Holes Open Up Firewalls to Attacks -
Three "highly critical" flaws in Symantec's Firewall/VPN Appliance and
Gateway Security products allow remote attackers to shut down a firewall.
- McSoftware pirate jailed for nine months - A Scottish man who
pirated computer software valued at an estimated L750,000 was this week
jailed for nine months. Timoney was selling illegal Adobe and Microsoft
software.
- Microsoft server crash nearly causes 800-plane pile-up - A major
breakdown in Southern California's air traffic control system last week was
partly due
to a "design anomaly" in the way Microsoft Windows servers were integrated
into the system, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The radio
system shutdown, which lasted more than three hours, left 800 planes in the
air without contact to air traffic control, and led to at least five cases
where planes came too close to one another, according to comments by the
Federal Aviation Administration reported in the LA Times and The New York
Times. Air traffic controllers were reduced to using personal mobile phones to
pass on warnings to controllers at other facilities, and watched close calls
without being able to alert pilots, according to the LA Times report. The
failure was ultimately down to a combination of human error and a design
glitch in the Windows servers brought in over the past three years to replace
the radio system's original Unix servers, according to the FAA.
- Illegal phone jammers sold on Web -
Global
Gadget UK sells a range of
"cell phone" jammers which it could claim were only for export or licensed
UK users. But it also sells (and more importantly prices in Sterling) devices
such as the SHO66PL2B which operate at European frequencies [900 MHz and 1800
MHz].
- Nokia breaks into home security market - Nokia today expanded its
consumer product portfolio with the introduction of
a wireless home
monitoring system, the Nokia Remote Camera. The device features an
integrated motion detection system and the ability to capture
megapixel-quality images and video clips with sound, even in low-light and
outdoor conditions.
- Off-topic: "Levels" of Computers the Future? - Gamespot has
an article up talking about a recent interview with Microsofts's Dean
Lester about the future of PC gaming (as well as Xbox 2 tidbits).
- Off-topic: BMW H2R - World's fastest Hydrogen Car -
The H2R Record
Car, using a version of BMW's proven 12-cylinder 6-liter power plant,
currently available in the 760i and 760Li Sedans, develops 232- horsepower
using liquid hydrogen fuel. This translates into a 0 - 60 mph acceleration in
under 6 seconds and a top speed of 174 mph.
- Nokia touts new smart phone -
The Nokia 6670 is capable of producing images with a 1152-by-864-pixel
resolution, the company said Thursday. The device features video-recording and
photo-editing software with text input capabilities. Consumers can capture,
print, store and send photos and video. The smart phone is based on the
Symbian operating system and is capable of Web browsing, and handling e-mail
attachments and PDF files. It has a foldable wireless keyboard, and users can
print documents from it via Bluetooth, Nokia said.
In related news, Nokia will offer mobile antivirus software through
F-Secure as one of the features in its new Nokia 6670 smart phone when it is
released in October.
- Sony to support MP3 - shock - Sony Electronics has indicated that
some of its portable music hardware
will support the MP3 format in the future, in preference to its own
proprietary ATRAC (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding) codec
- World's Highest Resolution LCD Display by Casio -
The 2.2 inch LCD
display features VGA!! resolution. The Casio innovation has 368ppi (pixels
per inch). The power consumption and size is the same as with current QVGA
(320x240) displays.
- Microsoft Announces Canon's Support Of Media Transfer Protocol in
Digital Still Cameras - Microsoft today announced that its new
Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) will be supported by Canon Inc. Canon now
plans to incorporate support for MTP into its future digital camera product
offerings. This announcement coincides with next week's 2004 Photokina trade
show and signifies a premier industry relationship for Microsoft, introducing
one of the most advanced technologies yet for image acquisition to a
Windows-based PC.
- IBM, AMD extend chip-making alliance through 2008 -
AMD and IBM Corp. have extended their chip-manufacturing technology agreement
for an additional three years, paving the way for further chip process
advancements from both companies. The contract was supposed to expire
next year. Under the terms of the extended deal, AMD will pay IBM between $250
million and $280 million from September 2004 through December 2008. In return,
AMD gets access to IBM's chip technologies.
- Intel to cut Dothan CPU prices on October 17 -
Intel plans to cut prices for its Dothan-based 400MHz FSB Pentium M lineup
on October 17, which should help boost notebook shipments from Taiwan makers
20-30% sequentially in the fourth quarter, according to sources at the makers.
- Catalyst A.I. - The future of optimisations? -
The AI feature brings us to another new innovation from ATI and their
Catalyst driver team - Catalyst A.I. Is it the dawning of a new age, a return
to the era where "optimisation" isn't an ugly word?
- NVIDIA 6600 GT Available - NVIDIA today
announced
that add-in boards based on NVIDIA GeForce 6600 graphics processing units
(GPUs) are available immediately at
www.gameve.com and
www.buyextremegear.com.
- AMD's Athlon64 3700+ DTR Processor review - AMD recently released
their fastest notebook processor to date, the Athlon64 3700+ DTR. Designed for
desktop replacement (i.e, large) notebooks, the 3700+ DTR boasts a 2.4 GHz
clock rate, 1MB of on-die L2 cache, and includes all the bells and whistles of
AMD's desktop processors.
Let's take a closer look.
- IWill's ZMAXdp dual Opteron cube - HEXUS has posted
a preview of IWill's ZMAXdp dual Opteron cube. "With low-power Opterons,
CPU temperature never rose over 48C under load, and with a BIOS SmartFan
threshold of 58C, the fans never made more than a half-hearted whisper. The
ZMAXdp, with those CPUs, is nearly silent."
- Memorex F16 Double Layer 16x DVD±RW review - Like the Lite-On drive
it's based on,
the F16 can write to DVD+R media at 16x. At this speed, the drive
completed our tests in record time, turning out an entire 4.7GB DVD in less
than 6 minutes. Unfortunately, the F16's performance wasn't as impressive when
writing to DVD-R media. Due to a fairly conservative writing method, it was
more than a minute slower than some of the other drives we've looked at.
- NEC ND-3500A review - To sum it all up, we can say that the new
pinnacles of write speed are conquered without any special problems,
DVD+R recording quality at 16X is perfect. The same can be said about the
DVD+R DL recording quality at 4x.
- Philips DVDR1640P review -
This drive
supports 16x DVD+R writing and DVD+R9 DL writing technology, allowing dual
layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written.
- LG GSA-5120D External DVD Writer review - Having displayed the same
writing competency as the internal GSA-4120B, we have to say LG's
GSA-5120D was quite a convincing performer. The consistently fast write
time for our test media and fast CD/DVD read and seek speeds were admirable.
Extracting audio and video was another quality side of the LG drive. It's
quite a pity that the LG GSA-5120D is no longer the only drive that can read
DVD±R discs at read speeds faster than 8x anymore. This fine trait is no
longer an exclusive boast for LG drives and TDK's AID+1616DLN with its fast
16x read speed for DVD±R is a good example.
- 200GB Seagate External USB2.0 Drive Combo review - This particular
combination is just one of many options available. Pricing is also decent.
eWaggle sells the 120GB (drive only) for $99 and the 160GB model for $122 (the
200GB isn't available separately),
so in theory you're getting the case for free with the 200GB drive. Of
course the exact brand of drive, capacity, speed, and the enclosure will be
different for all situations. For sheer size and backup, a big 5400RPM drive
may be a better choice than a smaller capacity 7200RPM variant.
- Microsoft Releases VPN Fix for SP2 - Microsoft has issued
a formal fix for a problem in Windows XP Service Pack 2 that appeared
almost immediately after the update's release. The problem, which affected
many VPN users, causes errors when programs attempt to connect to loop-back
addresses other than 127.0.0.1. Service Pack 2 blocks all such addresses;
users receive an error message saying that they cannot establish a connection
- Office 2003 Security Update: KB838905 -
This update fixes a vulnerability where a specially crafted image could
allow an attacker's code to run on a user's machine due to a security
vulnerability in the graphics interpreter code.
- Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool - Administrators
running
this tool will get a detailed report listing the recommendations that can
be made to the environment to achieve greater performance, scalability and
uptime.
- phpMyAdmin 2.6.0 RC3 -
phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a
single database. To accomplish the latter you`ll need a properly set up
MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database.
- PHP 4.3.9 Final - PHP Development Team is proud to announce the
immediate release of PHP
PHP 4.3.9. This
is a maintenance release that in addition to
over 50
non-critical bug fixes, addresses a problem with GPC input processing.
This release also re-introduces ability to write GIF images via the bundled GD
extension.
- Fresh Download 7.14 -
Fresh
Download is an easy-to-use and very fast download manager software that
turbo charges downloading files from the Internet, such as your favorite
software, mp3 files, video files, picture collections, etc.
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Updated:11:06 PM CEST Jun,04
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