SECURITY...

• XP SP2 downloads top 180 million - Over 180 million computer users have downloaded Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Microsoft said today at the InfoSec Europe event that it is working to make life more secure for those using non-XP systems.
• Hushmail DNS Attack Blamed on Network Solutions - Secure e-mail service provider Hushmail Communications plans to pursue a criminal investigation into a hacking attack that redirected users to a defaced Web site. The company pinned the blame for the breach squarely on the shoulders of domain name registrar Network Solutions. Hushmail, which markets PGP-encrypted e-mail, file storage and vanity domain services, has opened a criminal investigation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver to get to the bottom of a DNS server breach caused by a combination of social engineering, phishing and pharming tactics.
• Trojan attack exploits Google typos - Hackers have set up malicious websites designed to infect the Windows boxes of surfers who mistype the name of popular search engine Google.com. If a user opens one of the malicious websites, such as googkle.com1, his PC box may be hijacked with malware including Trojan downloaders, backdoors and spyware.
• Zafi-D Leads Top 10 Viruses in April - The virus Zafi-D, which first appeared on the Internet at the end of last year, led a monthly list of top 10 viruses for the fifth straight month in April, a security firm said Friday.
• Software police issues warning on IT staff - The Federation Against Software Theft (Fast) has warned companies that their IT departments might be leaving them open to court action. In a recent investigation of a UK financial services firm, the organisation found 5,800 illegal digital music files in a software audit of 2,500 PCs. The vast majority of these had been downloaded by members of the firm's IT department.

OFFTOPIC...

• Tiny nuclear fusion device has big ideas - In a surprising feat of miniaturization, scientists are reporting that they have produced nuclear fusion--the same process that powers the sun--in a footlong cylinder just 5 inches in diameter. And they say they will soon be able to make the device even smaller. While the device is probably too inefficient to produce electricity or other forms of energy, the scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs.
• Earth's Energy Out of Balance, Data Confirm - Scientists have concluded more energy is being absorbed from the sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth's energy "out of balance" and warming the globe. Using satellites, data from buoys and computer models to study the Earth's oceans, scientists from NASA , Columbia University in New York, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, took precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years. Their results confirmed the suspected energy imbalance.
• Bug-eyed lens may mean slimmer camera phones - The multitude of lenses that make up an insect's eye is providing inspiration for a new generation of super-slim camera phone. Conventional camera lenses cannot be shrunk below a few millimetres in thickness before reducing the field of view. But a compound lens, made from hundreds of tiny "micro lenses", can be made around one-tenth of the width, while retaining the same field of view and quality of image.
• Xbox 360 FAQ - check it out!

TECHNOLOGY...

• Net-powered computer goes on show - UK firm DSP Design has made a PC that gets electric power via a network cable rather than through a wall socket. Before now power via a network system has only been used for devices such as wireless access points, CCTV cameras and (Voip) internet telephone handsets. DSP said it expected their new PC to find uses where it was hard to lay any kind of cable other than computer network cables.
• Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger review - It's strange to have gone from years of uncertainty and vaporware to a steady annual supply of major new operating system releases from Apple. But do I really want to pay US$129 every year for the next version of Mac OS X?
• Firefox Breaks 50,000,000 Barrier - Today at 16:59 GMT (8:58 AM PST) Mozilla Firefox received its 50,000,000th download
• Yahoo! Releases My Web Beta - Yahoo! (yahoo.com) announced the beta release of My Web from Yahoo! Search. Dubbed a "personal search engine" by the company, My Web provides a more efficient means for users to save, recall and share information with others.

HARDWARE... 

• AMD announces the END OF SOCKET 754 ATHLON 64 with deadline -AMD has officially informed European resellers about the end of socket 754 Athlon 64. According to the chart published today at AMDboard.com, orders will still be accepted until March 25 and June 15 for final deliveries before September 25. AMD also encouraged resellers to push socket 939 Athlon 64 instead, insisting on the larger bandwidth, lower consumption and dual-core compatibility of the latter. Finally, Athlon 64 in 2800+ and 3400+ flavor will not be replaced with socket 939 equivalent, while socket 754 Athlon 64 3700+ will be available in new Socket 939 version during second quarter of 2005.
• Sony VAIO VGC-V520G TV-PC - If you were to mistake the Sony VAIO VGC-V520G TV-PC for a flat-panel TV, Sony wouldn't be offended. Designed to look like a television, this all-in-one PC is built around a WXGA flat-panel screen combined with a TV tuner.
• Processors for common people Part 1: Intel Socket 478 - The overall winner is still Prescott with Hyper-Threading support, but its breakaway is not so large to pay much attention. The second (it's very relative, mind it...) place is taken by Northwood on the 800MHz bus, which also supports Hyper-Threading. The slowest Pentium 4 processor, which took part in the tests, is Prescott without Hyper-Threading on a 533 MHz bus.
• ATI HyperMemory vs nVidia TurboCache - TrustedReviews has posted a comparison review between ATI HyperMemory and nVidia TurboCache
• Digital Pen Head 2 Head - TrustedReviews posted a review of a Digital Pen Head 2 Head between the Logitech io2 Digital Writing System and the ACECAD DigiMemo A501

GUIDES... 

• Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.9.5 - "Clean Spyware and Viruses + Optimize Windows XP to improve home, work and gaming performance safely. Windows XP's default configuration is far from optimized. This guide will help you improve your overall system performance."
• Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Beta 2 Installation Guide - The most current version of the Installation Guide for Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Beta 2.
• How To Work With Your Digital Camera's Histogram - The Tech Zone has a beginner's how-to on working the histogram on your digital camera.

SOFTWARE...

• SafeDisc Windows XP Fix for Microsoft Games - When running a restricted user account with fast user switching under Windows XP, some games will not start correctly. The game requests that the original disk be placed in the drive, even if it is already present. To remedy this issue, download and run this fix. This software will not alter or patch any component on your system, it will only change the startup state of the system component needed to start your game from start on demand (on game load), to start at boot (on Windows XP start).
• Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Administration Tools Pack - The Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Administration Tools Pack (adminpak.msi) provides server management tools that allow administrators to remotely manage computers running Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 family operating systems. This is the Service Pack 1 version (build 5.2.3790.1830) of the adminpak.msi file.
• J2SE Runtime Environment 5 update 3 - Another update of J2SE is out (release notes)
• BitSpirit 2.8.0.065 - BitSpirit (download) is an easy-to-use BitTorrent client which provides not only full BitTorrent protocol implementation but also many personalization functions.
• PSP Video 9 - PSP Video 9 is a free application that lets you manage and convert PSP video. It can convert regular PC video files (avi, mpeg, etc) into PSP video files, as well as manage/copy these PSP video files between your PC and PSP
• Easy CD-DA Extractor 8.1.4 ($) - Easy CD-DA Extractor (download) is All-In-One music software; CD-Ripper, CD-Burner, and Music File Format Converter.
• WinDVD Platinum 6.0.6.161 ($)- WinDVD Platinum 6 (download) is the ultimate DVD software player, providing you with the finest quality video and audio playback. Watch movies with a theater experience right on your computer or laptop. WinDVD Platinum 5 is loaded with features
• DVDFab 2.84 - DVDFab (download) lets you make perfect quality DVD movie backups the smart way.
• DVD Rebuilder 0.85a beta - One click DVD backup tool that uses CinemaCraft Encoder Basic/SP or QuEnc(ffmpeg) encoder or ReJig transcoder engine.
• Tray Helper 4.9 - It's a SMALL Windows application that takes only ONE place next to your tray system clock and  eats only a little of memory and CPU power.
• EliteToolbar Remover 1.2.3 - The new EliteToolbar Remover (download) deletes any traces of the following persistent malwares.
• CCleaner v1.19.105 - CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space.
• SpyBot-Search & Destroy 1.4 RC2b  - SpyBot-S&D searches your hard drive for so-called spy- or adbots; little modules that are responsible for the ads many programs display. But many of these modules also transmit information about your surfing behaviour and more to the net.
• FireTune 1.02 - FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox.
• xpy 0.8.10 - xpy is a small tool which disables the default threats of a windows xp installation. besides the classic antispy features, xpy closes recent security holes like the remote procedure call (rpc) service and the distributed component object model (dcom).
• IBM - Hitachi Drive Fitness Test 4.03 - The Drive Fitness Test analyze function performs read tests without overwriting customer data. (However, Drive Fitness Test is bundled with some restoration utilities that will overwrite data).
• Ultimate Boot CD 3.3 - You need the Ultimate Boot CD if you want to: Run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives. More and more PCs are shipped without floppy drives these days, and it is such a royal pain when you need to run diagnostic tools on them.
• nForce 4 Driver - This leaked driver from MSI includes Audio driver version 4.60 (WHQL), Audio utility version 4.51, Ethernet NRM driver version 4.73 (WHQL), Network management tools version 4.73, SMBus driver version 4.45 (WHQL) with updated uninstaller files, To install version 4.61, Win2K IDE driver version 5.21 (WHQL), Win2K RAIDTOOL application version 5.21, WinXP IDE driver version 5.21 (WHQL) and WinXP RAIDTOOL application version 5.21.
• Pioneer DVR-108 and DVR-A08 firmware v1.20 - Station-Drivers has a new firmware update v1.20 for the popular Pioneer DVR-A08XLA(B,C) and DVR-108, DVR-108BK series.
• Lite-On Firmware - LiteOn have released some new DVD Dual and CD-RW firmware updates for the following drives: DVD Dual Firmware - Lite-On SOHW-1693S/Lite-On SOHW-1673S/Lite-On SOHW-1653S || CD-RW Firmware - Lite-On SOHR-5239S || COMBO Drives Firmware - Lite-On SOHC-5236K | Lite-On SOSC-2483KX.
• DHzer0point Drivers 0.7644 (ForceWare) - Zer0point Drivers are modified Forceware drivers, meaning they are NOT supported or endorsed by nVidia, or any 3rd party OEM manufacturers. They are not covered by any warranty or guarantee, and you install them at your own risk. Currently these drivers are for all GeForce based desktop cards. (If it's not on a laptop, and says either GeForce or Quadro in the name, it's supported).