Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:04 AM CET - Dec,12 2003
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- Virginia Arrests Man for Spam Email Under New Law - Virginia
authorities said on Thursday they had
arrested and charged a North Carolina man for sending "spam" e-mail in the
first use of a new state law that could bring penalties of up to 20 years in
prison. irginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said Jeremy Jaynes had been
arrested earlier Thursday in Raleigh, N.C., on four counts of using fraudulent
means to transmit spam.
- Microsoft gets Windows XP update ready - The beta version of
Windows XP Service Pack 2 is expected to be made available to testers soon
(before the end of this year) via Microsoft's developer Web site. The final
version is expected to be released in the first half of next year, Microsoft
said. During this beta, Microsoft hopes to garner significant feedback from
developers and IT professionals that will be incorporated into and improve the
final product. Among the security improvements in Service Pack 2 are a
beefed-up version of Windows Firewall, previously called Internet Connection
Firewall, and software designed to block pop-up ads and prevent the unintended
downloading and installation of software. The company also turned off the
Windows Messenger service, which had been abused by some hackers.
- Windows Patch Arrives Late - A glitch in Microsoft's Windows
Update automated patching service caused a security fix that was released last
month to be delivered to computer users on Tuesday. The patch was delivered on
the same day Microsoft proclaimed December would be a patch-free month. The
software patch fixes a serious vulnerability in a set of Web site
management tools called FrontPage Server Extensions, which are part of
Microsoft's Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Office XP software, according to
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-051. Exploiting the flaw could allow an
attacker to gain control over a user's PC, Microsoft says.
- Windows 98 Remains Widespread - Microsoft is
planning to end support for Windows 98 next month, but many businesses still
have computers running on the operating system, a new study shows.
AssetMetrix, an Ottawa-based IT asset analysis tool vendor, collected data on
over 370,000 PCs from 670 businesses in the U.S. and Canada. It found that 80
percent of those companies have at least one PC running either Windows 95 or
Windows 98. The older operating systems accounted for about 27 percent of
operating systems found.
- Sony and Toshiba close to sampling Cell technology - Trial
runs of the advanced semiconductor manufacturing process which will eventually
create the much-vaunted Cell microprocessor
are set to start at Toshiba's fabrication plant in March of next year.
According to a statement from Sony and Toshiba issued today, work on the 65nm
chip production technology - which is more advanced than any system in
commercial use today, as most companies are still coming to grips with the
switch from 130nm down to 90nm processes - is proceeding to plan.
- Hitachi to squeeze fuel cell into PDAs - Japanese electronics giant
Hitachi is teaming up with Tokai, a maker of disposable cigarette lighters, to
produce
commercial fuel cells for handheld computers in 2005, the companies said
this week. Several electronics companies are investigating fuel cells as
an alternative to existing nickel cadmium batteries and lithium ion batteries,
which will inevitably hit a barrier when portable devices become more
power-hungry. Fuel cells, just one of the alternative techniques under
investigation, could create a long-lasting and cheap power source in a small
package.
- Intel Pentium M "Dothan" Launch Date Revealed - Sources close to
Intel Corporation said today the company has a big week for mobile
announcements starting from the 16th of February 2004 - the first day of Intel
Developer Forum Spring 2004. The company unveils new highly-anticipated Dothan
processor, new LV and ULV Pentium M and Celeron M chips and a more advanced
WLAN adapter.
Intel Pentium M “Dothan” processor with 2MB of L2 cache will start at
1.80GHz speed-bin. Given its higher core frequency and 2MB of cache instead of
only 1MB featured by its predecessor, the CPU will consume more energy
compared to the Banias despite of thinner 90nm fabrication technology. Earlier
this year it was said that TDP of higher-end Dothan processors will be 29W to
31W, while thermal design power of current Pentium M “Banias” chips is just
about 24.5W.
- Mini-server review - Sudhian has posted
a review
of EmergeCore's "IT in a Box" IT100 which comes equipped with a Transmeta
Crusoe 533MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB IBM TravelStar, 802.11b Access Point, and boots
from a 32MB Flash card.
- Axis' 205 Network Camera: Inexpensive, Small and Different -
The new Axis 205 Network Camera is the smallest of the network attached
cameras that we have seen so far. However, this claim to fame comes with a few
trade offs. While Axis's Model 205 represents a unique network attached camera
for less than $200, the device also lacks features otherwise taken for
granted.
- ASUS SCB-2408-D CD-RW/DVD-ROM review - CDRLabs.com have taken
a close look at the external ASUS SCB-2408-D combo drive.
- AMD Athlon 64 Motherboards Head to Head - Albatron vs. EPoX -
While
Albatron have quite a nice looking motherboard on their hands, the package
is not the most exciting and overall performance is lacking. If you're
interested in a motherboard that brings the latest Athlon 64 chipset at a more
affordable price, the EPoX 8HDA3 might be a better option.
- ATi Radeon 9600 XT 256 MB review -
The
ATi Radeon 9600 XT is an excellent buy for only $199.00 MSRP you can
easily find this product cheaper online, from different partners of ATi, or
even OEM (bare, no retail packaging). For your money the Radeon family of
products has truly delivered from the 9200 SE (low end for ATi) to the
monstrosity 9800 (high end for ATi) we've found performance for decent prices.
We just wish we all could afford a 9800 XT.
- Image Quality Analysis Fall 2003: A Glance Through the Looking Glass
- Unfortunately,
defining image quality is a more difficult task than it seems. Neither ATI
nor NVIDIA produce images that match the DX9 reference rasterizer (Microsoft's
tool to estimate what image should be produced by a program). There is, in
fact, no "correct" image for any given frame of a game. This makes it very
hard to draw a line in the sand and say that one GPU does something the right
way and the other one does not. There is the added problem that taking
screenshots in a game isn't really the best place to start when looking for a
quantitative comparison.
- The Trouble With AVI Movies In Windows XP Editorial - Adrian's
Rojak Pot let us know he has posted
The Trouble With AVI Movies In Windows XP editorial.
- Bart's PE Builder 3.0.24 -
Bart's PE Builder (download)
helps you build a bootable Window CD-Rom or DVD from Windows XP or Windows
Server 2003 very suitable for PC maintenance tasks. It will give you a
complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface
(800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing
systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on.
- Serence KlipFolio 2.5a Beta -
Klipfolio is a small, efficient and easy to use desktop application that
allows you to collect, view and manage live information channels.
- Winamp5 Full RC 666 -
Nullsoft Winamp is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity media player for
Windows. Winamp supports playback of many audio (MP3, OGG, AAC, WAV, MOD, XM,
S3M, IT, MIDI, etc) and video types (AVI,ASF,MPEG,NSV). This beta fixes a
potential crashbug in ml.
- 7-Zip 3.13 -
7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio. The program
supports 7z, ZIP, RAR, CAB, GZIP, BZIP2, and TAR formats. Compression ratio in
the new 7z format is 30-50% better than ratio in ZIP format. It also
compresses to ZIP 2-10% better than PKZip and WinZip.
- Avant Browser 8.02.207 Stable -
Avant
Browser is a custom Web browser application based on Internet Explorer
with versatile multi-window support. It allows users to browse multiple Web
sites simultaneously and block all unwanted pop-up pages. This new version has
Improved Download for FavIcon; Display FavIcon in Favorites, Links and Address
Box; Create Favorites with FavIcon; Improved kernel for speed and stability;
Improved Support for groups; Fixed a bug of favorites band drag-and-drop and
Some other fixes.
- HijackThis 1.97.7 -
HijackThis is a small software that scans for all objects which may be
affiliated with Web Browser activity. StartList scans the system for all
objects that are in all startup sections of the registry.
- RivaTuner 2.0 RC 14.2 -
RivaTuner
is the most powerful tweaking utility for NVIDIA display adapters running
under Windows 98/ME/Win2k/XP. The purpose of this utility is to give you
access to all the undocumented features of the Detonator drivers. This RC adds
support for ForceWare 53.xx drivers.
- A-Tuner 1.7.32.5216 - A-Tuner is a small tool for
changing/tweaking settings on your NVIDIA based graphics card. Includes
Anti-Aliasing (including all unofficial modes), Anisotropic Filtering, VSync,
and MipMap LOD Bias.
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Updated:03:04 PM CEST Jun,20
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