Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:39 PM CEST - Apr,17 2004
- Post a comment / read (6)
- Web Braces for Netsky.V's Attack - The latest variant of the hugely
effective
Netsky series of worms is causing trouble by spreading without the use of
an attachment. Slipping past many e-mail gateways, it can launch simply by
being viewed in an e-mail program. Rather than attaching the worm's executable
code to an e-mail message, Netsky.V uses two separate vulnerabilities in
Microsoft software to download the code from an infected PC. Many e-mail
gateways now block all e-mail attachments, so the worm's tactic is a way of
getting around that precaution, experts says.
- Security Patch available for ColdFusion MX 6.1 -
ColdFusion MX 6.1 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack if a
malicious user repeatedly uploads files and interrupts each upload before it
completes.
- US proposes rigorous spam sentencing - The US Sentencing Commission
(USSC) sent
its proposals for sentencing spammers off to Congress this week. Offences
under the recently-introduced Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited
Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act) will be treated as a felony.
Criminal sanctions apply where spam is sent using someone else's computer
without their permission or where bulk mailers misrepresent the source of a
message.
- Xbox Live to go offline for upgrade - Microsoft announced Friday
that
Xbox Live will be offline for about 24 hours starting at 6 a.m. PDT Wednesday,
to allow the company to upgrade services. New services include integration
between Xbox Live and MSN Messenger, the instant messaging component of
Microsoft's MSN Internet service, and online storage of customized game
content.
- ICQ to ping application developers - The Internet pioneer expects
to release the latest version of its instant messaging (IM) client, ICQ 4.0,
on Tuesday, sources said. At that time, the company will also announce an
initiative that
for the first time will allow partners to obtain ICQ application programming
interfaces (APIs), according to people familiar with the plan. ICQ is
expected to eventually release open APIs to the public, sources said, but it
has not yet set a timeframe for general availability.
- ATI to launch X800 PRO on 4th of May - Sources close to
ATI claim
that it can actually ship this card at the same day of launch. As for the
specs, the R420PRO or should we call it X800PRO will be clocked at 475 MHz, 25
MHZ higher then we suggested since yields are better, while the memory will be
clocked at 900MHz as we suggested before. Everything is packed into 180
millions of transistors and the card has 12 pipelines. The R420XT, Radeon
X800XT will be higher clocked card with 16 pipelines. This card is meant to
fight Geforce 6800 non Ultra - the one with 12 pipelines and should be in
retail as soon as ATI launches it.
- Nvidia to clear out millions from GPU inventory, likely to increase
DRAM demand - Nvidia is offering
discounts of 10%-20% to graphics card makers, with the goal of clearing
out several million graphics processing units (GPUs) from inventory before the
end of the first quarter of fiscal 2005, which ends April 30, according to
sources at Taiwanese makers.
- Sony, Toppan Develop Optical Disc Made from Paper - Japanese
electronics conglomerate Sony Corp and Toppan Printing Co Ltd have developed a
new optical disc, made mostly from paper, that they say will be compatible
with next-generation DVD technology. In a joint news release distributed late
Thursday, the two companies said the new disc was comprised 51 percent of
paper, enabling lower production costs. The disc can store up to five times
more information than current discs, because it is based on blue-laser DVD
technology.
- Samsung plans 30% NAND flash price drop in 2H - Samsung Electronics
plans to drop its prices for NAND flash by up to 30% in the second half of
this year, raising the barrier for new entrants in the market, according to a
company source.
- Is Magneto-Optical Storage The Way to Go? -
Fujitsu claims that hard drives, writeable DVDs and tape drives fall far
short for viable and safe backups. So what is the alternative? The DynaMO 1300
U2 Pocket magneto-optical storage system, Fujitsu says.
- Mega Roundup: 20 Hard Disk Drives with 80GB Storage Capacity -
The comparison of old and new hard disk drives helps us to estimate the
progress in the HDD performance. It's clear that the ex-champion, the DTLA
307075, can only compete with modern devices in applications that require
small random access time. Right now, it is difficult to name a single winner,
the best HDD of our days. Western Digital Raptor WD740GD was beyond
competition in synthetic patterns for Intel IOMeter, in Fileserver and
Webserver, and in WinBench 99, while FC-Test was favorable to two Maxtor
drives (6Y080P0 and 6Y080M0) and to Hitachi HDS722580VLSA80. I would also like
to single out Samsung SP0802N as it is very fast at copying in the FAT32 file
system.
- PLEXTOR PX-708UF review - In terms of performance,
the PX-708UF
takes a fairly big leap forward by supporting 8 different formats (8X DVD+R,
4X DVD-R, 4X DVD+RW, 2X DVD-RW, 12X DVD-ROM, 40X CD-R, 24X CD-RW AND 40X
CD-ROM).
- Athlon 64 FX 53 - Benchmarked in 32 & 64 bit Environments -
Although AMD's 64 bit CPUs have been available for some time now, a lot of
people are still using Athlon XP based systems, but I'm sure many like myself
are considering the jump to the 64 bit architecture. What sort of performance
increase can we expect, even if the Athlon XP system is overclocked? How does
running old 32 bit software under the 64 bit OS affect performance? How
efficient is the new K8 architecture compared to the K7 architecture employed
by the Athlon XPs? These are the sort of questions I have wanted to answer
myself and
with this review.
- The Desktop GPU Comparison Guide Rev. 3.0 - Adrian's Rojak
Pot let us know he has posted
Revision 3.0 of his GPU Comparison Guide.
- Kernel 2.4.26 - A new
Kernel v2.4.26 is available for
download.
- Tweak FX 5.05 -
Tweak FX is a powerful configuration tool for Windows. In contrast to
hundreds of so called 'tweaking programs', Tweak FX uses plugins, which can
extend its possibilites to a significant extent.
- ATV2000 v2.1.0.1 -
Freeware
ATV2000 is new generation of TV viewing and capture application based on
old ATV, but with reworked core.
- X Video Converter 3.5.5 -
In X Video Converter 3.5.5 the new possibility of converting to
VCD/DVD/SVCD compliant mpeg files is added. You can convert your source files
of every supported format (AVI MPEG WMV/ASF) to VCD, SVCD or DVD and then burn
it to a CD-R/CD-RW. You will be able to play the output disc at any VCD/DVD
player and watch your favorite movie at your home TV.
- MyIE2 v0.9.26 -
MyIE2 (download
lite ~
combo)
is a multi-tabbed browser based on the IE core (IE5.x or above required). It
can open multiple web pages within one browser window, and uses little system
resources. MyIE2 has a greatly integrated & customizable interface which
supports Skins, Plug-Ins, IE Extensions, & specific toolbars (example: GOOGLE
Toolbar).
- Quintessential Player 4.50 -
Quintessential Player
(download)
brings a huge arsenal of quality features, and uses simplicity as its decoy.
It is truly the most unique player available. Supports MP3, CD Audio, Ogg
Vorbis, WAV, VQF, MP+, Windows Media, and streaming audio including SHOUTcast.
- DJBCP Codec Pack 3.0.0 beta 1 - Contents of the
DJBCP Codec Pack 3.0.0 beta 1: DivX 5.1.1 Light Decoder,
XviD-1.0-RC4-05042004, DivX 3.11alpha, Elecard MPEG2 Decoder, Ogg Vorbis
Direct Show Filter 0995, AC3 Filter 0.7b, AC3ACM v0.7, and more. (thanks
Warp2Search)
- SpyBot-Search & Destroy 1.3 RC3 -
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.
- NEC 2500 hacked firmware - Thanks to Herrie over on the forums on
CDFreaks, he has released
his latest version of the Nec2500 hacked firmware (download
Win32 ~
DOS install) This
firmware will allow either 6x or 8x writing on nearly all 4x dvdr media.
(thanks Mark)
- Gamma Hotfix for Catalyst 4.2, 4.3, & 4.4 - Upon making changes to
certain monitor calibration software,
the
gamma settings will not be applied or loaded for the display. Color and
gamma profiles for third party applications and games are also affected. Users
who are experiencing this issue are advised to download and install
this driver HotFix.
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Updated:03:04 PM CEST Jun,20
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