Saturday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:27 PM CET - Jan,31 2004
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- Mimail mutant maximises Mydoom misery - The devastation created by
the Mydoom virus, which is still spreading, has been compounded by the
detection of a previously unknown mutant of the Mimail virus. One in every
five emails currently transmitted is thought to be carrying Mydoom, with four
million infected emails thought to be in circulation. Internet security firm
Panda Software said that
variant 'S' of
Mimail (W32/Mimail.S.worm) is very similar to its prolific predecessors
and could not have arrived at a worse time.
- How to Kill the Worm - For the past week, an insidious worm has
been crawling into vulnerable systems around the Internet, preparing for
attack this weekend--but there's still time to stop it from burrowing in and
recruiting your PC to join its planned assault, and to eject it if it's there.
All of the major
antivirus vendors have updated their virus definitions to identify and
eradicate the fast-moving worm, which goes by several names. It was identified
Monday as the Mydoom worm, and is also called Novarg and Mimail.R (a variant
of the Mimail worm that appeared in November).
- Yet More IE Confusion -
It's getting tougher and tougher to figure out exactly what Microsoft is
doing with Internet Explorer (IE). It's not just the IE patches (or lack of
them) that are confounding matters. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it has
put on hold modifications to IE that it had committed to make as a result of
its browser-plug-in patent loss to Eolas Technologies. Now - just as in
the case of the pending IE patches - we don't know when Microsoft will be
making these modifications. Sure, Microsoft wants everyone to forget browsers
are standalone entities and to pretend that they are just another
operating-system component. But this IE madness needs some resolution well
before 2006, when IE becomes one with Longhorn.
- Asian piracy damages Blockbuster - Video rental giant
Blockbuster has quit plans to enter the Chinese market - and closed its
Hong Kong stores - because of rampant piracy in Asia. The company said it will
shut its 24 Hong Kong outlets during the next 18 months. Two hundred employees
will lose their jobs. A Blockbuster Hong Kong spokesman said high rents were a
factor, but pirated films were a major problem. Pirated movies are available
in Hong Kong for as little as HK$10 (70p).
- Maligned 'Phantom' Gets a Boost - Infinium Lab's Phantom gaming
console may not be a phantom after all. On Tuesday, the startup company
announced
it had hired ex-Xbox executive Kevin Bachus as its new president and CEO.
Bachus, an industry veteran, was one of the four initiators of the Xbox
project at Microsoft. In joining Infinium, Bachus gives the fledgling company
a much-needed credibility boost.
- Tech giants lock down wireless content - Formerly known as "Project
Hudson,"
the effort will kick off publicly Monday, with the announcement of new
digital rights management (DRM) specification from industry group the Open
Mobile Alliance (OMA), as well as the formation of a new licensing body led by
Intel, Nokia, Panasonic and Samsung that will promote the technology,
according to sources. Toshiba was originally a member of the licensing group
but has since backed out. The licensing entity will be known as the Content
Management License Administrator (CMLA) and will promote an implementation of
the latest version of OMA's digital rights management standard.
- New 14% European display duty will damage PC industry -
Display market research firm Meko amplified its warnings about European custom
rules that will slap 14% of extra duty on DVI capable displays, and warned
the move
will both damage the PC industry and put off people buying new machines.
- Lindows offers software for free over P2P - The Linux software
seller plans to distribute its LindowsLive operating system, which retails for
$29.95,
for
free via peer-to-peer networks.
- Intel 64-bit Yamhill Technology Soon - Intel President and Chief
Operating Officer
Paul Otellini on Wednesday said the world's largest chip maker would
likely give its 32-bit microprocessors an upgrade to 64 bits once supporting
software becomes available. "You can be fairly confident that when there is
software from an application and operating system standpoint that we'll be
there," Otellini said, responding to a question about 64-bit technology, in an
interview with a Wall Street analyst that was broadcast over the Web. Otellini
said regular computer users were unlikely today to spend thousands of dollars
for computer memory for PCs that can cost as low as $699. Eventually, however,
as memory prices drop and software becomes more complex, he said, breaking the
4-gigabyte memory limit will make sense.
- Samsung announces three new DDR2 products - Samsung Electronics
announced it will add 1Gbit DDR2 chips, 2GB (512Mbit×32) DDR2 registered-DIMM
and 1GB (512Mbit×16) DDR2 unbuffered-DIMM to its product lines, according
to a company press statement on January 28. With the new products, Samsung’s
DDR2 solutions now include 1Gbit, 512Mbit and 256Mbit DDR2 chips operating at
400, 533 or 677MHz and 19 DDR2-based module combinations. The three new
products are in the sampling stage while the existing ones have been in mass
production. Samsung also said it is transferring 0.10-micron 1Gbit DDR2
production to its 12-inch Fab 12 in Hwasung-kun, South Korea.
- How fast are 8X DVD burners? - Even after more than half a decade
of relentless innovation, DVD writers continue to advance at a breakneck pace.
Where once creating a full 4.7GB DVD disc took more than 30 minutes, the new
crop of
8X DVD+R drives can do it in about 8 minutes.
- Intel Chipsets to Lack AGP Support? - In the past, Intel has stated
that the PCI Express transition will be very fast, and their chipset strategy
seems to be supporting that goal. Reading through the Intel roadmaps and
chipset specifications that are available, none of the 925X or 915 chipsets
list an AGP interface as a part of their specification.
Samsung E700 Mobile Phone Review - OCWorkbench has posted
a review of the Samsung E700 Mobile Phone.
Dell Digital Jukebox 15/20 GB review -
The Digital Jukeboxes cost $249 and $299 for the 15 GB and 20 GB versions,
respectively. But what exactly do you get for your money
Digitalway MPIO FL 100 review -
The FL 100 is one remarkable piece of technology. It is a digital music
player that plays a multitude of file types: MP3, WMA, MPEG-2, MPEG-2.5 and
ASF. Incorporated in the FL 100 is also an FM tuner and a digital recorder
that can record directly from FM radio as well as from it’s integrated
microphone. It comes in three versions offering onboard storage of 128MB,
256MB and 512MB and is expandable with a Multi-media card (MMC) or Secure
Digital card (SD). It works with both Windows (98, 2000, ME, XP) and Macintosh
(10.1) operating systems - it is not Linux compatible.
Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen NX 30GB -
Let’s
focus on the important points first. It has a 30 GB hard disk which can
hold up to 8000 average-sized tracks at 128Kb per second. That’s 500 hours of
music! In order to prevent skipping it has 8MB of built-in memory for
pre-caching tracks. I’ve been using it for a month now and it’s never skipped
once.
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Ultimate Edition review -
All in all, the 9600XT Ultimate Edition is a card designed for a specific
purpose; good graphics performance with no noise. Even with the glitches in
3DMark2001SE, it took very little air across the card to drastically drop the
temperatures under load. Innovative cooling, a great hardware and software
bundle, very good performance, a mid-range price, and an indication that it
can hit some fairly high overclocks makes this a PimpRig Approved product.
Gigabyte GV-N595U 256MB (GeForce FX 5950 Ultra) - Apart from the
above-mentioned drawbacks, if you have got a big bonus to splurge on the best
in the consumer graphics card industry,
the Gigabyte GV-N595U 256MB is a good choice. At an SRP of S$899, the
GV-N595U 256MB might seem a little steep for liking, though it's on par with
other GeForce FX 5950 Ultra graphics cards and the original ATI RADEON 9800XT
256MB.
GeForce FX5900 to FX5950 Ultra "Flash Mod" - "The
default clocks on the 5900's are 400Mhz core and 850Mhz memory. The clocks
on the 5950 Ultra are 475/950. My first thought was that my BFG FX5900 card
will overclock to 483/936 without artifacts, so how much would I gain? The
forum posts I found claimed that the 5900 using the 5950u bios will overclock
even higher than before the flash. Common knowledge is that the 5950u is the
same card as the 5900 and uses the same GPU, but has 256mb of faster memory on
board. The memory difference is not an issue because the bios will recognizes
the 128mb as "normal" and works fine. Being one that likes a challenge and has
a bit of nerve, (and a Radeon 9700 Pro to fall back on) I looked into this
further."
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD Available Capacities -
The Raptor WD740GD delivers a measured average access time of 7.8
milliseconds. Subtracting 3 ms to account for the rotational latency of a
10,000 RPM spindle uncovers a measured seek time of 4.8 milliseconds. As a
result, the final sample manages to shave half a millisecond off of the score
delivered by the pre-release unit. The WD740GD's actual seek time weighs in
about 0.3 milliseconds higher than Western Digital's claim- off, but still
quite close, especially for WD's frequently optimistic figures.
VGA cooler round-up -
Evercool VC-RE Twinkling VGA Cooler |
Thermaltake Extreme Giant III VGA Cooler |
Thermaltake
Extreme Giant II VGA Cooler
High-End CPU’s from AMD and Intel Compared - As you can see from
the past few pages of benchmarks,
AMD's Opteron looks to be the clear winner in terms of webserver and file
server performance. If given the choice between these two CPU's to go into
our servers, we would certainly choose the Opteron. The combination of the
Opteron's memory controller, dedicated memory busses, and high-bandwidth
HyperTransport system board links appears to propel the Opteron in to the lead
over the Xeon. Frankly, the Apache benchmarks were the kicker for us, as when
we first recognized how much more efficient the Opteron was processing data in
compared to the Xeon. The difference was quite noticeable, and certainly
cemented the Opteron as a very potent server CPU in our minds.
BFG Technologies Asylum Geforce FX5700U review -
The BFG Technologies Asylum Geforce FX 5700 Ultra is based on the NV36
Core, which incidentally, is also the first GPU that IBM has manufactured. The
core uses a .13 micron process which should keep things slightly cooler than
its predecessors. The Core weighs in at a respectable 475MHz and its 128MB of
2.2ns DDRII comes in at 450MHz (900MHz Effective). Finally, the RAMDAC is dual
400MHz
ABIT RADEON 9800 XT review -
Essentially ABIT’s RADEON 9800 XT offers everything you demand from a
high-end gamer’s card. It offers cutting-edge features and performance,
jaw-dropping image quality, and the quality you’d expect from a card that’s
built by ATI, even though it technically has ABIT’s name on it.
Razer Boomer Speed 2100 Mouse review -
Having the fastest, most responsive mouse on the market will surely help you
out in any BattleField or CS tournament. For those of you who don't want a
ball mouse, you might want to take a look at the newest mouse that Razer has
just announced, the Razer Viper 1000. A 1000 dpi optical mouse.
IIS 5.0 Security Guidelines - In this session, explore
how to design more secure Web sites using Microsoft Windows 2000 and
Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0.
Solution Guide for Windows Security and Directory Services for UNIX -
Provides process and technical guidance for consolidating security and
directory services to provide authentication and authorization in
heterogeneous UNIX and Windows environments using Windows Server 2003.
Maxxing Out The NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 Guide! - Adrian's Rojak
Pot has just posted
the Maxxing Out The NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 Guide.
Avant Browser 9.01 Build 100 -
Avant Browser (download)
is an upgrade to Internet Explorer. Avant Browser is a fast, stable,
user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser. Avant Browser is freeware.
Fresh Diagnose 6.50 -
Fresh Diagnose (download)
is 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, video system information, mainboard information and more.
1by1 1.44 -
1by1 (including
IRAssistant +
mpglib.dll 0.92
+ Compressor
& Wider 1.1 bonuses) is a very small sized player which is not only small:
It plays whole directories without any playlist. Navigating through your
tracks has never been so easy.
MP3DirectCut 1.35 -
MP3DirectCut
(MP3DirectCut
Languages ~
mpglib.dll) is a small tool for editing MPEG audio directly. You can
remove parts, change the volume, split files or copy regions to new files. All
without the need to decompress your MP3 into PCM/WAV. This saves work,
encoding time and disk space. And there is no quality loss through any
re-compressions.
AWStats 6.0 Stable -
AWStats (download
~
changelog) is a short for Advanced Web Statistics. It's a free powerful
and featureful tool that generates advanced web (but also ftp or mail) server
statistics, graphically. This log analyzer works as a CGI or from command line
and shows you all possible information your log contains, in few graphical web
pages. It uses a partial information file to be able to process large log
files, often and quickly.
AMD Athlon 64 Processor PowerNow v3.0.4 -
AMD PowerNow! Technology (download)
allows the system to dynamically and automatically select CPU speed, Voltage
and Power combination that match the instantaneous user performance need.
These changes can happen as often as 30 times per second.
PlexTools Professional version 2.10 - Plextor Europe has just
released
an updated version of the PlexTools Professional software.
NVIDIA Linux Drivers 1.0-5336 - These drivers
contain support for Linux 2.6 kernels, fixes AGP failures on some VIA
motherboards and problem that prevented X from running on Samsung X10 laptops.
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Updated:03:04 PM CEST Jun,20
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