Sunday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 12:18 PM CEST - Aug,01 2004
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- Is Real's 'hacking' of iPod legal? - Code-crackers risk fines and
prison time when they defeat copy-protection technology, but such draconian
rules
likely don't apply in the case of RealNetworks and its iPod "hack," legal
experts said. Efforts by both code-crackers and Real could undermine Apple
Computer's plans for its popular digital music player and its iTunes Music
Store, which together have put Apple so far ahead of the competition that
companies such as Real appear ready to do virtually anything to catch up.
- Hackers plan global game of "capture the flag" - If everything goes
as planned, for 72 hours next February hackers from all over the United States
will
hit targets across the Internet in the largest mass attack to date. But
the affected systems won't be corporate Web servers or networks, they'll be
computers set up and maintained by other hackers as part of a capture-the-flag
game. When the digital dust clears, the team from either the East Coast or the
West Coast will be named winner.
- DNS opens networks to data attacks - The security
hack essentially uses data transferred by domain name service (DNS) servers
to hide additional information in the network communications. DNS servers act
as the white pages of the Internet, invisibly transforming easy-to-remember
domain names--such as www.cnet.com--into the numerical network addresses used
by computers. Moreover, corporate security measures, such as firewalls, tend
to ignore DNS data because they assume it's harmless, said Dan Kaminsky, a
security researcher for telecommunications firm Avaya and a speaker at the
Defcon hacking conference
- Mozilla User Interface Spoofing Vulnerability -
A vulnerability
has been reported in Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox, allowing malicious
websites to spoof the user interface. The problem is that Mozilla and Mozilla
Firefox don't restrict websites from including arbitrary, remote XUL (XML User
Interface Language) files. This can be exploited to "hijack" most of the user
interface (including tool bars, SSL certificate dialogs, address bar and
more), thereby controlling almost anything the user sees.
- The File Sharing Experiment -
The
file sharing experiment is an attempt to catalog some financial figures
about how much revenue the industries backing organizations such as the RIAA,
MPAA, and SPA have gained by file sharing. The file sharing database consists
of a list of items and prices which contributing users have both purchased,
and would not have purchased if they hadn't first downloaded/shared identical
or related files. The ultimate goal is to show what (if any) significant
revenue the RIAA, MPAA, and SPA have to credit to the file sharing community,
and hopefully convince some of the organizations supporting them that their
money would be better spent taking advantage of this market rather than trying
to exterminate it.
- IBM's eFuse technology portends adaptable chips - IBM Corp.
unveiled new chip technology on Friday (July 30) that it said is able to
adjust its own functionality and perform trade-offs between performance and
power consumption without human intervention. The technology, called "eFuse,"
is said to combine software algorithms and microscopic electrical fuses to
produce chips able to regulate and adapt to their own actions in response to
changing conditions and system demands.
- DiVX to move 20 million CE devices by Christmas - If anyone out
there thinks that there is room and enthusiasm for film download services like
Movielink and CinemaNow, but ones which are properly run and which actually
want to grow, they could do worse than take a long hard look at what DiVX is
up to. The 100 man start up is on its third round of funding and has already
passed into profit and is getting ready for a massive Christmas that could
quadruple its revenues overnight. The company has been working for three years
towards a scenario when CE manufacturers bundle the DiVX MPEG 4 based-codecs
into equipment that is sold in retail. So far it has sold 2 million such
devices, but reckons
it will sell another 18 million by Christmas. Big jump.
- Intel Preps New “Extreme Edition” Chips for Socket 478, Socket 775 -
Apparently, Intel's slightly outdated Socket 478 infrastructure will see a
number of fresh high-end processors, something that Intel did not want to
introduce initially, such as,
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.60GHz, Intel Pentium 4 "Prescott" 3.60GHz
and even Intel Pentium 4 "Prescott" 3.80GHz processors. Furthermore, the
company will also introduce Celeron D in mPGA478 packaging at up to 3.46GHz
speeds in addition to a yet another entry-level Pentium 4 chip with 2.26GHz
clock-speed, 533MHz processor system bus and 512KB of cache.
- Suunto's n3 Adds Web Access to Watch Wear - THG takes a look
at the Suunto n3 watch, which besides telling time, uses Microsoft's
DirectBand technology to wirelessly download news, weather and other
information in real time for $9.95 a month. But is the whole package really
ready for prime time?
- SimpleTech PC3700 Nitro Dual-Channel Kit review - Adrian's Rojak
Pot has just posted
a review of the 1GB SimpleTech PC3700 Nitro Dual-Channel Kit.
- Gigabyte CPU coolers review - TrustedReviews have tested
a
couple of Gigabyte CPU coolers, namely the GH-PCU31-VH 3D Cooler Ultra GT
& GH PCU31-SD Cooler Ultra.
- Zalman ZM80D-HP GPU Cooler -
The
ZM80D-HP expands on Zalman's already excellent design by adding a second
heat pipe that connects the front and back plates. The second heat pipe is
especially nice, in theory, for cooling newer GPUs that give off more and more
heat. The ZM80D-HP also includes heat sinks for the memory on your graphics
card. The heat sinks for the memory are built to size so they will definitely
fit with the heat pipe installed.
- Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse review -
This mouse is very comfortable and does its job well. For $35 it is a good
deal as wireless technology is not that cheap to produce. Personally, I like
the feel of the mouse and I dig the smooth-action scroll wheel, though it does
take some time to get broken in.
- New Gaming Keyboards: Which Is The Best For You? - Finding the
right keyboard is crucial, and
THG takes a look at some for you.
- Guite to Upgrading Your PC - PC Review has published
a guide
with tips on the best value upgrades for your PC, along with suitable
recommendations based on current technology and prices.
- Mydoom, Zindos, and Doomjuice Worm Removal Tool (KB836528) -
This tool
(download)
helps to remove the Mydoom.A, Mydoom.B, Mydoom.E, Mydoom.F, Mydoom.G,
Mydoom.J, Mydoom.L, Mydoom.O, Zindos.A, Doomjuice.A, and Doomjuice.B worms
from infected systems
- PDF Tweak Utility -
This tool Enable/Disable
the plug-ins as needed, Turn off all Updates features, Disable the splash
screen during program startup, Remove the My eBooks folder created in My
Documents, Turn off the advertisements for Adobe products in the upper-right
corner of the toolbar, Remove PrintMe and Adobe Reader icons, Disable Browser
Integration, Disable confirmation dialog when closing Adobe Reader, Better
speed for LAN and Cable connection, Clear Adobe Reader Recent Files History,
Restore to original settings at any time.
- AeroBrowser Beta One -
AeroBrowser is a free next-generation web browser based on the look of
Longhorn. It is small in filesize, completely spyware free, and doesn't track
your history. It is based on the IE engine, but future releases will include
dual-engine switching capability with both IE and Gecko.
- Google Toolbar 2.0.113 -
The Google Toolbar (download
winxp/2k ~
win9x/me) increases your ability to find information from anywhere on the
web and takes only seconds to install. When the Google Toolbar is installed,
it automatically appears along with the Internet Explorer toolbar.
- CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) 1.12.063 -
CCleaner (Crap Cleaner)
is a freeware system optimisation tool. That removes unused and temporary
files from your system - allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and
giving you more hard disk space.
- Fresh Diagnose 6.70 -
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.
- Hmonitor 4.1.4.3 -
Hmonitor has much
more functions than MotherBoard Monitor, for example, including thermocontrol
features and COM/PerfMon API support.
- CS Fire Monitor 1.4.4 (free) -
CS Fire
Monitor (download)
is a complete professional monitoring system which reports on a computer's
bandwidth, CPU, drives, hardware, IP, memory, netsats, processes, services,
software & tasks.
- PowerStrip 3.52 -
PowerStrip
(download) provides
advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of
graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest video
cards. It supports multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors,
simultaneously, under every Windows operating system.
- Systernals PendMoves tool - There are several applications, such as
service packs and hotfixes, that must replace a file that's in use and is
unable to. Windows therefore provides the MoveFileEx API to rename or delete a
file and allows the caller to specify that they want the operation to take
place the next time the system boots, before the files are referenced. Session
Manager performs this task by reading the registered rename and delete
commands from the HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetControlSession
ManagerPendingFileRenameOperations value.
Pendmoves.exe is
able to view these pending operations,
Movefile.exe is to use this mechanism yourself.
- A-Tuner 1.9.5.6177 -
A-Tuner
is a small tool for changing Anti-Aliasing (including all unofficial modes),
Anisotropic Filtering, Vsync, MipMap LOD (Level Of Detail) Bias settings on
your ATI and Nvidia cards and should work with Nvidia Detonators 23.11 - 61.77
and ATI Catalyst 3.0 - 4.8 for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.This
applet dumps the contents of the pending rename/delete value and also
reports an error when the source file is not accessible.
- ATI Tray Tools v1.0.1.358 -
ATI
Tray Tools is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which
then allows instant access to options and settings. Quite handy and quite a
small download.
- Sound Blaster Audigy 2/ZS Drivers 5.12.01.444 - Creative has
released
an updated Sound Blaster Audigy 2/ZS drivers (EU
mirror) for WinXP. (Note: unzip it into a folder and run ctzapxx and it will
also work with the Audigy 1)
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Updated:11:06 PM CEST Jun,04
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