Thursday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:57 PM CEST - Sep,18 2003
- Post a comment / read (1)
- SSH security glitch exposes all Linux and BSD networks, patch
re-released -
A critical security flaw in SSH (OpenSSH
patch and advisory ~
CERT
CA-2003-24 advisory) has been revealed that threatens servers worldwide.
SSH is a widely used encrypted remote management shell for Unix, Linux and BSD
platforms. Experts say attackers have been exploiting the vulnerability to
gain access to systems illegally for months.
- Hackers push new software for attacks - Security researchers on
Tuesday
detected hackers distributing software to break into computers using flaws
announced last week in some versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating
system. The threat from this new vulnerability -- which already has
drawn stern warnings from the Homeland Security Department -- is remarkably
similar to one that allowed the Blaster virus to infect hundreds of thousands
of computers last month.
- Is Big Brother is chillin' in your next DVD disk package? - In the
latest technological "advance" to further whittle away our right of privacy,
Tesco has unveiled
a scheme to embed a radio tag in of all things, DVD packaging at a
supermarket in Sandhurst. This marketing tool gone 007 (Austin powers would
never approve, these things were taboo in the 70's) will be used to track the
movement of products as they are lifted from the shelves, beeping happily all
the way to the home. I don't know about you but I don't like paying to be
surveiled.
- Intel to launch gaming CPU - Intel is going after PC gamers with a
special processor called the Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading Technology, Extreme
Edition, announced at the Intel Developer Forum here this week. Company
executives say the new chip will begin shipping to PC vendors in 30 to 60
days, but didn't announce pricing.
The CPU will include a 2MB Level 3 cache, which should help boost its
performance in demanding applications such as graphics-heavy games. Today's
Pentium 4 processors include a 512KB L2 cache, but no L3 cache (in fact, none
of Intel's desktop processors include an L3 cache). At launch the processor
will run at 3.2 GHz, the same speed as Intel's current top-end Pentium 4
- Leadtek unveils new WinFast DV2000 - an internal digital VCR -
Leadtek Research has
unveiled the
WinFast DV2000. A new multimedia center for video processing. The WinFast
DV2000 sports a IEEE1394 port and supports DirectBurn enabling to connect your
PC directly to DC/DV sources and record video directly to files. In addition,
an add-in connector is bundled providing 2 more IEEE1394 ports.
- NEC Improves Notebook Fuel Cell - NEC has
reduced the volume of a prototype fuel cell for notebooks--unveiled just
over two months ago--by 20 percent while maintaining the same power output,
the Tokyo company says. The company unveiled its latest fuel cell at the World
PC Expo show in Chiba, Japan, according to Diane Foley, an NEC spokesperson in
Tokyo.
- Nanotech to cut chip transistor sizes - By 2010, one billion PCs
and 2.5 billion handheld devices as powerful as Pentium 4 systems will be
linked in a global computing network, according to Intel's president and chief
operating officer, Paul Otellini. By 2005 our processor transistors will be
down to 65nanometres (nm), with all the benefits in reduced size and power
consumption that that will bring," said Otellini. "By 2007 we'll cut that to
45nm, then 32nm
by 2009, and in 2011 we expect to be at 22nm, smaller than DNA molecules
are wide."
- Video Cameras Round-up - PCMagazine reviewed
eight consumer DV camcorders that cost $1,000 or less. Two are slightly
larger than a pack of cigarettes, three others are just a tad bulkier, and two
are traditionally shaped camcorders. They also tested the Sharp VL-Z7U: Its
unique split-body construction delivers remarkable comfort during shooting.
- Sony Clie PEG-NX80V Review - If you've been wanting a
general-purpose digital camera but what you really need is a PDA, Sony seems
to have the answer-the
Sony Clié PEG-NX80V ($600 street). The NX80V is the most highly evolved of
the Clié NX series, with a large 320-by-480 display, a usable (but not
lovable) QWERTY keyboard, a Sony Wireless LAN CF slot, an MP3 player, a voice
recorder, AV remote control, and saving the best for last, a truly usable
1.3-megapixel camera.
- NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra Review - Adrian's Rojak Pot has posted
a review of the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics card.
- Gainward Powepack FX Ultra/1600 GS CoolFX (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900
Ultra) review - Well, judging by the overclocking scores the water cooling
is really effective. The system was equipped with NO additional fans.
The overclocking helps a lot to the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra. But is it worth
such an unreasonably high price? Not sure. But nobody talk Matrox out of
selling its Parhelia at high prices. I think there'll be few Gainward Powepack
FX Ultra/1600 GS CoolFX cards released. Primarily for enthusiasts.
- ALi M1687 Athlon 64 K8 Reference Mainboard Review - The Athlon 64
(Socket 754) will be officially announced on 23rd September 2003. ALi which
has been quiet for the past 1 year is back in the market. ALi/ULi offers a
long ready
solution for the K8 and it is the M1687 + M1563. M1687 is ALi's new
generation North bridge that offers a high-performance and cost-effective
solution for PC systems. It supports the AMDR K8 Processors. With AGP
1x/2x/4x/8x support, M1687 provides system designers with enough headroom to
interface with different graphics solutions to fulfill various market
requirements. The M1687 introduces HyperTransportt bus, a next generation link
bus that can reach up to 6.4GB/sec to K8 CPU side and up to 1.6GB/sec to our
south bridge side in bandwidth.
- Four Way AMD Athlon XP Heatsink Shootout - Here on the other
end of the scale, we have
an excellent cooler from ThermalTake which performs very well. While it
doesn't cool as well as the Jet 7 or Aero 7+, it is extremely quiet that you
cannot hear it. It's going to be perfect for a lot of people and it's
definitely one fan that hasn't sacrificed performance for noise. Overall we
have an excellent job by ThermalTake and an original design, in contract to
the TR2-M2. Thanks to its excellent cooling and ultra low noise, we don't see
any reason not to give it our Editor's Choice award.
- Intel Stock 3.06GHz Copper/Aluminum Heatsink Review - FrostyTech
has posted an
Intel Stock 3.06GHz Copper/Aluminum Heatsink review
- CoolMaster Aero 4 Lite Heatsink Review - There are a total of
three different cables you must deal with when installing the Aero4.
Because of the voltage thirsty blower, CoolerMaster used a 4 pin Molex to
connect the power to the fan. There is also a 3 pin connector to handle the
RPM monitoring functions and of course the fan controller itself.
- CoolerMaster Jet 7 CPU Cooler Review - You like noise? this is your
cooler !, the radial fan makes a tremendous amount of noise while it's
spinning at it's highest RPM,
The cooler performs better than the Aero 7 with only a 1800t-bred !,
however it makes more noise than the Aero 7 though, Installation is easy, the
looks are fantastic. Another review can be found at
VoidedWaranty
- Plextor PX-708 DVD Burner Review - Techconnect has posted
a review of the Plextor PX-708 8x DVD burner.
- MSI CR52-M (52/32/52) CD-RW -
The 40x default write speed is one other thing that is a first to CD-R/W
drives. There are advantages and disadvantages about this feature we talked
about earlier in the review. If for some reason you are burning CD's
constantly then maybe this isn't the drive for you considering you would have
to hold the eject button down for 3 seconds every time you insert new media,
and while that may not seem like a big deal to some we can understand that
could get really annoying. Some of you may find this feature to be top notch
being able to choose what speed you want to write at, and writing at 40x
speeds and being pretty quiet at the same time is a bonus.
- Samsung SF-555P Multifunction Laser Printer Review - TweakNews has
posted a
Samsung SF-555P Multifunction Laser Printer review.
- Early XGI Benchmarks - Definitely interesting as this is
what we
can expact performance wise. The test platform is a 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4
system with 512 MB DDR memory. The software used, as stated 3D Mark 03 and the
end result is the overall score at defailt benchmarking: Volari Duo V8 ultra -
5500-5600 3D Marks, Volari Duo V5 Ultra - 4000+ 3D Marks, Volari V8 Series -
3000+ 3D Marks, Volari V5 Series - 2000+ 3D Marks, Volari V3 Series - 1000+ 3D
Marks.
- Workstation platforms compared -
Clearly, the Xeons at 2.66GHz outran the dual Opteron 240 setup in most of
our tests. With its faux-quad-processors via Hyper-Threading, our dual Xeon
Tiger i7505 system ripped through multithreaded tests, absolutely devastating
the competition in Cinema 4D rendering. As new Xeon DP chips with 1MB cache,
higher core clock speeds, and 800MHz front-side bus speeds with dual-channel
DDR400 memory become available, the Xeon should become even more formidable.
Obviously, Intel is not taking the Opteron threat lightly.
- XP vs. Pentium 4 : The Ultimate 32-bit CPU Showdown -
The winner of this 32-bit CPU showdown goes to Intel
Pentium 4 for its excellent performance, consistent performance scaling and
reasonable pricing strategy. Although AMD gave Intel a good fight to the end
and lost the showdown, they did not walk away empty-handed as we have decided
to award them the Best Value award for its
excellent value offered by both the Athlon XP 2500+ and Athlon XP 2600+
processors.
- How To Overclock An Opteron - The person was running an Athlon 64
3200+. While keeping the memory at a 1:1 ratio, he was only able to raise the
FSB from 200 to 215MHz. However,
if he changed
the memory speed from 200MHz to 166MHz, he was able to increase the FSB to
239MHz (and at least be stable enough to run 3DMark).
- NVIDA's Money Lures EIDOS To Pull Patch - EIDOS Interactive,
the publisher for Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness issued a patch a couple of
weeks ago for the game which happened to include a way to use the game as a
DX9 benchmark. Since it shows NVIDIA hardware performing slower than ATI,
EIDOS has pulled it down. (thanks
GamersDepot)
- KDE 3.1.4 (Linux) - KDE
is a powerful Open Source graphical desktop environment for Unix workstations.
It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality, and outstanding graphical
design with the technological superiority of the Unix operating system.
- Mozilla 1.5 RC1 -
Mozilla is an
open-source web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and
portability.
- MSIE6.0 SP1 Web Page Does Not Load Correctly - When you browse the
Web, you may notice that frames on some Web sites are not displayed correctly,
and the HTML code may not be fully rendered.
This issue may occur after you install the Internet Explorer hotfix from
the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article: 331596 - Data Is Truncated
When You Download a Gzip-Encoded Excel File in Internet Explorer. Download
update from
here.
- OE6 SP1 Update: MAPI Address & ResolveName Do Not Return Names -
MAPIAddress and MAPIResolveName
Do Not Return Names for Distribution Lists When Outlook Express Is Your
Default E-Mail Client. Download update from
here.
- Windows Media Player 9 Update - Microsoft has issued a new
knowledge base advisory in which the software company announces the
availability of a fix (WinXP/2k
~
WinME) for a "Slight Delay When Windows Media Player 9 Series Switches
Files Streamed from a Windows Media Services 9 Series Server". The symptoms
you may experience are: When you stream files from a Windows Media Services 9
Series server, you may notice a delay of five or six seconds when you switch
between files.
- Game Editor 1.1 -
Generate games for Linux,
PocketPC and Windows in a single executable file. With few clicks, export
games to any supported platform.
- Trillian Basic 0.74E - The current version of
Trillian
Basic is 0.74E. It is available free of charge with no ads and no spyware.
- SpamPal v1.51 beta -
SpamPal sits between
your email program and your mailbox (POP3/IMAP4), checking your email as you
retrieve it. Any email messages that it considers to be spam will be "tagged"
with a special header; you simply configure your email client to filter
anything with this header into a separate folder and your spam won't be mixed
up with the rest of your email anymore.
- AntiVir Personal Edition 6.21.09.20.0916 -
The AntiVir
Personal Edition (download)
offers the effective&free protection against computer viruses for the
individual and private use on a single PC-workstation.
- AIDA32 3.78.7 Preview -
AIDA32 (download)
is a professional system information, diagnostics and benchmarking program
running on Win32 platforms. It extracts details of all components of the PC.
It can display information on the screen, print it, or save it to file in
various formats like HTML, CSV or XML.
- PowerStrip 3.46 Beta Build 418 -
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
Radeon 9700DV and Matrox Parhelia.
- Coding Workshop Ringtone Convertor 4.5.5 -
The Ringtone Converter (download)
is a software program for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac systems that
allows you to add new ringtones to your mobile phone without the need for
cables or expensive premium rate SMS services. The Ringtone Converter supports
most makes and models of phone including Audiovox, Alcatel, Ericsson, HTC,
Kyocera, Motorola, Nokia, NEC, Panasonic, Philips, Sagem, Samsung, Sony,
Sendo, Sharp and Siemens handsets, with more added every month.
|
Updated:10:31 PM CEST Jun,20
(new)
