SECURITY...

• Microsoft offers free antispyware - As promised, Microsoft has rolled out a free antispyware program (direct download) which you can download from this page. There is a known incompatibility between Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) and Windows Media Center Extender. If you install Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) on a computer running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Windows Media Center Extender will not be able to establish a remote connection.
• All Symantec Products All Versions Until 2005 - Remote Stack Buffer Overflow - Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2004 installs many DLLs and COM objects. One of its DLL's "ccErrDsp.dll" has a vulnerability in the "sProduct" parameter at the "DisplayError" function of the object. Symantec is currently investigating this issue.
• Microsoft Preps Patches for "Critical" Flaws - Microsoft Corp.'s first monthly patch day for 2005 will include security fixes for three vulnerabilities in Windows products, the software giant said Thursday. It  is not known whether all three flaws are "critical," and Microsoft is withholding details until the patches are released. The next batch of patches is due Tuesday, Jan. 11.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Magazine Names Seattle Fittest U.S. City - Seattle has been named the fittest city in the United States in the February issue of Men's Fitness magazine, leaping past the buff competition from Honolulu, Colorado Springs, San Francisco and Denver. Houston was named the fattest city for the fourth time in five years, followed by Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis and Chicago.
• Genetic HIV Resistance Deciphered - Scientists unravel the mysteries of AIDS immunity, finding that ethnicity and heredity make some people resistant to HIV infection -- but only if they have the right genes.
• Radar satellites capture tsunami wave height - A pair of satellites that happened to be over the Indian Ocean just after the massive Sumatran earthquake on 26 December have captured the only measurements of the tsunamis' height in deep water. The images, which will be released within days, will help improve future forecasts of the deadly waves. The satellites saw the first two wavefronts produced by the main quake, spaced 500 to 800 kilometres apart. These reached a maximum height of 50 centimetres in the open ocean.
• The black hole that cannot stop eating - Astronomers have recorded the most powerful eruption of energy yet observed in the universe. It comes from a gigantic black hole, a billion times more massive than our sun, which is swallowing vast amounts of material from its surrounding galaxy. The eruption was discovered with the Chandra X-ray observatory operated by Nasa, the US space agency, and is reported in the journal Nature.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Bill Gates : CES Coverage 2005 - Bill Gates, like many years before, headed up the keynote (live 56k / 100k / 300k) for the Consumer Electronics Show 2005 (news) Introduced with some light hearted comedy by TV presenter Conan O'Brian, Bill Gates keynote announced Microsoft's plans for the "digital lifestyle" in 2005. Another coverage: G4techTV CES 2005 coverage | CES 2005 Digital Camera Coverage | various gadgets @ Engadget | CES 2005 news @ NetworkLife | CES Coverage @ CNET | Photos From the Second 24 Hours @ PCWorld
• Gigabit Transfer Rates Over Power Lines? - Penn State engineers, Pouyan Amirshahi and Mohsen Kavehrad, estimated in a research paper released Wednesday that their system could deliver data at close to one gigabit per second over medium-voltage electrical lines in ideal conditions, with speeds of hundreds of megabits per second available to home users. (thanks Slashdot.org)
• Next-generation DVD formats rally support - Groups representing the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD--both of which are blue laser formats aiming to become the technology to replace DVD--made their announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show here. Both formats offer storage capacities of about 10 times what the DVD format can hold. A DVD disc can store about 4.7GB of data on a single side, while Blu-ray Disc can hold up to 50GB and HD DVD can hold 30GB.  In related news, EA and Vivendi Universal have pledged allegiance to the Blu-Ray cause, setting them firmly in camp alongside another hundred-or-so companies (and Sony) using the new DVD disc technology.

HARDWARE... 

• ATI announces TV Wonder Elite - This new TV capture card incorporates the same advanced video processing technology that ATI developed for high-end televisions - almost all the major TV manufacturers are using ATI's digital television (DTV) technology. As a result, TV WONDER ELITE delivers high-end TV image quality to PCs, offering exceptional visual results previously seen only in home theater settings. ATI equips the Elite with a silicone TV and FM radio tuner which delivers slightly better image quality than analog tuners. And instead of requiring an external audio cable for audio transmission, the Elite passes audio via the PCI bus. The TV Wonder Elite is compatible with Windows XP and Media Center Edition 2005 and carries a MSRP of $149.
• Creative's Triple Duty External Sound Blaster - Perhaps the most versatile external device ever introduced, Creative's new USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor is first a THX-certified external sound card that delivers 24-bit Advanced HD in 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 surround sound with EAX, Dolby Digital DX and DTS-ES support. In addition, it can encode video via its onboard LSI Logic DoMiNO A/V processor into either MPEG or DV format from S-Video, composite and even FireWire camcorder.
• Motherboards Compared: 865P and 915P chipset for Socket 775 - Both the Albatron and the Chaintech boards offered good performance and are viable options for persons looking to upgrade to a socket 775 platform. The Albatron 865 PE7 Pro seems to offer a slight performance advantage in memory subsystem benchmarks and in PCMark as well. As far as 3D benchmarks go, I'm going to call it a tie. I think each board will appeal to a different set of people, let me explain.
• PCI-Express Mainstream Roundup Part 2: nVidia 6600 and 6600GT - Still saving up your lunch money for a PCI Express graphics card? Salivating in anticipation for Nvidia 6600 series graphics card benchmark numbers? Or just bored enough to read part II of our PCI Express Graphics card comparison? No matter, we got you covered here as MadShrimps added an Albatron 6600 and a XFX 6600GT to the mix, stirred the pot, and came up with some interesting numbers that just may change your opinion of mainstream PCI Express graphics cards.
• ATI Radeon X850 XT PE and X800 XL - The X800 XL is a much more interesting product. Priced $100 below the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT at $299, the card has the potential to become a hit. The performance certainly isn't shabby at all, trailing not too far behind the X850 XT PE. Both cards should become available during the first few months in 2005.
• ATI's Radeon X800 XL - So the $50 price cut and full four quad performance at 400MHz seek to make X800 XL arguably the most attractive PCI Express SKU for the gamer looking for serious performance punch. Partnered with 1000MHz GDDR3 memory with full 256-bit wide access to the GPU's memory controller, for around 32GB/sec of theoretical bandwidth, let's take a closer look at the reference board to see if the on-paper promise is fulfilled.
• Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro - This definitely qualifies to be considered a prosumer card. The lack of balanced ins and outs prevent it for being a true professional card, along with some minor resampling issues, but if you use unbalanced lines, then this card can satisfy your recording needs, even for 24-bit recording. For the serious gamer, you get everything you need for serious power gaming, plus you can run your game consoles through the inputs for Dolby and DTS decoding. Movie lovers will enjoy the clarity and dynamic range offered. Music lovers will be able to have the quality they desire for whatever rigs they use, be it multimedia systems, HT systems, or quality headphones and dedicated headphone amplifiers. If you are looking for a one-card solution for everything, and are serious about wanting quality playback, the Audigy 4 Pro is one to seriously consider.
• Buffalo Wireless Router - Of course being almost identical to the WBR2-G54 means the WBR2-G54S is still a superb router and the high transfer speeds will bridge the gap for many high data transfer users until the proposed arrival of 125n, but for the average punter the WBR2-G54 offers better value for money right now.
• Xerox Phaser 3150 Mono Laser Printer - The Phaser 3150 is a large, square-cut printer with no pretensions to be anything else. A 250-sheet A4 paper tray slides in underneath the main mechanism and a 100-sheet multi-purpose tray unfolds from its front. The paper falls into a deeply indented tray in the printer's top surface and there's no paper-up output tray at the rear, though there is a fold-down panel to help deal with any paper jams.
• A4Tech Easy Go Optical Notebook Mouse - MkhailTech take a look at A4Tech's Easy Go miniature notebook optical mouse.

GUIDES...

• Sharky Extreme's January video cards price guide - The video card price lists are not meant to duplicate the vendor selection of an online price engine like PriceWatch, but instead looks to present a view of the overall video card marketplace.
• Beginners Guides: Annual PC Checkup - There comes a time in every once-new computer's life when it just doesn't feel fresh anymore. You know, when it's taking 5-10 minutes to boot up into Windows, the fans are making funny squealing noises, and there's a wad of orange cat hair protruding from the rear fan grille. It's the computer equivalent of senility, your once precious box has lost its edge.Time for action.
• 6800 Ultra SLI Benchmarks -  The only problem I had was getting NBA Live 2005 to work, does not seem to be compatible at this time with SLI, but no worries, I'm sure a driver update will take care of that
• Howto upgrade your Hotmail account to 250MB - Here's a tip to get your Hotmail account upgraded to 250MB instead of the regular 2MB which can be a little bit too small sometimes.

SOFTWARE...

• Microsoft AntiSpyware BETA - Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software.
• Microsoft ActiveSync 3.8 - Microsoft ActiveSync 3.8 is the latest synchronization software for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones. ActiveSync 3.8 contains fixes making synchronization more trouble free than ever before and includes all the significant improvements brought to you in ActiveSync 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7.1: it is easy to install and use while offering the best levels of reliability.
• nLite 0.99.6 Beta  - Mainly, it's a little bit of a slipstreamer, customizer, reducer and iso creator all in one package. Works for every version of Windows XP installation, tested with SP2 build 2180.
• Eudora 6.2.0.14 Beta - In response to the growing problem of online "phishing" schemes, Eudora 6.2+ introduces ScamWatch, which analyses the weblinks within email messages for phishing or other deceptive practices and warns the user to exercise caution before making the connection. Specifically, ScamWatch looks for the use of IP addresses rather than hostnames or hostnames in link URLs that don’t match hostnames in the link text.
• Torrent Searcher 3.1 - With Torrent Searcher 3.1 you can search for torrents. It's very small and easy to use. There are no ads included at all.
• ConfigInspector - ConfigInspector displays the most important information about you system. The application possesses the same features as Windows XP task manager and much more.
• Nero Mega Plugin Pack 1.0 - This Plugin Pack will give you more features than Enterprise Edition.
• DVD Decrypter 3.5.2.0 - DVD Decrypter is a free tool which enables you decrypt and copy a DVD to your PC's hard disk. From there you can choose to watch them with the likes of PowerDVD and WinDVD or you can re-encode them to MPEG1 (VCD) or DivX. DVD Decrypter 3.5.2.0 supports various types of copy protection via corrupt disc structure, supports bitsetting on NEC, Plextor and AOpen burners, supports multimonitor configurations, has a modified burn engine that relieves stress from the I/O subsystem while burning the lead-in, the write retries have been reintroduced and a few bugs have been fixed as well.
• USB Mouserate Switcher V0.2 Beta - Increase USB port sample rate to 250hz or 1000hz boost precision and improve mice accuracy.
• PlexTools Professional update, v2.19a - PlexTools is an application designed for use with Plextor optical drives only and allows you to control every feature of your Plextor drive. This new version adds suport for latest drivers.
• NVIDIA Optimized drivers V0.4a - TechConnect offers a new optimized drivers v0.4a based on Forceware 71.24. They have added support for all cards except Go series and there's a mall frame rate boost in DirectX/OpenGL games.
• ForceWare 67.65 Win2000/XP  - This set originates from Asus - dated the 30th of December. These drivers are not WHQL (Microsoft tested) signed, if your graphics cvard is not suppoprted then please use the supplies modified .inf file.
• Toshiba offers 16x DVD-R upgrade for SD-R5372 - Toshiba Storage Device Division has released a free firmware upgrade for its SD-R5372 DVD recordable drive that will boost the DVD-R write speed to 16X.
• Plextor PX-716 firmware soon - Probably sometime next week, Plextor will release a new firmware (v1.04) forPlextor PX-716 series that improves the writing speed of DVD+R DL to 6x, DVD-R DL to 2x and DVD+RW to 8x.