SECURITY...

• Flaw found in Windows XP Data Execution Prevention - A Russian security company claims it found a way to beat a security measure in Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 2 (exploit), a major update aimed at securing customers' PCs.  The SP2 measure, known as Data Execution Protection, is intended to prevent would-be attackers from inserting rogue code into a PC's memory and tricking Windows into running the program. However, in a paper published Friday, Moscow-based Positive Technologies said two minor mistakes in the implementation of the technology allow a knowledgeable programmer to sidestep the protection
• Juniper routers exposed to attack - Networking company Juniper Networks is encouraging customers to upgrade their routers to fix a serious vulnerability in its operating system.  Juniper's M- and T-Series routers are affected by the flaw in the version 6 series of Junos, which makes them vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks. Such an attack could allow a hacker to gain access to the router and crucial areas of a company's network.
• Broadcast crash in Xpand Rally 1.0.0.0 - The problem is caused by an unchecked memory allocation controlled by the attacker that can decide the exact amount of data to allocate through a 32 bits number in his packets. If the memory to allocate is too big the malloc() function will fail and no instructions will check it so the game will try to write into a bad memory zone (0x00000000).
• MSBlast.b Hacker Gets 18 Months In Jail - Citing neglectful parents and an Internet that she said was a "dungeon" for lonely people, a federal judge Friday afternoon sentenced Jeffrey Lee Parson, a teen hacker who created 2003's MSBlast.b worm, to 18 months in prison, less than half the time prosecutors had requested. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman added three years of supervision after his release, and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service. A restitution hearing will be held next month to decide what amount Parson, 19, must pay Microsoft and several individuals to make up damages for his worm.
• Researchers: We Cracked Car Alarm System - Researchers said Saturday they have found a way to crack the code used in millions of car keys, a development they said could allow thieves to bypass the security systems on newer car models. "We stole our own car, and we bought gas stealing from our own credit card," said Avi Rubin, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins who led the research team.

OFF-TOPIC...

• DOOM: The Boardgame - It is for 2 to 4 players, playable in 1 to 2 hours, based on the groundbreaking DOOM 3 computer game by id Software.
• Cute Blonde Bunny Video - A video of a cute blonde girl transformed into a Bunny!
• Several casting announcements for Pirates of the Caribbean sequels - Taggart star Alex Norton (The Count of Monte Cristo) has joined the "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels cast, reports the Daily Record. The 55-year-old actor will play Edinburgh sea captain Sam Bellamy. "I've only just heard that I got the part of Captain Bellamy. I'm really excited," said Norton, "I start filming in Los Angeles next month. We then head out to the Caribbean island of St Vincent in June and July."
• First Amendment no big deal, students say -  The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech. It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday.
• Terrorist explosive blows up without flames - An explosive sometimes used by terrorists does not burn when it detonates. Instead, its molecules simply fall apart. Triacetone triperoxide (TATP) has been used by suicide bombers in Israel and was chosen as a detonator in 2001 by the thwarted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. Now calculations by Ehud Keinan from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa show that most of its explosive force comes from a rapid release of gas rather than a burst of energy.
• Bill Gates Handwriting Analyzed - The BBC is reporting that a doodle left behind at a Davos press conference given by Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono shows the writer to be: "an unstable man" amongst other things.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Bill Gates and Paul Allen are in a rare head-to-head fight - Since leaving Microfost in 1983 Paul Allen has pretty much stayed out of cofounder Bill Gates' way. Aside from buying into cable companies and funding a small, unsuccessful foray into educational software, Allen has focused his investments on things Microsoft doesn't invest in--like sports teams, music museums and the film industry. Now, for the first time, Allen is competing directly with Gates for the same business: set-top-box software that lets cable companies offer digital video recording, video on demand and, eventually, shopping.
• Microsoft To Rename Media Free XP - Microsoft have agreed to change the name of "Windows XP Reduced Media Edition." The European Commission have asked Microsoft to rename the media free edition after fears that the name would discourage people from purchasing the edition. The name is now unknown and Microsoft and EU officials are working together to come to an agreement on the new editions naming scheme.
• Wireless gaming firms play for big stakes - Wireless gaming is poised to become the most lucrative and prevalent wireless data application, industry experts have predicted. According to the latest research from IDC, gaming will overtake ring-tones in 2005 as the biggest US wireless money spinner and generate sales of nearly $1.5bn annually by 2008.
• Blackberry use "can damage thumb" - Sales of the L200 gadget, which can be used to email, page and phone, have boomed in recent years with celebrities such as David Beckham using them. But US and UK doctors said repetitive use could cause arthritis or harm tendons in the thumb.
• More Detail on Firefox 1.1 Plan - Ben Goodger, the lead engineer for Mozilla Firefox, has updated the Roadmap with more detail on the 1.1 Plan.
• Google is now a domain registrar - Google is now an ICANN-accredited registrar of domain names, providing it with yet another potential line of expansion. The fast-growing search provider is approved to sell names in seven top-level domains (TLDs) including .com, .net, .org, .biz., info, .name and .pro.

HARDWARE... 

• X850XT available in Canada - You can get some cards of those desirable but expensive cards in Canada. You can find one here but it will cost you $645 but we are not sure which one US or Canadian. You will get Sapphire X850XT 256M PCX with 256M DDR TV-Out DVi-i VIVO Bulk edition for the money. This card is in stock and you can buy it now while it lasts.
• VIA's PT880 Pro and PT894 series chipsets - TechReport take a look at all of VIA's new chipsets, plus performance test results for the enthusiast-oriented PT894 chipset. Another reviews can be found on Hexus.net and TweakTown.
• NVIDIA's nForce4 Professional Launch - nForce4 Professional 2200 is the same physical CK8-04 product that nForce4, nForce4 SLI and nForce4 Ultra. It's just advertised as a Pro 2200 to the mainboard components by on-package configuration. Each variant shares the same feature set and performance and all that distinguishes them is their CPU support and whether they officially support SLI. It's an adaptable ASIC that NVIDIA can customise for four markets and four price points, using a single fabricated bit of silicon.
• SuperWorkstation 7044A-82 - Supermicro's Super Quiet Technology - I'm really impressed with the SuperWorkstation 7044A-82. When you consider the hardware that's installed inside of this beast, you'll be amazed at how quiet the system can run. The fan speed control mode that I settled on was "4-pin Quiet Workstation". I really couldn't discern much (if any) of a difference between that and "4-pin Super Quiet Workstation" therefore I decided to take the slight increase in fan speed.
• Intel 3.46GHz EE CPU - The chaps over at T-Break take a look at Intel's 1066MHz FSB based Extreme Edition CPU clocked at 3.46GHz and find out how it compares to the current crop of AMD and Intel CPUs.
• ABIT Fatal1ty AA8XE i925XE Motherboard - This is the most overclockable Intel P4 board that money can buy to date. Finally, here's an extreme board that can go the distance as long as you have the right components to go with it. We've never seen any board that can overclock like this out of the box and with such ease".
• XFX GeForce 6600 GT Dual-DVI - XFX, intelligently, also knew that bigger NVIDIA partners would probably steal the limelight unless it did something special to its package. A pre-overclocked GPU speed was always unlikely, so XFX has gone with video RAM that runs at a full 20% faster than the default 1000MHz. That extra memory bandwidth, totalling 19.2GB/s off only a 128-bit bus, is the reason why XFX's effort is between 5-10% faster than the competition in the majority of our benchmarks. 
• HIS X700 Pro IceQ Turbo VIVO 256MB PCI-E - Overclockers Online take a look at a card sporting ATi's mainstream PCI-E solution, the HIS X700Pro IceQ Turbo VIVO 256MB PCI-E. This card from HIS is a very impressive package. The card is enhanced with a great cooling solution, software, performance, and features.
• OCZ 520W ModStream Power Supply - OCZ offers two versions of their ModStream, the OCZ-450 and the OCZ-520. Bjorn3D's review sample was the OCZ-520 that produces 520 watts but is capable of a peak load of 620 watts.
• 500W Ultra Products X-Connect PSU - In terms of performance, the X-Connect by Ultra Products passed even my high expectations for a good quality PSU; after all, I have personally gone through about 12 of them in my system alone due to unstable voltages, cable clutter and shier noise of the unit.
• Samsung SyncMaster 243T 24" LCD monitor - Although it seems very attractive to gamers due to its size, it won't provide the best gaming results because it wasn't designed with that in mind. It is a bit weak in the contrast ratio department, which can affect such tasks as editing extremely dark or bright videos, but overall, it is a very convenient monitor to use. This monitor doesn't come light on your pocketbook; you could even buy a good LCD TV with that money!
• Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR camera - Probably the most notable change however is the newly developed 8.2 megapixel sensor that delivers images up to 3,504 x 2,336 pixels in size, in the same 3:2 aspect ratio as conventional 35mm film.

GUIDES...

• Intel Centrino Overclocking Guide!  - It is surprisingly easy to overclock. But as you will see, not always successful.
• U.S. Army Guide to Code Breaking - This manual presents the basic principles and techniques of cryptanalysts and their relation to cryptography. Cryptanalytics is the art and science of solving unknown codes and ciphers.
• A Faster, Better Behaved Windows XP  - Another Windows XP guide!
• Microsoft opens Office 2003 XML schemas - Microsoft offers open and royalty-free documentation and licenses for the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas. These Reference Schemas include Spreadsheet (the schema for Microsoft Office Excel 2003), FormTemplate Schemas (the schema for Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003), Wordprocessing (the schema for Microsoft Office Word 2003), and and DataDiagraming (the schema for Microsoft Office Visio 2003). The Schemas provide developers and representatives of business and government a standard way to store and exchange data stored in documents.
• Disable Hyperthreading on heavy used Virtual Server 2005 servers - Several people internally at Microsoft have commented that you should turn off Hyperthreading when you're running Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, especially under load. It appears that the overhead of scheduling between logical processors gives either no performance gain or even possibly adverse performance effects when the host OS is under a "high load".

SOFTWARE...

• Crap Cleaner 1.17 - CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) (download) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less that a second to run) and Free. (thanks ally russell)
• CineBench 2003 - CineBench 2003 is the free benchmarking tool for Windows and Mac OS based on the powerful 3D software CINEMA 4D R8. The tool is set to deliver accurate benchmarks by testing not only a computer's raw processing speed but also all other areas that affect system performance such as OpenGL, multithreading, multiprocessors and Intel's new HT Technology.
• MultiRes 1.49 - MultiRes works very much like a 32-bit version of the venerable Microsoft QuickRes 16-bit applet for Windows 95, with administrative scripting facilities and extended capabilities to handle refresh rates and multiple monitors
• OpenGL Extension Viewer 2.15 - The extension registry is maintained by SGI and contains specifications for all known extensions, written as modifications to the appropriate specification documents.
• NVIDIA SDK 8.5 - This release of the NVIDIA SDK includes hundreds of code samples, effects, and libraries to help you take advantage of the latest in graphics technology.
• nVidia nTune 2.00.23 - NVIDIA nTune (version 2.0 of the NVIDIA System Utility) is an easy, fast and safe performance optimization and monitoring application available for your PC. With NVIDIA nTune your system can automatically adjust to maximum performance settings for intense gaming or will detect that you've inserted a DVD and will set the system to quiet operation.
• Intel Chipset Identification Utility 2.91 - The Intel Chipset Identification Utility provides an easy way to identify the specific Intel chipset that is located on your motherboard.
• ForceWare 71.80 Win2000/XP - This new driver set was found on NVIDIA's FTP server by one of our forum members. It has been released for NVIDIA's professional card lineup, the Quadro series but the driver supports the entire range of graphice cards to date. These drivers are date stamped at the 20th of January 2005 making them the absolute newest set to date. These drivers are not WHQL (Microsoft tested) signed but do have support for all NVIDIA graphics cards.
• SiS AGP driver v.1.19a - SiS have released a new AGP driver version 1.19a dated 25/01/05.