SECURITY...

• Workarounds Released for XP SP2 Flaw - In the advisory, Microsoft recommends the following workarounds to help block known attack vectors: Block TCP port 3389 at the firewall, Disable Terminal Services or the Remote Desktop feature, Secure Remote Desktop Connections by using an IP Security policy, Secure Remote Desktop Connections by employing a VPN.
• SiteKey to Prevent Phishing - An article at CNN talks about a new system called SiteKey which will be rolled out at Bank of America across the U.S. by this fall. With SiteKey, bank customers pick three challenge questions -- things only the customer would know, such as the year and model of the customer's first car -- and provide them with the traditional password to log on.
• Hackers get into USC database - A University of Southern California database containing about 270,000 records of past applicants was hacked last month, officials said on Tuesday. The breach of the university's online application database exposed "dozens" of records, which included names and Social Security numbers, to unauthorized individuals, said Katharine Harrington, USC dean of admissions and financial aid.
• Rootkit Detection Coming to Windows AntiSpyware - Microsoft plans to integrate rootkit detection technology from its Strider Ghostbuster research project into future versions of the Windows AntiSpyware application. FYI, the latest beta refresh, build 1.0.615, addresses issues pertaining to how Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) provides information to the user about processes running on a PC, solves an issue regarding the delivery of new anti-spyware signatures for some customers and provides new signature updates to help protect against recently identified spyware.
• China attempts to sink MP3 pirates - Baidu.com, China's answer to Google, has announced that it is to delete thousands of links to internet sites offering pirated music. The move is a response to requests from R2G, a Chinese digital rights management company, which is currently preparing for a US initial public offering expected to raise around $55m.
• Kaspersky Lab's Malware Evolution: April - June 2005 - This report by leading Kaspersky Lab virus analysts offers insights into the activity of the computer underground, and contains detailed analysis of the technologies and techniques currently being used by cyber.
  criminals.

OFFTOPIC...

• Killin' Time with Rob Zombie - Taking a night off from the Ozfest tour, Rob Zombie talked to ComingSoon.net about his latest movie, which might end up being every bit as controversial as his first one.
• John Moore to Direct The Omen 666 - 20th Century Fox has hired Behind Enemy Lines and Flight of the Phoenix helmer John Moore to direct The Omen 666, reports Variety. The film is a remake of the 1976 horror classic about the arrival of the Antichrist in the home of an unsuspecting family.
• Humanoid Robot HR-2 - The HR-2 robot was constructed during a period of three months at Chalmers University in Sweden. It has 22 degrees of freedom which enables it to easily move around imitating human motions. The robot is also equipped with stereovision giving it possibilities to perform hand-eye coordination. For that task an artificial neural network is evolved.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Xbox 360 Launch Date: November 4 2005 - According to a slip-up on the Microsoft Partner site, Microsoft has announced the launch date of Xbox 360 as November 4 - 2005. Since the mistake, Microsoft has quickly removed the infomation ;)
• Microsoft sues Google, former employee over hiring - Microsoft stepped its rivalry with Google up a notch Tuesday, filing a lawsuit against the search company over Google's hiring of a former Microsoft employee.
• DVD swapper presses retailers for play - Buy a new DVD and get two or three used ones for free--that's the deal DVD-swapping site Peerflix is pitching at retailers.
• NEC develops speedy 3G-WLAN handover tech - The company has tested a router that can connect a notebook PC to both WLAN access points and third-generation (3G) base stations when the router and PC are in a car travelling at 124 miles per hour, according to Yukiko Yano, manager at NEC Corp.'s Ubiquitous Platform Development Division.
• Vertical hard drive doubles storage capacity - A Japanese company claims to be able to double storage capacity with the world's first commercially available perpendicular magnetic recording hard drive. Standard hard drives write data to disk in horizontal strips across a rotating platter. But the enhanced technique from Showa Denko KK (SDK) writes vertically onto the disk, allowing for much greater data compression.

HARDWARE... 

• Geforce 7800GT to arrive on 11th of August - If Nvidia doesn't change its plans, you should be able to get one for about $399 at launch and the partners expect that it might drop fast to much less than that.
• eVGA 7800 GTX green beast - HardOCP has posted images of the new GeForce 7800 cooler from American firm eVGA.
• Intel preps Pentium D core update - The chip maker will offer samples of the updated Pentium Extreme Edition 840 chip and the Pentium D 820, 830 and 840 processors on 5 August, Intel documents reveal, ahead of commercial product availability on 21 October. The update will see the introduction of a new core, B-0 - the current 'stepping' is A-0 - which will be accompanied by a change in CPUID code from F44 to F47.
• Chieftec BRAVO Big Tower now available with DUAL Radiator Water Cooling - The Chieftec BIG Tower taken from the BRAVO Series is already available with an integrated innovatek High End Water Cooling System with a DUAL Radiator. Only the remaining hardware components must be installed. Because of the integrated HPPS Plus 12V Pump you do not need any additional connection to the outside of the PC. The system is directly connected to the power supply in the PC and is ready for usage almost at once.
• innovatek HDM Hard Drive Cooling and Decoupling System - The completely closed HDM Dampening Boxes cool and decouple each Hard Drive reliable and effective and lower the temperatures and noise levels to a perfect level. The two-parts Aluminium Decouplig System (consist of an internal and an external frame) ensure highest effectiveness. The Hard Drive is to be mounted in the Aluminium internal frame and is thereby optimally cooled and decoupled. An additional dampening with foamed material (which would just suffocate and heat the Hard Drive) is not necessary any more.
• Gigabyte 3D Aurora Enthusiast Computer Case - The Gigabyte 3D Aurora is a fantastic case in terms of features and looks and it's good to see that it's far more then just a slightly readjusted design of another brand's case. One of the cool features that you can see on the front page is the inclusion of the Customizable Light Beam Projector. While the case comes with one that says 3D Aurora, you have a customizable one included that can have your own classy message on it. This is great as you could have something like your nick name shine out when you're at your local LAN event - very cool.
• Intel Pentium D 820 - Looking at the benchmarks on previous pages, we see the Pentium D 820 performing very well in Video Encoding and 3D rendering. It also performs quite well in multi tasking which is what most of us do nowadays so the low scores in single everyday applications shouldn't be much of a problem.
• G.Skill F1-4800DSU2-1GBFR DDR600 2T dual channel memory kit - Running at the tightest timings, being 2/2/2/5 with 1T command was a bit of disappointment with these modules. While they did work, their clocking ability was instantly destroyed. Most TCCD based modules can work with these timings at a reasonable speed, but the best these could do was o­nly 210 MHz. Of course it helps if you overclock o­nly for benching, as you can set the timings very tight for everyday use and swap them with loose timings and clocking ability for running benchmarks.
• Intel socket LGA775 Pentium 4, Pentium D, Celeron D and Prescott motherboards list - A handy list of socket LGA775 motherboards from Abit, Asus, Biostar, Chaintech, DFI, ECS, Gigabyte, MSI & Soltek manufacturers.
• BFG 6600GT OC Video Card - This is a PCI-Express type of card and fits into the x16 card slot. The media sensationalist features of the card are numerous, including NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU ready, Superscalar GPU architecture, NVIDIA CineFX 3.0 engine, High Speed GDDR3 memory interface, Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 support.
• HIS X800XL IceQ Turbo - The HIS X800XL is an exceptional card, the cost to performance ratio is tough to beat, and if you are like me you always look to get the biggest bang for your buck. A video card is a sizable investment, even if it is a mid range card.
• HIS X800XT 256MB AGP - This card is perfect for those upgrading from anything in the 9x00 range of videocards from ATI or the 5x00 range from Nvidia, but if you have anything newer or faster than those series, you are best holding off on buying anything seeing you won't see the performance difference from the $300-$400 investment.
• Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH SLI Video - Yet another problem with SLI is that you don't get a performance gain from adding a second card in some games, while a GeForce 6800 GT or a RADEON X800 XL will always give you their maximum performance. The stability of the dual-chip solution is also lower than that of the single-chip card - you may have image artifacts in some games with certain driver versions in the multi-GPU mode.
• MSI GeForce 6800 SLI - HardOCP take a look at the MSI NX6800-TD128E, which is a GeForce 6800 with 128MB of DDR.
• DVD Burners Roundup - CDRInfo compared eight of drives. They compared reading speed, ripping speed, error correction capabilities, backup capabilities and drive features.
• BenQ DW1640 Internal DVD Writer - The drive also proved its speed and efficiency in DAE and DVD decrypting, exhibiting accurate and fast extraction speed under Nero CD DAE and DVD Decrypter. Not a single error was reported throughout the tests, which is further assurance that users will almost certainly end up with perfect digital replicas of their prized Audio CDs and DVD movies. Outstanding media compatibility was another merit we had to give to the DW1640 because all media were correctly detected and written at their respective specified rating, regardless of its origin of manufacture.
• Are 17" LCDs Dead?  (17" comparison) - What lessons have we learned from this comparison? First of all, classic-panel 17" monitors are definitely slower than those with overdrive. Game-play-immersion is inferior and none of the monitors tested are capable of displaying video of sufficient quality. As far as overall performance goes, 17" LCDs are their way to the back of the class.
• Belkin MediaPilot Keyboard - The last thing, which I consider a negative and a positive, is the built in mouse on the keyboard. When you're first using it, you may find it's a bit weird having the mouse and the buttons spread out so far from each other and must use two hands to properly control the mouse. This of course is something one grows used to.
• Gigaworks Progamer G500 - The G500's come in a handsome packaging and design – the Color scheme and overall look are modern and can be easily place in most spaces. The metal grills over the satellites and subwoofer driver have an industrial-type look that we're sure will have a wide appeal to gamers and desktop-theater users.
• Logitech Premium USB Headset 350 - The TechZone reviews a premium headset from Logitech.
• Samsungs HT-P38 Integrated DVD-Receiver Home Theater - Techtastic take a look at one of these home theater kits from Samsung, their HT-P38 Integrated DVD/Receiver Home Theater. The HT-P38 comes with a 5 DVD changer with integrated power amp, 5.1 surround sound speakers, and can even play Divx formatted discs.
• HP Photosmart M22 digital camera - Available for under L85, the 4.0 megapixel Photosmart M22 is one of the lowest-priced major brand cameras on the market, which makes its watersports credentials all the more impressive. It is also the smallest and cheapest camera to feature HP's Adaptive Lighting technology and in-camera red-eye reduction.
• Frontier Labs NEX 3 MP3/FM Media Player - The NEX 3 one of the four products the company currently sells; actually two of its products are based off of the NEX 3 with the NEX 3+ adding a FM transmitter to the NEX 3 so you could listen to your MP3s in the car or in your home over your radio.
• Samsung T7 Series MP3 Player Roundup - CoolTechZone has posted a Samsung T7 Series MP3 Player Roundup.

GUIDES...

• BIOS optimization guide (updated rev 8.0) - There are so many BIOS options today that it has become somewhat of a headache trying to configure a BIOS properly.
• Value gaming PC buyer's guide - The $1,000 budget gets eaten up pretty quick, and slapping down the cash for a 21" LCD, Pentium 840 Extreme Edition, or Athlon 64 X2 4800+ would take care of it in very short order.
• DDR2 Memory Tutorial - Everything you need to know about DDR2 memories, including the main differences between DDR and DDR2.
• Xbox 360 vs. PS3: an in-depth look - This article takes an in depth look at how the two systems compare.
• Windows Desktop Heap Tweak Guide - The desktop heap is a section of memory reserved for the storage of menus, hooks, strings and windows. This heap is allocated memory from a fixed 48MB system buffer that is also used to store printer data and font drivers. By default, Windows allocates a total of 4.5MB of memory for the desktop heap. But if the system ever runs out of space in the desktop heap, it won't be able to load new windows. It's as simple as that!

SOFTWARE...

• Windows 2003 Volume Shadow Copy Service patch - On a Windows Server 2003-based computer that has many shadow copies that are being used, the paged pool memory on the computer may become exhausted. This problem may occur when the shadow copy snapshots are of large volumes and when each volume contains many files. After you install the update, Microsoft Windows dismounts unused shadow copies when paged pool memory is low.
• Firefox 1.0.6 / Thunderbird 1.0.6. - Those fixes are present in the now extension-friendly versions of the two programs, which can be downloaded as follows: Firefox 1.0.6; Thunderbird 1.0.6. Also from the Mozilla stable, the Camino browser for Mac OS X has taken another step towards fulfillment.
• BitTorrent 4.0.3 - BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer protocol designed to transfer files. Users connect directly to send and receive portions of a file, while a central tracker coordinates the action of all peers and manages connections without knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed.
• JoJoThumb 2.9.5 - JoJoThumb (download) is a utility that allows you to create thumbnails of images and building a complete HTML-based gallery with an index-page, thumbnail-pages and image-pages.
• PSPad v4.3.3 Final Build 2092 - PSPad (download) editor is freeware programmer editor.
• NEC ND6650A patched firmware - These firmwares are untested, so you may encounter problems when trying this firmware. Download ND6650A 1.23 bitsetting, riplock removed and RPC1 firmwares from Liggy and Dee's modified firmware site.