SECURITY...

• Firefox add-on lets surfers tweak sites, but is it safe? - A new Firefox extension that lets people customize their experience of the sites they visit is stirring excitement among Web surfers and consternation among security experts. That capability has gained the extension an avid following of Web surfers who want to customize the sites they visit, removing design glitches and stripping sites of ads. But the extension comes with substantial security risks, and could stir trouble among site owners who object to individual, custom redesigns of their pages.
• Symbian Trojan attacks anti-virus protection - Malware authors have created a Trojan that targets Symbian smart phones and attempts to remove any anti-virus protection it finds. The Drever-C Trojan attacks mobile anti-virus packages from F-Secure, Kaspersky and Simworks running on Symbian devices. Targeting security protection is common in mainstream Windows PC malware but this is a recent innovation for mobile viruses. Drever-C poses as a security update and tries to damage the boot loader and application binaries of F-Secure Mobile Anti-Virus. F-Secure says the attack is impotent because its software contains protection against any attempts to modify its files. The code of the malware contains a message to F-Secure, as follows.
• Hackings Subject Universities to Potential Data Theft - On March 17, Boston College acknowledged a security breach on a campus computer managed by a third-party vendor that housed a fundraising database. The school alerted the approximately 120,000 alumni on the list, which contained names, addresses and Social Security numbers. California State University Chico informed students March 14 that hackers gained access to a University Housing and Food Service system containing names, addresses and Social Security numbers for as many as 59,000 people.
• Cyber criminals hack their way to fortune: report - Releasing its latest Internet Security Threat Report, Symantec said more than half the major Internet threats targeted personal information, Xinhua reported. The report said identity theft features were found in 54 percent of the top 50 malicious codes detected between July and December 2004, marking an increase on the 36 percent found during the same period in year 2003. This represented a clear trend that attackers had gone from seeking fame to seeking fortune, said Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager with Symantec Security Response.
• Anti Brute Force Resource Metering - This whitepaper discusses how resource metering on the client-side (PDF), i.e. making him work to make brute forcing computationally feasible, works and the security advantages it can bring.
• Microsoft tests new patch program - Microsoft on Tuesday began testing Microsoft Update, which it says will help users keep up with the latest versions of Windows, Office and other programs. The free program, which is slated to be in final form later this year, lets users of the Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems download all updates automatically or manually choose which patches to get.

OFFTOPIC...

• AOL offers English language lessons - The entire language course features 96 recorded online sessions with visual and audio components, the companies said Tuesday. Weekly classes can be played back and used repeatedly for review and reinforcement. In addition, consumers can install an offline collection of more than 100 hours of learning material on their computers, so that they can learn at their own pace.
• First membrane-free alkaline fuel cell built - The first membraneless alkaline fuel cell has been built by exploiting the way liquids do not mix in ultra-narrow channels. It could offer cheaper and more efficient fuel cells. Doing away with membranes not only simplifies a fuel cell's design, it has also enabled the first alkaline fuel cells to be built. These could potentially be 40% more efficient than the acidic units used today, says Paul Kenis of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Illinois, US, who has developed the system.
• Global warming could trigger ant invasions - Global warming may lead to an unexpected threat from the insect world - swarming invasions of tiny ants - suggests new research. The study of 665 ant colonies in environments ranging from tropical rainforests to frozen tundra suggests that in warmer environments the ants' body size shrinks, on average, while the number of individuals in the colony booms.
• The solution to saying thank you while on the road - The mechanism wags and moves like the tail of a pet robot dog. It's an automotive accessory that serves as a communication tool. Cars should have some means of communicating besides signal lights. The Thanks Tail lets the car say, "I'm going first," or "Thank you," or "Sorry."
• Hell YES! - Nice videoclip - check it out :)
• Black Author Wins The Matrix Copyright Infringement Case - This little known story has met a just conclusion, as Sophia Stewart, African-American author of The Matrix will finally receive her just due from the copyright infringement of her original work!!! Stewart filed her case in 1999, after viewing the Matrix, which she felt had been based on her manuscript, "The Third Eye," copyrighted in 1981. In the mid-eighties Stewart had submitted her manuscript to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works.
• Alien Apocalypse - This Saturday is a day that all Bruce Campbell fans should rejoice! He's in another feature. This time it's Alien Apocalypse a Sci-Fi Channel Original movie. Alien Apocalypse will air 9/8c on March 26th (thanks AQFL)
• New teaser trailers @ ComingSoon - Valiant, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV spot), The Island, Red Eye (Wes Craven thriller), Kung Fu Hustle (two clips from the Asian comedy), Sahara, War of the Worlds, Sin City (11 minute behind-the-scenes)

TECHNOLOGY...

• Multiplayer online gaming goes mobile - Mobile operator 3 today claimed to be the first to offer real-time multiplayer online gaming to its subscribers. The first titles will be No Refuge, a tank battle game supplied by Mobile Interaction, and Lock 'n Load, a shooting game from Synergenix. In addition, 3 will launch the "turn-based" multiplayer game Cannons Tournament, a shoot and fire game supplied by Macrospace.
• Yahoo upgrades email storage to 1GB - Yahoo plans to once again raise its free email storage, this time to 1GB. The rise in email storage matches the same email storage offered by search rival Google. The storage change is said to begin in late April for Yahoo's free email users, whose current storage mark is set to 250MB.
• Spamming spammers? - IBM unveiled a service Tuesday that sends unwanted e-mails back to the spammers who sent them. The new IBM (Research) service, known as FairUCE, essentially uses a giant database to identify computers that are sending spam. E-mails coming from a computer on the spam database are sent directly back to the computer, not just the e-mail account, that sent them.
• Microsoft Details Longhorn Networking - Execs in Redmond go public with some of the enterprise and home-networking changes that will debut with its next-generation version of Windows.
• AOL Unveils ICQ 5 - ICQ 5, released Monday, provides many features customers have been asking for, including more customization, upgraded security and a simpler interface. The service also provides users with several new features, including a new global walkie-talkie feature, the ability to chat with others without taking turns, and better video instant messaging that lets users adjust size and save snapshots from their video IM sessions.
• Novell Says Its Next Linux Desktop Will Surpass Windows - The current Novell Linux Desktop 9, which was released last November, is targeted not at the mass market but rather at those customers with more contained workloads. But all of that is set to change with the next version of the product, Novell Linux Desktop 10, scheduled for release next year.
• Amazon.com discounting UMD movies for PSP by 30% - Amazon.com has discounted the announced Sony PSP UMD movies by 30%, making them in some cases cheaper than the DVD version of the movie. The Hellboy, XXX, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Resident Evil movies are available for $13.97 (List: $19.95). House of Flying Daggers sells for $20.27 (List: $28.95). The first UMD movies ship April 19th.  For instance the Hellboy DVD sells for $14.96 on Amazon.com.
• Avid buys Pinnacle for $462 million - Avid Technology, the leading player in video and film editing tools, has revealed it is to buy rival video-editing maker Pinnacle Systems in a deal reported to be worth $462 million.
• Drop sensor provides laptop motion control - The latest Apple Powerbook laptops can now be controlled with a gentle shake, thanks to a clever software trick. The new model of the notebook includes a motion sensor that locks the head of the hard drive in one position if the machine is suddenly dropped, to prevent damage as well as loss of data. The sensor is able to tell when the computer is moved up and down or rolled forwards or to the side.
• MCI Adds Thousands of Wireless Hotspots - The telecommunications carrier has launched 1300 new Wi-Fi hotspots in Europe and the Asia/Pacific region, and will launch 3400 U.S. hotspots in May, the company said. Before the expansion, corporate customers of MCI's wireless service had access to about 6200 hotspots worldwide.
• Windows Mobile 2005 (aka Magneto) LEAKED! - An user named Gora from xda-developers leaked what seems to me an authentic copy of a Windows Mobile 5.0 ROM, Microsoft's next mobile platform for PDAs and smartphone. The About dialog displays the following versions: Microsoft Windows Mobile Version 5.0 OS 5.1.1700 (build 14326.0.0.0), ROM version: 1.50f.00WWE, ROM date: 02/24/05, Radio version: 1.10.00, Protocol version 1337.18.
• AMD Unveils Low-Power Opteron - At the Server Blade Summit 2005 in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, AMD announced the Opteron Model 248 HE, a low-power version of the current 2.2GHz Opteron 248. The current model has a power envelope of 89 watts. The HE model has a smaller envelope, at 55 watts.
• Got an Audigy or Extigy? Creative owes you money - Creative Labs has settled a lawsuit that alleged misleading marketing of its Audigy and Extigy sound cards. It seems they said the sound cards could handle 24-bit audio at 96Khz when, well, they couldn't. So if you bought an Audigy ES, Audigy Platinum, Audigy Platinum eX, Audigy Gamer, Audigy MP3+, or an original Extigy external USB sound module between March 28, 1999 and December 29, 2004, there's a good chance Creative owes you some dough. To placate you, they'll pony up 25% off your next Creative purchase, up to $62.50. But don't put it off too long, the offer will expire September 25th.

HARDWARE... 

• AMD's Forthcoming Athlon 64 May Require BIOS Update - According to The Inquirer, mainboards from ABIT and EPoX will only be able to support AMD Athlon 64 revision E0 with a special revision of the BIOS. The web-site did not report which mainboards are affected and when and if the BIOS is released. AMD Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX processors revision E0 are those based on AMD’s cores code-named Venice and San Diego respectively. The desktop AMD64 processors with E0 revision are expected to feature SSE3 technology in addition to several performance improvements and bug fixes over those found in previous revisions of AMD Athlon 64 processors made using 90nm process technology.
• AMD Athlon 64 4000+ CPU - Obviously the Athlon 64 4000+ is a little powerhouse. It's not for everyone though, the biggest problem right now is its pricing, which is in the 500-600 EUR/ USD range. That's a lot of money people. If you want the best though well, then nothing much can match this, except the even more expensive FX-55 CPU of course.
• SkyHawk IMC6375 EchoQ SFF PC - If you want to make this a LAN Party or gaming PC then you will need to plan your component choices carefully. If you want a more powerful video card such as an ATI x800, then you will need to install a SATA hard drive or SATA optical, otherwise you will not have the needed 4 pin molex for the video card. You can run an ATI 9600XT and not worry about the video card power, since the 9600XT does not require and external power source. But of course your performance and frame rates will suffer accordingly.
• NFORCE 4 SLI Motherboard Round-up - The contending motherboards are: DFI's nF4 SLI-DR, ASUS' A8N-SLI Deluxe, MSI's K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI and Gigabyte's K8NXP-SLI – all four are widely available at online retailers like Newegg and are pretty comparably priced.
• The Mother of All CPU Charts Part 1 - THG  have updated the benchmarks to include the Intel Pentium 600 series and Extreme Edition.
• ECS's 915-A Mainboard - Use of the Intel i915GV core logic is what really defines the 915-A's feature set. At first glance, it's hard to spot the difference between 915G and 915GV. 915GV doesn't support a 16 lane PCI Express bundle for routing to a PEG16X electrical slot, for graphics. With that electrical slot physically present on the 915-A, you'll notice the lanes routed to the slot, of which there are only two, are provided by the ICH6 I/O southbridge processor rather than the 915GV northbridge.
• Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI AMD Athlon Motherboard - The Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI motherboard is basically the K8NXP-9 motherboard with SLI and and both use the latest high performance Nvidia nForce4 chipset supporting AMD Athlon 64 socket-939 processors and are top of the line AMD Athlon 64 939-socket motherboard.
• Asus A8N-SLI Premium Allows SLI to be Enabled in Software - The Premium version of Asus' A8N-SLI motherboard allows you to turn on or off SLI in software, rather than requiring you to open your system case. Will this new feature help alleviate one of the issues that some people have with SLI?
• Leadtek WinFast PCIe PX6200TD Overclocking test - Looking for a PCIe budget card which can potentially pack a hefty punch? Leadtek PX6200TD might just have what it takes.
• Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH (Solo and SLI) - Overall, the Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH is a great little card for around $200. The included bundle adds a considerable amount to the package. The software and utilities are useful and handy while the games are very popular even if they aren't all that new. The PX6600 GT's performance is quite good and at times impressive, especially when in SLI mode
• Gigabyte GeForce 6200 with TurboCache 256MB - The 6200 TC was introduced in several configurations, such as with 32MB onboard, with a 32 bit data path, or 64MB with a 64 bit data path. I tend to think that the majority of cards being sold will be built like this one from Gigabyte; 64MB with 64 bit data path, running at 550 MHz DDR.
• HIS Radeon X850XT IceQ II Turbo Video Card - Once the iTURBO mode is enabled, the X850XT IceQ II Turbo will operate at exactly the same frequency as the X850XT PE. This is quite interesting, as once the iTURBO mode is enabled there is absolutely no difference between the HIS Radeon X850XT and the X850XT PE.
• Sapphire X800 XL Video Card - The X800 XL is a full 4 quad pixel pipeline design (16 pipelines) with 6 vertex shaders running at 400 MHz core. The memory is on a 256 bit bus and is specified to utilize 256 MB of memory running at 490 MHz DDR (980 MHz effective). The overall specifications indicate that it should be a GeForce 6800 GT killer, but in testing it appears as though the NV40 architecture is a bit faster per clock than the corresponding ATI products.
• XFX geFORCE 6600GT AGP Video Card - The XFX geFORCE 6600GT provides enthusiasts and budget gamers with an upgrade path that doesn't break the bank. It was also one of few cards that was readily available in both the AGP and PCI Express configurations, and features DUAL DVI and a decent full games bundle.
• Memorex USB 2.0/FireWire 16x DVD±RW - Based on NEC's award winning ND-3500A, Memorex's new external writer is capable of 16x DVD±R, 4x DVD±RW and 4x DVD+R DL writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. On top of that, the drive features 48x CD reading and writing speeds, 24x rewriting speeds, and support for both FireWire and USB 2.0.
• Miniature Disk Drive: The Toshiba MK3006GAL Delivers 30 GB in a 1.8" Form Factor - With its MK3006GAL drive Toshiba offers a modern storage device that's sure to find all kinds of interesting and useful applications in both current and future products. Certainly 30 GB is not a tremendous amount of storage by today's standards, but as with the matter of performance, the capacity is a reasonable trade-off for the drive's compact dimensions and low weight.
• Storcase's DE50 Backup solution - The DE50 is aimed at environments where a fast, customisable and secure method of backup is preferred. Where tape backup systems have dominated in the past, the cost per MB in the harddrive market has plummeted making them a much more appealing option. The DE50 and DE110 harness this potential and add a USB hot-swap facility, very useful for fast offsite backup production.
• Performance Fan Comparison on XP-90 - Mikhailtech have tested 7 different fans ranging from low to extreme speeds on a Thermalright XP-90 to see which is the most ideal.
• Revoltec 520 W "Be Quiet!" PSU - Revoltec have really brought out a nice product onto the scene, with a lot more features than any other powersupply on the market, a sleek appearance, silent performance, stable voltage rails and many other features this is one well designed power supply.
• Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse - After having used the MX1000 for some time now (playing too many hours of CS:S and World of Warcraft) I can safely say it's the best I've ever used. I've also come to the conclusion that it's not about the improved tracking. Sure it's a laser mouse and that's great, but the optical sensor in the MX engine is already powerful enough to handle almost any mouse surface. This device has two things going for it that no other mouse does: superb ergonomics and an almost limitless feature set (courtesy of the keystroke assignment ability). And of course the improved battery, battery life indicator, and charging cradle. This mouse is elite.
• BTC Wireless Multimedia USB Keyboard with Dual Mode Joystick Mouse - The keyboard comes completes with an USB powered receiver, this black matching tapered shaped box has only one lit round connect button on the face and is simply connected to any given open USB port with 1.1 or 2.0 interfaces. As you can see it is very simple in design and is really only needed to be set up once. There are small rubber feet that are on the bottom for placing the unit on any given surface, there is no real need to be inline to the keyboard for any improved performance. The adjoining keyboard also has the connect button right above the ESC button.
• Sunbeam 20 in 1 Superior Panel - Want to access everything from an arm's reach without bumping year head trying to reach the rear panel? Two many flash memory cards and not enough card readers? Sunbeam comes to the rescue once again.
• Pricom SX-3700WB - Basically if you're a business or home user that is sharing any type of USB device, especially a MFD, across a network using OS based network sharing, you absolutely owe it to yourself to have a look at one of Silex's USB device servers.
• Samsung SyncMaster 710N & 711T LCD Monitors - I'd like to argue that the 710N is a great monitor for heavy gamers and LAN Partiers. With a ligher weight, exceptional response time and better-then-average stats in all the other categories, the monitor allows a good symbiosis for the gamer on-the-go. With the 711T, we have an excellent monitor for the MMORPG gamer for games like World of Warcraft and the Saga of Ryzom. With excellent, crisp colours and a still respectable 25ms response time, the 711T performs well enough to be a good monitor for those of us not fragging on a regular basis.
• Apple iPod shuffle 512MB - Apple's first flash MP3 player drops LCD screen and complicated controls in favor of simplistic "song shuffle" style. Basically, iTunes' AutoFill randomly picks 120 songs for you during sync from your favorite playlist. iPod shuffle also recharges via USB, and doubles as a 512MB USB flash drive as well.

GUIDES... 

• 64-bit computing in theory and practice - The immediate impact, in a positive sense, isn't much at all. Windows x64 can run current 32-bit applications transparently, with few perceptible performance differences, via a facility Microsoft has dubbed WOW64, for Windows on Windows 64-bit. WOW64 allows 32-bit programs to execute normally on a 64-bit OS. Using Windows XP Pro x64 is very much like using the 32-bit version of Windows XP Pro, with the same basic look and feel. Generally, things just work as they should.  There are differences, though. Device drivers, in particular, must be recompiled for Windows x64. The 32-bit versions won't work. In many cases, Windows x64 ships with drivers for existing hardware.
• Intel EM64T Technology - Intel's Extended Memory 64 Technology, better known under the simple acronym EM64T, is Intel's version of x86-64. The processors that feature support for EM64T are backwards compatible with 32-bit systems, and also capable of taking advantage of the added memory and computational capabilities of 64-bit processing. EM64T is built off of the IA-32 architecture, with additional registers, instructions, and otherwise enhanced instructions.
• NVIDIA SLI Support - Getting Better - A new driver from NVIDIA has improved SLI support and brought new features to the table. Inside this article they not only test this latest driver, focusing on SLI support and performance, but they also comment on what they would like to see in the future iterations of NVIDIA's SLI.
• Beginners Guides: Fundamentals of Upgrading a PC - If you are a PC gamer, you are already familiar with this merry-go-round. Every year or so, there is a must-play game which demands more processor speed, a faster graphics card, more RAM, etc. As a good example of this, look to some of the upcoming game releases from ID software and Valve. Given the the speed of today's average PC, these games are not just going to push the envelope, they are going to be delivering their own envelope, sealed and stamped with a single word. Upgrade.
• Driv3r Benchmark Results -  OnlyNewz let us know they have done eight benchmarks with a 2,4GHz AMD processor with 1GB memory and two PCI-Express NVIDIA Geforce 6800 videocards.
• How To Create Your Own Blog - Blogs, the abbreviation of Web Logs (online journals), are becoming more and more popular all the time. People are starting new blogs at an astounding rate so it's safe to assume that there are constantly people out there who want to know how to get a blog going.

SOFTWARE...

• UltraEdit-32 v11.00b (shw) - UltraEdit-32 (changelog ~ download) is a Windows text editor with support for unlimited file sizes, a spell checker, drag and drop, full HEX editing capabilities, user configurable syntax highlighting (pre-configured for HTML, Java, C/C++, VB, Perl), column editing, sorting, and a configurable toolbar.
• WabMail v1.0 - WabMail is a small and simple tool that makes it easy to quickly retrieve a plain list of e-mail addresses that are contained in your Windows Address Book (.WAB) file. The WAB allows you to export the content to a comma delimited file, however, this may be way too much for your needs.
• ABC [Yet Another Bittorrent Client] 3.0 - After a long wait, ABC 3.0 is now available.
• ShirusuPad v1.1b beta - ShirusuPad is a small program with a stylish interface that allows you to keep notes of any kind.
• FireTune 0.5 - FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of optimization settings collected and tested by Tweakfactor. Usually you have to optimize Firefox manually, which can be time consuming and difficult for the novice user. FireTune helps you here - it includes all the performance optimizations. The only thing you must do is: make your selection. FireTune does the work for you.
• Thunderbird 1.0.2 - Thunderbird (release notes ~ download) is a full-featured email, RSS and newsgroup client that makes emailing safer, faster and easier than ever before. More information about Thunderbird is available.
• Mozilla 1.7.6 - Mozilla (release notes ~ download) is an open-source Web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. Mozilla is a cousin to Netscape Communicator that is being developed by the Free Software Community with the cooperation and support of Netscape.
• Tray Helper 4.8 - Tray Helper is freeware program with many features (f/e: email checker, auto mail responder, anti-spam, popup-killer, event reminder and more).
• Intel Chipset Installation 7.0.0.1014 (Beta) - The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility installs to the target system the Windows* INF files that outline to the operating system how the chipset components will be configured.

SECURITY...

• Hackers target browsers to dodge firewalls - Hackers are increasingly using attacks that exploit browsers rather than trying to batter through firewalls and other network protection devices, according to security firm Symantec.
• Half of viruses written for criminal gain - Over half of all computer viruses, trojans and malicious code are created to steal sensitive information and make money, according to research released today.
• DVD Jon Breaks ITunes Security--Again - Described by its developers as "the fair interface to the ITunes Music Store," PyMusique is a new application that lets users connect to Apple Computer's ITunes Music Store and download songs without Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions. PyMusique does so by bypassing the ITunes application interface all together--a clear violation of the ITunes Music Store's Terms of Service.
• Crime Fighters solve crimes by examining cell phones - Modern detectives are now using cell phone forensics to capture more and more criminals. Forensics, the science of preserving, extracting and examining data, has long been confined to computers. Now, with the help of cell phone seizure kits like the one from Paraben, detectives can easily extract important information from all types of cell phones.

OFFTOPIC...

• Rodriguez on Shark Boy and Lava Girl - Robert Rodriguez, who co-wrote and co-directed Sin City, tells ComingSoon.net that his seven-year-old son came up with his next film, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D.
• Computers bad for kids - Using a computer at home might actually reduce a child's performance in maths, science and English rather than improve it, a study has found. Researchers who looked at 100,000 children in 32 countries originally found that children from homes with computers performed better. In fact houses with computers were likely to be from a richer social class, and when these factors were removed performance was less than expected.
• Classic maths puzzle cracked at last - A number puzzle originating in the work of self-taught maths genius Srinivasa Ramanujan nearly a century ago has been solved. The solution may one day lead to advances in particle physics and computer security.

TECHNOLOGY...

• CeBIT 2005 - Moblie Phone Round-Up
• Sony PSP vs. Nintendo DS - Part I of this three-part series will cover Sony’s brash new entry, the PSP.
• Nokia ships 6680 3G smartphone - Nokia today began shipping its latest high-end 3G imaging smartphone, the 6680, which incorporates two digital cameras. Originally showcased a month ago at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, the device boasts MMC storage, support for Nokia's XpressPrint system and a screen of up to 262,144 colours.
• Yahoo to buy photo-sharing site Flickr - Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd. President Stewart Butterfield on Monday confirmed Internet portal Yahoo Inc. will acquire the privately held company, which operates photo-sharing Web site Flickr.
• Visual Studio 2005 Ship Date Slips Again - Microsoft Corp. Monday announced that the much-anticipated next version of its developer tools suite will ship in the second half of 2005 in several versions, with the Microsoft Developer Network as its primary delivery mechanism.
• Google opens website for developers - Google is throwing open the doors to open source developers and inviting them to participate in projects via the code.google website. Google says that the site will be the repository for its free source code and the list of its API services.
• VIA rolls out 64-bit drivers for WinXP Professional x64 Edition RC2 - VIA's complete driver lineup for 64-bit operating systems includes AMD K8T/K8M-series for desktop PCs, K8N-series for notebooks, Pentium 4-compatible PT880 Pro and PT894 series and embedded applications including the CN400 that supports Windows XP.
• Doom 3 for Mac slower than PC equivalent - DOOM 3 for the Macintosh can run 30% slower than its PC equivalent on similar hardware, according to benchmarks published by Bare Feats. Testing a PowerMac G5 2.5GHz system with a GeForce 6800 Ultra, Timedemo 1 in the game came out at 53FPS. With an Athlon FX55 (at native 2.6GHz) and similar GeForce 6800 Ultra, the score was 76FPS, with a resolution of 1600x1200 at High Quality.
• New USB Flash Drive Will Move Applications and Data from PC to PC - U3 and Verbatim Corp. announced Monday that Verbatim will make a new type of USB flash drive by using the U3 platform. Called a smart USB flash drive, these drives will enable consumers to carry all of their personal computer settings, applications and data for use on any PC wherever they go.

HARDWARE... 

• R520, "Fudo" is Longhorn WGF 1.0 compliant - It turns out that R520 won't just have Shader Model 3.0 it will eventually have support for upcoming Longhorn WGF 1.0 specification. WGF does not stand for Which Graphic Freak, it's an abbreviation of Windows Graphic Foundation. This is what Microsoft has decided to call Direct3D in the future. WGF 1.0 is actually Direct3D 9.0+ or just beyond the DirectX 9.0c specification. It's also called DX 9.L where L possibly stands for Longhorn.
• Intel ships 64-bit, 2MB L2 Pentium 4s - Intel yesterday formally began selling its Pentium 4 6xx series, rolling out four versions of the 90nm, 2MB L2 cache chip. The chip giant also added its latest P4 Extreme Edition to its official price list. The P4 630, 640, 650 and 660 are clocked at 3, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6GHz, respectively. All four chips support an 800MHz frontside bus.
• The SiS 756 PCI Express Chipset For Athlon 64 - On the heels of NVIDIA and VIA, SiS is now also offering a PCI Express chipset for the Athlon 64. The 756 offers modern features at a fair price, but is that enough to make the grade against such stiff competition?
• DFI LP NF4 UT SLI-DR: Overclocking Test - The article focuses on NF4 board in the area of memory timing and FSB (HTT) overclocking, and not SLI performance.
• MSI S250 12.1-inch Notebook - For day-to-day handling of work, the 12.1-inch S250 from MSI is simply a great notebook to get you by without a complimentary workout from having to lug it around for meetings, presentations or the likes. It's lightweight, sturdy and is fast enough to help you ease through your applications comfortably. However, the seemingly impeccable notebook is not without its own hiccups and the badly implemented keyboard has marred an otherwise good impression we had with the S250.
• Intel's Pentium-M 735 Processor and DFI 855GME Motherboard - Performance wise, there's one thing that stands out from the analysis and observation of P-M's scaling with nothing more than its base frequency: it's crying out for core logic to let it breathe and perform to its fullest; there's definitely plenty of extra performance to be had by pairing P-M with Alviso core logic. There's also extra performance to be had just by upping the CPU's bus clock, so the upcoming 200MHz Pentium-Ms, using Alviso, should give very fine performance, comparatively.
• Corsiar DDR2 TwinX XMS2-4300C3 Memory Modules - They have great overclocking capability without extreme voltage application and can handle very low timings at relatively high speeds. It will be a long time until a CPU and motherboard combination will be available to handle running 1:1 synchronous operation. Please note that the modules may clock even higher than 720MHz in synchronous operation, but the time for such an event is still a long time in the future.
• 1GB OCZ Gold PC4000 VX DC kit - OCZ never ceases to impress. There are a couple of downsides to the use of the Gold PC4000 VX, but the upsides sure make up for it. The memory requires extremely high voltages, beyond the typical high of 3.2v. Unless they can find a motherboard compatible with the OCZ Booster, user's are pretty much required to purchase the DFI nForce4 motherboards. The use of high voltages also causes the system to run incredibly hot, and because of that, more fans and better cooling is needed. If enthusiasts already own a DFI motherboard and don't really care much about system noise, then this memory is definitely a must.
• EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra Motherboard - The EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra is an excellent motherboard with several impressive attributes. However, this nForce4 Ultra solution is not completely perfect and it does lack many features found on competing motherboards. What is certainly the biggest disappointment of the 9NPA+ Ultra is its inability to support dual graphics cards.
• Albatron 6600GT - You can find one of these babys for around 180$ so they are in the middle price market. You get alot for a smaller amount of money so if you don't have the money for that extreme 6800 card look into one of these 6600 GT cards which might be better for your wallet. This is a very stable card that we did not have any problems with at all and the only thing I can complain about is the cooling with the extremely loud fan that drove me nuts after awhile.
• Albatron GeForce TC6200Q Video Card - Between the two cards I used in this review I definitely favor the Albatron TC6200Q mainly because the capability of being able to render 256MB of system ram. This really made a significant differences in Call of Duty and Half-Life 2. The 64/256MB memory capability permitted the use of higher resolutions in most of the other games tested. I did not mind playing Half-Life 2 at 800x600 but I am partial to 1024x768 and the Albatron TC6200Q is capable of performing at that resolution where the TC6200, 16MB, is better off at 800x600 resolution. Both cards displayed exceptional stability throughout all testing and gaming using ForceWare 71.20 or 71.84 drivers.
• HIS Radeon X850 XT IceQ II Turbo and Radeon X800 XL IceQ II Turbo - The X800 XL operates similarly with HIS iTurbo but the card itself is clocked at "stock" X800 XL speeds out of the box. Activating iTurbo essentially takes you further into overclocking territory with a 432MHz Core clock. Beyond that, things are fairly straight forward. With the exception of HIS' innovative IceQ II cooling design, these cards are stock ATi reference board layouts, with Dual DVI and VIVO connections for the high end X850 XT and DVI with standard D-Sub VGA connectors for the X800 XL.
• Plextor PX-716UF DVD+/-RW DL writer - The PLEXTOR PX-716UF follows in the footsteps of the award winning PX-712UF coming packed with some great technologies namely GigaRec, VariRec, and SecuRec. Given its external nature, installation is extremely easy- any novice user would have no problem installing this drive. Plug in the power and USB cords, install the drivers and you are ready to rock. The performance of the drive is great when doing any kind of read or write operation.
• Batterylife Activator  - Dan's Data takes a look at the Batterylife Activator
• Samsung DVD-L300 Portable DVD Player - The Samsung DVD-L300 DVD Player has more options than you can through a stick at, it not only can play regular DVD discs at a 5" size but also play audio CDs of the same size or the 3.5" mini discs. A convenient power adaptor, the cables of this adaptor can be easily wrapped up and tucked away in the adaptor itself. Small finger like clips are present to hold the top lid closed along with rubber stoppers. The 384,000 pixels not only create a clear picture but also allow you to view on a steep angle if needed.
• Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 digital camera - The Z5 is the latest addition to the series, and comes in at the top of the range. With a five megapixel sensor, a 2in LCD monitor, a huge 12x optical zoom lens and Konica Minolta's innovative image stabilisation system it has a specification that is a match for almost any camera that's currently available at this price.
• Fossil Wrist PDA FX2008 - The styling is certainly classic late 1970s or early 1980s digital watch, with push buttons on either side of the screen to control the PDA's functions. On the right-hand side are Page-up and -down buttons, and between them a rocker switch for information navigation and selection. On the other side, there's the Back button, recessed reset switch and, behind a rubber panel, the USB connector. Above the screen, a little way around the casing, is the IR port.

GUIDES... 

• Internet Explorer 6 and Outlook Express tweak guide - This guide will take you through the vast array of options and settings available to customize Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and the bundled Outlook Express (OE) to its fullest, in particular seeking to improve browser security or just fine tuning them to your own browsing needs. You may also want to know this guide has been updated to include all changes brought by Windows' Service Pack 2.
• Star Wars KotOR 2: Tweak Guide - If you are having trouble getting the most out of KotOR2, you might want to check out this Tweak Guide.
• Windows XP Performance Optimization 101 - In this article you'll find tips, tricks, and tweaks for Windows XP and Microsoft's SP2 release. From install to optimizing the system tray, it's all inside!
• Startup File Database - PC Review have launched a Startup File Database containing a very handy list of all the processes that start when Windows loads up
• Mobile GPU Comparison Guide Rev. 4.0 - Currently covering over 40 mobile GPUs, this comprehensive comparison will allow you to easily compare 14 different specifications for each and every GPU! We hope it will prove to be a useful reference.

SOFTWARE...

• UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 1 2.0 RC2 - Microsoft has never released a service pack for Windows98 SE (download). But I made a Service Pack for Windows98 SE users. It contains all Windows98 SE updates from Windows Update site and more. It is a self-extracting and self-installing pack like Microsoft's update files. Thus, you cannot choice files individually. However, the pack installs only required fixes for your system. Uninstallation is possible from Add-Remove Programs.
• Gaim 1.2 - Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.
• Media Player Classic 6.4.8.4 - Media Player Classic (WinXP/2k / Win98/ME) is similar to windows media player 6.4 but with features pertained to minimalist advanced users. It also supports DirectX 9 and VFW drivers for capture. It supports viewing through ActiveX controls of Real and QuickTime files.
• DiscJuggler 4.50.1179 - DiscJuggler (demo) can simultaneously drive multiple CD recorders and replicate virtually any standard CD. It features direct digital-to-digital CD duplication from a CD-ROM drive to multiple CD-R drives, audio CD duplication with support for PQ and R-W subcodes, and on-the-fly audio stream resynchronization, and on-the-fly software regeneration of ECC/EDC and scrambling.
• DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0 - 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. Advanced functionality can be found in the context menus.
• NGO ATI Optimized Driver v2.3 Beta - The NGO ATI Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the ATI Catalyst driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with a better performance and better image quality. The Driver has support for all Radeon cards (both desktop and mobile platforms).

SECURITY...

• Windows 2003 Outlook Web Access URL Injection Vulnerability - A vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 20003 Outlook Web Access allows malicious attackers to redirect the login to any URL they wish. This allows the attacker to force the user to the site of the attackers choosing enabling the attacker to use social engineering and phishing style of attacks.
• McAfee AntiVirus Library Stack Overflow - ISS has shipped protection for a flaw X-Force has discovered in McAfee AntiVirus Library versions prior to 4400. The McAfee AntiVirus Library is widely relied upon to provide antivirus capabilities to desktop, server, and gateway systems. Also, several large vendors and ISP's implement McAfee's AntiVirus Library in their products. By crafting an LHA file, an attacker is able to trigger a stack overflow within the
  process importing the McAfee AntiVirus Library. Desktop, server and gateway versions of McAfee's anti-virus scanners all need patching but this will happen automatically as anti-virus signatures are updated. Several large vendors and ISP's use McAfee's AntiVirus Library in their products or services, which likewise need an upgrade.
• Rootkits leave antivirus systems powerless - An increasing number of virus writers are using so-called 'rootkit' technology to create malware that is invisible to existing antivirus packages, IT security experts warned today. "Windows rootkit is a stealth technique for hiding files. But does it at the kernel level, rather than at the application level," explained Patrick Runald, senior technical consultant at F-Secure. Two recent viruses, Myfip.H and Maslan.A, both had stealth features borrowed from rootkits, according to Runald.
• International hackers attempt massive heist - The National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) has foiled a gang of hackers aiming to steal L220m from a Japanese bank in London. After gaining access to the IT systems of Sumitomo Corporation's London offices in October the gang installed key-logging software to record log-in codes and company documents. They had been planning to transfer the money to 10 bank accounts around the world. But the gang's movements were picked up and the NHTCU launched an investigation. In a joint operation with police forces around the world the hackers were stopped before any funds could be transferred.
• House is pirate DVD factory - Police have discovered a massive DVD copying factory in a raid on a house in Haringey. Officers seized more than 50,000 films, including many not yet released in British cinemas. Dozens of DVD copiers and thousands of labels were also removed. Movies found included The Magic Roundabout, Are We There Yet? and Shall We Dance?

OFFTOPIC...

• Star Trek replicator one step closer - Dr Adrian Bowyer, of the University's Centre for Biomimetics, said that he has adapted a fast prototype generator used in the car industry to make simple household objects. After picking them on a computer the device uses metal and plastic to make shapes from a few millimetres to 300 millimetres in length, width and height. The device currently costs a whopping £25,000, but Bowyer believes that the machines could be built to replicate themselves and thus drive down the cost.
• Sea levels likely to rise 25cm this century - No matter what happens, sea levels and temperatures are going to rise over the next century, according to a pair of reports out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.  Global warming will likely cause the sea level to rise by about 25cm, or close to a foot, by 2100, while average temperatures will rise by at least a half degree Celsius, according to Tom Wigley, a researcher at the agency and an author of one of the studies released today. Researcher Gerald Meehl wrote the other.
• Giant space-time ripples may cause cosmic expansion - Dark energy is not necessary to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe observed by astronomers, suggest controversial new calculations. Instead, gigantic ripples in space-time - larger than the observable universe - may be the cause.
• Movies news/rumors/etc - X-Men 3 characters news | Spiderman 3 Villain revealed? | Quentin Tarantino reveals Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair! | The Star Wars Roundup @ ComingSoon | Lucas to Release Star Wars Films in 3-D.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Hey, Don't Toss Those Fishy Chips - Chip manufacturing is currently very wasteful. Between 20 percent and 50 percent of a manufacturer's total production is tossed or recycled because the chips contain minor imperfections. Defects in just one of the millions of tiny gates on a processor can doom the entire chip. But USC professor Melvin Breuer believes the imperfections are often too small for humans to even notice, especially when the chips are to be used in video and sound applications.
• EU Commission: Microsoft Offer Inadequate - Microsoft Corp.'s latest offer to comply with sanctions imposed by the European Commission is insufficient to meet the concerns of customers and consumers, a Commission spokesman said on Friday.

HARDWARE... 

• AMD Dual Core Processor Plans - Here is a very high level overview of the AMD dual core design strategy. AMD was adamant about the benefits of having dual cores on a single die based on several reasons including performance and cost.
• Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook T4010 tablet PC notebook - Running Windows XP Tablet PC 2005, the Lifebook T4010 is the latest Tablet PC from Fujitsu-Siemens. The core specifications are comparable to that of a mid to high-end laptop, with a 1.8GHz Pentium M processor, 512MB of PC2700 DDR SDRAM, Intel 855GME chipset and Intel 802.11b/g wireless networking. Using the full set of Intel hardware also means that the Lifebook T4010 can boast a Centrino sticker.
• Tested: 64-Bit P4 - PCWorld compared two of the new chips, the 3.73-GHz P4 EE and the 3.6-GHz P4 660, with a 32-bit 3.8-GHz P4 (the fastest 32-bit P4), a 2.6-GHz Athlon 64 FX-55, and a 2.4-GHz Athlon 64 3800+. Results are mixed: You'll get a slight boost over a 32-bit P4, but you will pay about $100 to $200 more for an Intel PC than for an AMD one with similar or slightly better performance.
• DFI LANPARTY NF4 SLI-DR nForce4 SLI Motherboard - DFI really set the stage for tweakers and overclockers with this board and are now reaping the benefits of its hard work and research. As of today (March 18), fifteen of the top twenty systems in the 3DMark05 hall of fame use DFI SLI systems! With an option for DIMM voltage up to 4V, a "FSB" clock up to 456MBHz, CPU clock multipliers and plenty of memory dividers, DFI has made sure its board would come out on top and that its users' performance would as well.
• Club 3D Radeon X800XL PCI Express - Extras included with the X800XL are 3 CD's; a driver, manual and demo disk, PowerDVD 5 and PowerDirector 3 DE, and the obligatory free game of Colin McRae Rally 04.
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB SATA Hard Drive - Bringing the 7200.8 Barracuda drive into the market, Seagate has reached a new milestone. The drive ran cool and quiet, it offered exceptional performance in every test and kept CPU load at a negligible minimum. Windows XP load times were some of the fastest we've experienced, an important factor to most users.
• Samsung 16X Dual Layer DVD±R-RW  - Samsung drive does a fairly good job at burning large amounts of data to both single and dual layer DVDs. It burned a full dual layer disc in less than 30 minutes and at 4x, which is above the rated burning speed of this drive. I found that to be fairly impressive, but I was surprised that it was still slower at burning the disc than a competitive drive. The lack of a larger buffer could be a place for improvement since Samsung has brought out CD burners with the larger 8MB cache buffer.
• Asetek WaterChill KT03A Extreme - The asetek WaterChill CPU Power kit (KT03A-SL35) can be viewed in a variety of ways. The obvious and enthusiast oriented option is around overclocking. A huge radiator, 3 fans means tons of cooling and big overclocks.
• Logitech MX518 Gaming Mouse - The MX518 is light, responsive, and offers a level of control over its features that few other mice can match. Logitech's designers have clearly thought through the design issues and come up with a winner in the game of mice. If you're a serious gamer, it's worth checking out—even if it does have a boring name.
• Razotech UFO Mouse - UFO mouse? Yeah! This little mouse makes its presence known. It has 10 blue LED's, five on each side of the mouse, that light up in a counter clockwise motion. There is no doubt that using this mouse will draw attention. Sound like fun? Sound annoying? That is your own opinion really, regardless, I'll take a closer look at what this new mouse from Razotech has to offer...
• HiFi Headphones Roundup featuring Airhead and Bithead Amplifiers - The Sennheiser HD600s are really in a class of their own. Given their price this should not really be surprising. The clarity and evenness of the sound across the board made these cans a true joy to listen to. Every track played on these came to life. Nuances previously unheard on other headphones were suddenly noticed. The only others in this review that equal the HD600s are the ER-4Ps.
• M-Audio Firewire 1814 18-IN-14-OUT Audio-MIDI Interface W/ADAT Lightpipe - The FireWire 18/14 is an 18-in, 14-out audio interface complete with ADAT Lightpipe for multi-channel communication with other digital devices. It features 8 x 4 analog I/O at up to 24-bit/96kHz, and boasts 192kHz on the first two inputs and all four outputs. Channels 1 and 2 also include high-quality microphone/instrument preamps. S/PDIF optical digital I/O provides 2-channel PCM, as well as pass-through of surround-encoded AC-3 and DTS material.
• Samsung SyncMaster 710N LCD Monitor - The Tech Zone takes a look at the Samsung SyncMaster 710N.
• InFocus LP-120 projector- To bring it down to bald measurements, the LP120 measures just 94mm front to back, is 258mm wide and 52mm thick, and weighs 0.9kg.
• hp Color LaserJet 3550 - This is a linear colour laser, meaning the four coloured toners are built up on the paper in a single pass, rather than in the four passes that a carousel mechanism takes. When you fold down the front of the machine, you gain access to four slots, each of which takes a toner cartridge,
  complete with developer drum. They slide in easily and are the only consumables you need to deal with. This integrated approach makes the  physical set up and maintenance of the Color LaserJet 3550 extremely simple.

.GUIDES... 

• Creating a combined install point with the .NET Framework and a service pack - It is possible to create a package that will install the .NET Framework 1.1 and SP1 at the same time (or 1.0 and SP3 at the same time).

SOFTWARE...

• Internet Explorer Compatibility Evaluator - IECE is designed to help IT professionals (download) evaluate changes in behavior of web applications and web sites caused by the new security features in Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and test for compatibility when moving from Windows XP to Windows XP Service Pack 2.
• 3d Traceroute 2.0.8:30 - Replace all your ugly ping plotters and traceroute programs with a full blown three dimensional traceroute program (download)
• FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v0.3 - FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts.
• MSN Messenger 7.0 Build 429 Public Beta - Microsoft has released for download new public beta of their MSN Messenger 7.0, build 429.
• Messenger Plus! 3.50.124 - Messenger Plus! Extension (download / changelog) is a program that adds functionalities to the MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger chat program.
• Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0.2 RC - Download links can be found here.
• WinPatrol 9.0.0.2 - WinPatrol uses a heuristic approach to detecting attacks and violations of your computing environment.
• Fraps 2.5.4 (shw) - Fraps (changelog) is a universal Windows application that can be used with all games using DirectX or OpenGL technology. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as Benchmarking Software, Screen Capture Software and Realtime Video Capture Software.
• DVD Decrypter 3.5.3.0 - 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. Advanced functionality can be found in the context menus.
• Windows XP Universal Tweaker v0.3 - This small wizard utility capable to do the following actions: Perform Internet Cache files and Temporary files cleanup, Tweak Windows Memory management, Tweak Connection and MTU Settings and perform DNS table cleanup, Tweak NTFS Partitions, Tweak Windows boot-time and Disable Windows ZIP Folder.
• Realtek RTL8139(A/B/C/D/8130)/810X series driver 6.21 WHQL - Realtek released new RTL8139/811x/816x/810x series drivers v6.21 WHQL.
• NGO ATI Optimized Driver v2.2 (Cat 5.3) - The NGO ATI Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the ATI Catalyst driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with a better performance and better image quality. The Driver has support for all Radeon cards (both desktop and mobile platforms).
• nForce4 2K/XP v6.53 drivers - Nvidia has released a new nForce4 standalone kit v6.53 (Windows 2000/XP)

SECURITY...

• WebTV Trojan Horse author sentenced -   Louisiana man who launched an e-mail virus that reprogrammed some computers to dial the 911 emergency phone number has been sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay $27,000 in restitution to Microsoft (Quote, Chart), authorities said.
• Tech Worker Sentenced to Prison for Hacking - An Orange, California, IT manager who earlier pled guilty to hacking into his previous employer's computer network was sentenced Monday to five months in prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said this week. According to a plea agreement dated August 30, 2004, Mark Erfurt broke into the computer systems of Santa Clara, California's Manufacturing Electronic Sales Corp. (MESC) on January 23 and 24 of 2003. During that time, he deleted data, read e-mail, and downloaded a proprietary database from the network using the PC Anywhere remote control software, the agreement says.
• Hollywood threatens to sue UK BitTorrent man for millions - Alexander Hanff had no idea Hollywood was keeping such a close eye on him. Then, last Saturday morning, a movie studio functionary arrived at his door. Hanff, still in his dressing gown and not yet full of coffee, opened the door, only to be served with a lawsuit by Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros. You may have already guessed Hanff's supposed transgression. The movie studios suspect him of running a BitTorrent hub and helping people download copyrighted films via P2P technology.
• Botnets multiplying over IRC - A newly published report by the Honeynet Project and Research Alliance has shown that internet relay chat (IRC) is crucial to hackers running so-called botnets of virus-infected PCs. The team, which uses test machines to analyse hacker behaviour, found many IRC bots which were being used to control infected PCs in distributed networks.
• CyberCrime Mobs Revealed - In this special report, writers Deborah Gage and John McCormick map out how the networks get started, how they work, what they steal, and how the feds stay on their tails.

OFFTOPIC...

• Hitachi Unveils Humanoid Robot - BBC reports that Hitachi has unveiled a humanoid robot, named Emiew, to compete with Honda's Asimo and Sony's Qrio robots. The robot has a vocabulary of about 100 words and could be trained for practical office and factory use.
• Vampire bats can fly, drink blood - and run - Bats are the only mammals that fly. Scientists think they generally stopped running long ago, as evolution gave flight capabilities to their forelimbs. Most species of bats, if asked to run, can do little more than flop around like fish out of water.
• Human embryonic stem cells grown animal-free - One of the hurdles to using human embryonic stem cells to treat disease has been overcome. Three teams have managed to derive and grow the cells without using any animal cells that might contaminate them.
• Stress afflicts security bosses - Keeping computer viruses at bay is more stressful than divorce, warns a survey. The research revealed how European technology bosses were coping with the growing number of hi-tech threats. Although many firms had software in place to combat viruses, spam and phishing, it found few adequately protected against all threats. The survey also revealed that many tech bosses would face dismissal if they let their firm fall victim to a serious security breach.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 Details Begin to Leak - Sources say that IE 7.0 - which is code-named "Rincon," they hear - will be a tabbed browser. IE 7.0 will feature international domain name (IDN) support; transparent Portable Network Graphics (PNG) support, which will allow for the display of overlayed images in the browser; and new functionality that will simplify printing from inside IE 7.0, partner sources said. The new browser also will likely include a built-in news aggregator. However, CSS Support Could Be IE 7.0's Weakest Link.
• Yahoo 360 blend of blogging, social networking - Yahoo announced it would launch Yahoo 360 March 29. The new Yahoo service blends several of its Web site's popular features with two of the Internet's fastest growing activities - blogging and social networking. The service is designed to enable Yahoo's 165 million registered users to pull content from the Web site's discussion groups, online photo albums and review section to plug into their own Web logs, or blogs, the Internet shorthand used to describe online personal journals.
• Buena Vista to Release Films for Sony PSP - Buena Vista Home Entertainment said it would release five movies this spring: "National Treasure," "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "Reign of Fire," "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "Hero." More titles will be announced during the year, it said. The UMD, or Universal Media Disc, holds about three times the capacity of a regular CD. It was developed specifically for Sony's PSP, to be released in North America on March 24.
• Sony updates PSX PVRs with PSP video support - Once again reports of the demise of Sony's PSX PVR-meets-PS2 have proved premature. Last month's move to suspend production appears to have simply heralded the launch of a new version of the product. The DESR-5700, like its predecessor, the 5500, sports a 160GB hard drive, while the DESR-7700 will provide the same 250GB storage capacity that the 7500 did. What the new models do provide is the ability to interoperate with Sony's Portable PlayStation handheld console and media player.
• Door to Java source code opens a crack wider - Sun Microsystems wants to send Java closer to the open-source world, yet keep it safe from harm. It will modify its licenses to make access to the Java source code easier, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said Wednesday. But it stopped short of creating an open-source license--something it has resisted, despite calls to do so.
• Xbox 2 will be the Xbox 360 - The study, held in London's Soho, saw a mixture of male and female gamers and Xbox owners presented with a series of prospective marketing campaigns for the Xbox 360. The three lead contenders to be offered by the best in media and marketing to date are - somewhat depressingly - Xbox 360: Amplify Yourself!; Xbox 360: You're Next!; and Xbox 360: Shine! Really, that's what they're working with right now.
• DiVX video to include MP3 support - The Next generation of DivX video will include official support for MP3 and MP3 Surround audio, DivXNetworks told the INQ today. While MP3 audio has been used with Divx encoded movies for yonks, the official licensing of the technology from Fraunhofer and Thomson means that the codec can be used in official / legal / commercial content created with the video format, rather than just episodes of 24 downloaded from BitTorrent. The MP3 Surround codec enables 5.1 audio to be compressed in a similar and backward-compatible way to existing stereo MP3, saving space and avoiding alienating the existing installed base of MP3 devices.
• Chip industry straining at the limits of technology - The pure silicon substrate is reaching its limits," Myers (president and chief executive officer of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) said earlier this week in Shanghai. Strained silicon works well with today's most advanced processes and will continue to be used as a substrate with upcoming 65 nm and 45 nm processes, but a different substrate is required for more advanced processes, Myers said.

HARDWARE... 

• NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI for Pentium 4 - first benchmark results - From a prospective purchasers perspective, and one who has no preference which companies' microprocessor is installed, then the obvious comparison is between an AMD or Intel NVIDIA SLI system, and for the present, if the numbers we have are correct, and we believe they are, then the choice is looking decidedly obvious - an AMD based NVIDIA SLI system looks set to simply wipe the floor with an Intel Pentium 4 SLI system.
• Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook - The only criticism here is that Dell's power-saving feature drastically dims the display while the system is running on battery, so much so that you may find working with the standard settings uncomfortable. If you need even more power autonomy, such as for long flights, Dell offers a 9-cell battery (L57.58 ex. VAT) which should give you a couple more hours usage. Whatever options you go for, the Inspiron 6000 should satisfy.
• Gigabyte G-Max N203 Laptop - The G-Max N203 uses the Intel 855GME chipset including the ICH4-M Southbridge chip. This enables support for DDR 333 memory (through the processor itself does not take advantage of this).
• Astak Team Research 512MB (2x256MB) PC4000 DDR-500 High Speed Memory  - ExtremeOverclocking take a look at two 256MB PC4000 DDR memory modules rated to run on a 250MHz (500MHz DDR) overclocked memory bus.
• Abit's Fatal1ty AN8 motherboard - At over $220 online, the Fatal1ty-AA8XE is far from cheap, but it's no more expensive than other premium 925XE motherboards. With plenty of OTES cooling, a decent cable bundle, a tweak-filled BIOS, and uGuru delivering the best hardware monitoring around, the Fatal1ty-AA8XE is definitely a premium board worthy of any Pentium 4 overclocking enthusiast. Another review can be found on ExtremeTech.
• HIS X850 XT PE IceQ II Dual DVI VIVO 256MB PCIe - The chip used in the X850 XT PE is the R480 chip. The main difference between this chip and the older R420 chip that you find in the old X800 XT's is so called "process enhancements." These have made it possible for ATI to clock it slightly higher than the X800 XT PE. As you might notice, the Radeon X850 XT PE isn't that much faster on paper than the X800 XT PE.
• HIS X800XL/X850XT - HIS RADEON X800 XL IceQ II Turbo 256MB is potentially the best choice in its price segment. Besides, its performance may grow in Turbo mode. What concerns this sample, its operating stability is up to the mark, its quality is very high, 2D picture at 1600x1200@85Hz is sharp. 440/1170 MHz overclocking.
• EVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC video review - 3DGame Man has posted an EVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC Video Card video review
• Apollo nVidia gForce 6600GT AGP - I can safely say that the Apollo 6600GT is definitely worth the $219US that ComputerGeeks asks for it. It is so far advanced from the Radeon 9600Pro that they aren't in the same category. Yes, there are a few drawbacks. No temperature monitoring is a bummer, especially with the sensor right there in the core. The huge aluminum heatsink probably keeps the core to a respectable temperature, but copper works so much better
• XG Vortec 500W Power Supply - It comes with a one year warranty and they will repair it for $25 after the warranty is expired provided there is no physical damage and spare parts are still available for the repair. You can expect to pay about $80 for the Vortec 500
• Zalman VF700-CU Ultra Quiet Copper VGA Cooler - The Zalman VF700-CU is everything you could ask for in a GPU cooler: great performance and silence. It fits many different cards, cools your ram, and looks good too. It didn't fit perfectly on the 6600GT AGP, mainly because of the odd layout of the card due to the PCI-E/AGP interface. We were well warned by Zalman that it would be different, but it would work.
• Corsair COOL Water Cooling - While the "Cool" is definitely an entry level cooling unit, it is equally suitable for the beginner or experienced enthusiast. Just based on its price to performance ratio alone this, this under $200 water cooling system is sure to be extremely popular and for good reason.
• Belkin Wireless Keyboard - There you have it. If your mobile device lacks Bluetooth, your options are essentially limited to IR unless, as with some HP/Compaq models, there is a plugin keyboard or USB host and you feel like carrying around a full size keyboard. If IR is the only way to go, I have no issues recommending this one from Belkin.
• Logitech MOMO Racing Wheel  - This racing wheel will not disappoint. If you are serious about your driving games, this is the wheel for you. The MOMO wheel came highly recommended by several of my friends and I must say it has lived up to the hype.
• Toshiba TDP-SW20 Wireless DLP Projector - The TDP-SW20 is a competent, if pretty run-of-the-mill budget projector. It's nothing special specification-wise: the resolution is a pretty bog- standard SVGA (800 x 600), and the brightness is nothing to write home  about either at 1400 ANSI lumens. The contrast rating of 2000:1 is pretty standard too, these days. There are other projectors on the market with higher resolution and brighter pictures for the same money.
• Apple iPod Shuffle (512MB) MP3 and Digital Media Player - The 512MB version is priced at just $99 dollars while the 1GB goes for $149. The price is right, and the Shuffle looks stylish enough, but we have to wonder if those two attributes are enough to carry this little player.
• Nintendo DS handheld games console - A few hours spent with Super Mario 64 DS will tell you that the ARM9 and ARM7 CPUs are perfectly capable of doing anything you would have seen on the N64's custom hardware, and there are times when the bundled demo version of Metroid Prime: Hunters has you suspecting that it might have the potential to surpass it. Another review can be found on TrustedReviews.
• smart2go Mobile Navigator GPS Software with Socket Bluetooth GPS Receiver - PDAToday.com has just finished up their extensive review of smart2go Mobile Navigator GPS Software with Socket Bluetooth GPS Receiver including many screenshots and detailed information.

.GUIDES... 

• Understanding the Cell Microprocessor - Cell, at a high level, isn't too difficult to understand; it's how the designers got there that is most intriguing. It's the design decisions and building blocks of Cell that we'll focus on here in this article, with an end goal of understanding why Cell was designed the way it was.
• Introduction to Tape Backup - The Tech Zone has posted an article on backing things up to tape.
• Protection against Adware and Spyware - PC Review have a new article on protecting yourself against Adware and Spyware.

SOFTWARE...

• Auditor Security Linux - Auditor Security Linux is a KANOTIX-based live CD with a collection of tools for system auditing and forensic analysis. A new version was announced today: "The new version is finished and distributed allready on some of the usual mirrors. (thanks NeoNSX)
• FileZilla 2.2.12b - FileZilla (download) is a fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.
• Firefox - FireTune 0.2 - FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of optimization settings collected and tested by Tweakfactor.
• Style XP 3.02 (shw) - Style XP is not a skinning engine. It uses Microsoft's built-in visual style engine, but enhances it by providing many useful tools. Style XP can import, select, rotate, and manage themes, visual styles, wallpapers, and logons.
• Nero CD-DVD Speed v3.75 - This new version adds support for NEC PI/PIF scanning on upcoming NEC firmwares.
• AnyDVD 4.6.1.2 (shw) - AnyDVD is a driver, which descrambles DVD-Movies automatically in the background. This DVD appears unprotected and region code free for all applications and the Windows operating system as well. This new version improved CSS key extraction, if title is additionally protected by Arccos or Puppetlock.
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 & 2 ZS Driver - This update combines the features and fixes of two previous updates:  EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD Driver Patch Update for Sound Blaster Audigy 2 and Audigy 2 ZS (released on 29 March 2004) and EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD Driver Update for Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2/Audigy 2 ZS (released on 19 November 2003). In addition, this update includes a new fix for your Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 or Audigy 2 ZS series audio card. Note that this fix is not critical so you can choose not to install this update.

SECURITY...

• Microsoft to abandon passwords - Microsoft has revealed at a security panel at CeBIT that it is preparing to dump passwords in favour of two-factor authentication in forthcoming versions of Windows. Detlef Eckert, the senior director in charge of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative, did not specify which form of two-factor authentication would be used in the next edition of the company's operating system, codenamed Longhorn.
• British ISPs Must Identify File Sharers - British record companies applauded Friday's ruling in court that gave them the right to obtain the identities of people who use file sharing programs from Internet service providers. The labels were looking for the identities of 31 persons suspected of uploading large numbers of illegal files onto various P2P services.
• Zombie PCs being sent to steal IDs - The report, released on Monday, summarizes the findings of researchers who have tapped into more than 100 different bot nets since last summer. Some of the networks were made up of more than 50,000 computers, said the Honeynet Project, a security group that sets up heavily monitored systems, or honeypots, and allows them to be attacked.
• FTC Shuts Down Fraudulent Antispyware Company - The FTC announced that it's filed a restraining order against a company that allegedly offered Internet users a spyware scanner program that falsely reported that computers were infected with spyware, and which failed to remove any spyware at all from infected machines.
• 911 Trojan author jailed for six months - A Louisiana man who wrote malicious e-mails that caused some computers to dial the 911 emergency number was sentenced on Monday to six months in prison.
• Hack most wireless LANs in minutes - Now with the new active attacks on WEP described in Ossmann’s follow-up article, hackers no longer need to passively wait for legitimate packets on a wireless LAN because they can actively inject packets into a wireless LAN to ensure a speedy packet collection session. The end result is, any WEP based network with or without Dynamic WEP keys can now be cracked in minutes!

OFFTOPIC...

• Star Wars Revelations trailer - This is an independent film, completely put together by volunteers and organized by Panic Struck Productions. Well, check out this trailer!
• Martian dust devils finally caught on camera - Swirling dust devils on Mars have given NASA scientists both a scientific treat and a very welcome power boost. On 10 March, the rover Spirit captured images of two dust devils in one day. It is the first time any have been seen on Mars since first being identified in a single image from the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. One of the two appears on two different images from the rover's Navigation Camera, making it possible to track its direction and speed.
• Thousands join hunt for gravitational waves - On Monday 14 March, the 126th anniversary of Albert Einstein's birth, over 50,000 people around the world are helping in the hunt for the gravitational waves predicted by the great physicist nearly a century ago. These people have already downloaded the distributed-computing program Einstein@Home, which was only launched on 19 February 2005, and more than 1000 people per day are still joining. Dense moving objects such as spinning neutron stars or colliding black holes are predicted to send out ripples in space-time - gravitational waves - according to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. But so far no gravitational waves have ever been observed.
• [RIP] Billy Wilson Dead at 33 - Billy "Wicked" Wilson (Voodoo Extreme former) has passed away at the age of thirty-three. He is survived by his wife and son. Specific details surrounding his death aren't public at the moment. Pretty sad news ....:(

TECHNOLOGY...

• Netscape browser makes comeback - The once-mighty Netscape browser is attempting a comeback. How, you ask? Simple. By combining the best elements of its two leading rivals. Netscape is out with a test release of version 8.0, and the new browser is nothing like its recent predecessors, which were mostly about fixing bugs and playing catch-up.
• IBM lets Millipede storage out for a stroll - IBM tantalized chip aficionados at CeBit here last week with a storage device that it says can achieve data densities of more than 1 terabit per square inch. The MEMS prototype can hold the equivalent of 25 DVDs on an area the size of a postage stamp, IBM said. MEMS stands for micro-electrical-mechanical system.
• Japanese Giants Launch 170Mbps over powerline - The speed is three times faster than wireless technology Wi-Fi and is fast enough for high definition television signals. Unlike wireless alternatives, the powerline technology performance is stable throughout the home. SECA will compete with existing technology from the HomePlug alliance of 50 companies, including Japanese group Sharp (6753.T). The two systems are not compatible.
• 3D Raytracing Chip Shown at CeBIT - As noted at heise.de Saarland University is showing a prototype of a 3D Raytracing Card at CeBIT2005. The FPGA is clocked at 90 MHz and is 3-5 times faster in raytracing then a Pentium4 CPU with 30 times more MHz. (Slashdot.org)
• Nokia Plans Three New Phones for the U.S. Market - Nokia plans to sell its new 6155i CDMA phone in the fourth quarter. The 6155i offers a fold-over cover, built-in zoom lens camera (which supports streaming video), and GPS applications. The 3155 CDMA phone also plans to go on sale with the 6155i in the fourth quarter. The 3155 CDMA also offers a fold-over case with extra memory for storign pictures, along with integrated FM Radio. Both phones are expected to cost $100 to $250, a middle-tier price range described by Nokia.
• Sony PSP Euro debut delayed? - Sony has apparently pushed back the UK release of the PlayStation Portable to late June, if Amazon.co.uk's PSP product page is to be believed. If the site's new date is credible, the delay marks a serious slippage from the late March timeframe Sony originally had in mind for the handheld console's UK debut
• DRM comes to mobiles - SanDisk is working with a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to make storage cards which include digital rights management. The flash card maker will offer cards for use in mobile phones from the last quarter of this year. SanDisk cards will use NDS's mVideoGuard Mobile DRM technology.

HARDWARE... 

• X-bit labs CeBIT 2005 Coverage - #Day1 |  #Day2 | #Day3 | #Day4 / another extensive coverage can be found on THG
• ECS announces first INTEL/AMD combo motherboard - The solution is codenamed PF88 and it is expected to be formally launched in April, according to senior manager of marketing at ECS Adam Chou. He also said that shipments should begin before May. Both the P4 motherboard and K8 converter card use SiS northbridges, the SiS656 and SiS756 respectively. The motherboard supports up to 4 GB of dual-channel DDR2-667 memory.
• Asustek previews Turion 64 platform - One of key players in notebook industry, Asustek introduced its future implementation of the AMD Turion 64 platform at CeBIT. The product, initially called A6000K, will come out with 15- or 15.4-inch TFT LCD display, Nvidia GeForce Go 6200 mobile graphics processor, DDR333 memory (upto 2GB), wireless LAN module supporting two (b and g) or three (a, b and g) versions of IEEE 802.11 standard, the company said.
• SiS761GX Anounced DirectX 9 Integrated Chipset - Silicon Integrated Systems today announced their new SiS761GX integrated chipset supporting AMD64 platforms with a PCI Express x16 high-speed graphics interface. The SiS761GX is equipped with a 3D graphics core, and fully supports new generation AMD64 central processors, including the AMD Sempron, Athlon64, Athlon64 FX and Opteron. In addition to its Mirage1 graphics core and software support for DirectX 9.0, the SiS761GX is capable of dual screen output when paired with the SiS307 video bridge chip.
• SLI Bridge Available in Retail - This week some Japanese hardware stores started offering the SLI bridge card, which is shipped together with Gigabyte's or Leadtek's graphics cards as well as with all the SLI supporting mainboards based on nForce4 SLI available in the today's market. Why could anyone be willing to buy a separate SLI bridge card at all?
• Dual-core AMD Athlon 64 benchmarks emerge - The first dual-core Athlon 64 benchmarks have appeared on the web, courtesy of an Italian-language hardware site and an unnamed Taiwanese OEM. The Italian site came up with a rendering time of 41.4s for the Athlon 64 dual-core sample, second only to a two-way, HyperThreading-enabled 3.6GHz Xeon system, which clocked in at 38.4s. The Xeon rig offers four logical cores to the Athlon 64's two physical cores.
• Memory Shootout - Extremely High Performance DDR using Samsung TCCD DRAMs - To sum up, if you want the coolest modules on the block and you're feeling flush, the Corsair Xpert is in a niche of its own. Paired with Samsung's TCCD modules, there's a world of performance to be had from them at modest Vdimm. Otherwise, the G.Skill and OCZ both come recommended at around the £200 mark, with Corsair's XL PRO and XL PT under that price, too.
• ASUS AX800XL - The easiest way to think of the 800XL is a clocked-down version of the X800 XT - same amount of pixel pipelines and vertex shaders but clocked quite a bit lower and it's built on a .13-micron process. This allows the GPU to run significantly cooler and also yields some nice overclockabilty which we'll get into later on in this review.
• ASUS N6800GT SLi - The ASUS card currently retails for $489 at newegg and multipling that by two for an SLI setup gives a figure with which you can easily buy an entire PC with reasonable performance. They also says: "We think that playing with the 6800 series in an SLI mode is only for the rich kid's at the moment. As prices come down and more games take better advantage, only then will we be able to recommed an SLI setup."
• Leadtek WinFast A6600GT (AGP GeForce 6600 GT) - Leadtek has taken this technology and tossed it into a great package. The WinFast A6600GT TDH offers performance that almost matches that of the next generation's hardware, at a fraction of the cost.
• ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB (PCI Express) video card - To put it simply, R480 is a tweaked version of the R423 core used to power the PCI Express version of ATI's initial X800 products. These tweaks serve the purpose of reducing heat and increasing clock speeds over its predecessor and, most importantly, avoiding some of the supply constraint issues we've seen in the past. The Radeon X800 line-up (X800 Pro aside), has picked up a far from illustrious reputation of being near vapourware, with X800 XT parts, the Platinum Edition in particular, being all but non-existent. Indeed, early indications are good that supply of these new R480 (and R430)-based parts are plentiful, with X850 products aplenty available for purchase. Whether this trend will continue with the AGP-based variants of these boards that come to market shortly remains to be seen of course, but the situation is looking decidedly more hopeful.
• Asus DRW-1608P - The DRW-1608B will burn DVD+/-R media at 16x, DVD+RW at 8x and DVD-RW at 6x. Of course I wasn't able to test the DVD+RW and DVD-RW performance properly since the respective 8x and 6x media isn't available yet. The CD-R specification is a little disappointing at 40x, while the 24x CD-RW speed is pretty much par for the course. But it's the DVD+R DL specification that really impresses with the Asus drive – at 6x, this drive promised to be considerably faster than the 4x drives already on the market
• Seagate 100Gb USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive - It's basically a small (2.5") harddrive packed inside a strong shell with a high speed, USB 2 adaptor on rear; it's also got a bright blue LED light for good measure. Seagate offer two version of the drive; a 40gig version and a 100gig version - we looked at the 100gig version
• XG's X-Case - XG has done a nice job of dressing up a good solid case. It is both practical and unique looking. It provides more then enough room to work in and fit all of your components. Cooling and noise levels are both decent and I think most gamers would be very happy to have their system in this case. It is fairly heavy though, so it is not for you people that carry your system to LAN parties.
• Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 3100 - The only drawback I can see with the MX 3100 is the keyboard layout is not standard - the Insert key has been removed from the middle roll and placed next to the F12 key and because the Windows Start key was removed from the right side of the keyboard, the right Ctrl key doesn't line up with the right Shift key. The sifted over Ctrl key placement was by far the most troublesome. Many time when I wanted to hit the Ctrl key I ended up hitting the left arrow key. I didn't miss the relocation of the Insert key but not having the Ctrl key line up with right side of the Shift key took a lot of getting use too.
• Netgear's MP101 wireless audio system - check it out!

.GUIDES... 

• PCStats' Linux guide part #2: installing a PC - In the first part of PCstats Beginner's Guide to using Linux, they explored the basic features of this open-source operating system by using the Knoppix 'live' CD Linux distribution which does not require a permanent installation onto your computer's hard drive, but instead loads entirely from a single CD. For the second installment of this guide, they're going to take one of the most popular and easy to use free Linux distributions, SUSE Personal 9.1 and explore the process of installing Linux onto your hard drive as a full operating system.
• Motherboard Basics - A  motherboard, also known as a main board, is the primary circuit board inside of a computer, and is where the central processing unit (CPU), memory, expansion slots, drives, and other peripheral devices are connected.
• Basics of Flash Memory, Part 2 - Bigbruin.com has posted the second part of their basics of flash memory series.
• Hack most wireless LANs in minutes - Now with the new active attacks on WEP described in Ossmann’s follow-up article, hackers no longer need to passively wait for legitimate packets on a wireless LAN because they can actively inject packets into a wireless LAN to ensure a speedy packet collection session. The end result is, any WEP based network with or without Dynamic WEP keys can now be cracked in minutes!
• Building A Silent Server/HTPC - OCModShop has posted a guide about building a silent Server/HTPC
• Pureoverclock's March buyer's guide - check it out

SOFTWARE...

• MySQL 4.1.10a - MySQL (download ~ changelog) is the world's most popular open source database, recognized for its speed and reliability.
• Java 2 Runtime Environment Standard Edition 5.0 Update 2 - Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) software is the premier solution for rapidly developing and deploying mission-critical, enterprise applications.
• LimitLogin v1.0 - This application adds the ability to limit concurrent interactive user logons in an Active Directory domain. It can also keep track of all logins information in Active Directory domains (without necessarily enforcing logons quotas).
• Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 4.0 - Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) contains the tools and documentation you need to evaluate and mitigate application compatibility issues before deploying on these platforms.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.1 Update - download (thanks Mr.Tech)
• xplorer2 Lite 1.2.0.0 - The lightweight version of xplorer2 is not a crippled unusable salesman of the professional version. It shares the same browsing and management engine, and gives many rival professional file managers a run for their money - literally. It is a complete little file manager, albeit lacking a bit in bells and whistles.
• Process Guard 3.150 - ProcessGuard is a powerful new cutting-edge program that greatly increases the security of your computer by preventing processes from being able to attack each other. It is considered by experts to be a must-have program for all users of Windows, and is the only program available that can actually prevent the installation and infection of all known rootkit stealth trojans.
• NeroLINUX 2.0.0.0-6 - NeroLINUX is a comprehensive, yet flexible application provided you have some prior knowledge of CD/DVD technologies.
• K-Lite Codec Pack 2.41 - K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-decompressor. This new version includes Media Player Classic v6.4.8.3 and DirectVobSub (vsfilter) v2.35.
• QuickTime Alternative 1.42 - QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install QuickTime Player from Apple
• Real Alternative 1.32 - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer or RealOne Player from Real Networks. Supported are: RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia (.rm .ram .rmvb .rpx .smi .smil), RealText (.rt) and ReadPix (.rp). It also supports RealMedia content that is embedded in webpages.
• Nero Burning ROM 6.6.0.8a - As the version number itself still remains the same and there is no mention of this 'a' version in their changelog, it appears like this update may fix something small such as possibly a bug fix in its new LightScribe support. Nero Version 6.6.0.8a is available on its FTP mirrors and its website update section here.
• iPod2PC 1.10 - iPod2PC enables you to copy MP3-songs from your lovely iPod back to a PC's harddisk. Transfer easily your music library to another PC to play them there or make a backup of your songs.
• BitTorrent v4.0.0 - 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.
• Firefox 1.0.2 Beta - A new beta release of the Firefox Mozilla web browser is available.
• My Drivers v3.11.2600 - My Drivers enables easy and fast detection, backup and restore of all hardware device drivers currently on your system. Also, you can even find the latest drivers for your hardware and install them onto your computer.
• nVHardPage v2.2 - The nVHardPage tweaker has been updated to version 2.2 Multilanguage and serves on en/disabling hidden features in nVidia control panel, tweaking nVidia Direct3D and OpenGL settings and overclocking your nVidia graphic card.
• ForceWare 3D Stereo Driver 71.84 - Two files are required to use your 3D glasses with any GeForce card. The first is the 71.84 videocard ForceWare drivers, and the other is the official Nvidia Stereo drivers. 71.84 3D Stereo drivers require 71.84 ForceWare Graphics drivers to run.
• NVIDIA Linux display drivers 1.0-7167 - NVIDIA has again released two new Linux display drivers. One for normal x86 systems and one for 64bit extended systems.

SECURITY...

• Microsoft Patches Windows 98, ME Flaws  - The software giant on Tuesday updated two previously released bulletins (MS05-002 and MS05-015) to add critical security fixes for customers running Windows 98, 98SE and ME. The decision to release patches for Windows 98 and ME users is described as a "bonus" because of the critical nature of the vulnerabilities being addressed, a Microsoft spokeswoman said. "Those products are out of lifecycle, but we made a commitment to provide critical updates, and that's what you're seeing."
• Denial-of-service glitch could threaten Windows - Posting to the SecurityFocus industry forum site late Monday, an individual identified only as Dejan Levaja first described how the threat, known technically as a LAND attack for the type of code that triggers it, could affect Windows users by needlessly occupying their computers' processing power.
• Virus writers exchanging information - Virus analysts at Kaspersky Lab have been investigating the recent Bagle outbreak, and come to the conclusion that the authors of Bagle, Zafi and Netsky are working hand in hand with each other.
• Virus writers start new flame war - The Fatso.A worm (also known as Crog and Sumom) spreads via MSN Messenger by sending an instant message with a URL that, when clicked, causes the PC to download the virus. It also spreads as a file on eMule peer-to-peer systems. It contains a message from a virus writer called 'Sky Devil': "Hey LARISSA f*** off, you f****** n00b!.. Bla bla to your f****** saving the world from Bropia, the world n33ds saving from you!"
• DNS cache poisoning bugs hits Symantec shops - Crackers are using a security vulnerability in Symantec's enterprise products to redirect surfers to websites hosting malicious code. The main vector of the DNS cache poisoning attack, detected by the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Centre on 4 March, has been traced back to a vulnerability affecting Symantec firewalls with DNS caching. Symantec has issued a hotfix for its Symantec Enterprise Firewall and Enterprise Security Gateway appliance products.
• Design flaw limits spread of MMS mobile virus - Analysis of the CommWarrior mobile phone virus has revealed that the infection is not spreading rapidly because of coding flaws in its design. Researchers at F-Secure who have been analysing the code reported today that, while the infection does send itself on to other phones using the multimedia messaging service (MMS), it does so very slowly, leaving a time delay of anything from 15 minutes to several hours between propagation attempts.
• Hackers 'poison' search engine results - Hackers are increasingly using websites rather than email attachments to spread malicious code, security watchers have warned. In its six-monthly Web Security Trends Report, Websense noted that online criminals may be subverting search engines in a bid to direct unwitting internet users to web pages containing malware.
• "Robin Hood" pirates plead guilty - Three men whom prosecutors dubbed the "Robin Hoods of cyberspace" pleaded guilty Tuesday to putting copyright computer games, movies and software on the Internet so people around the world could make copies for free. All three said they made no money on the scheme and did it just for the sport of it. Seth Kleinberg, 26, of Los Angeles; Jeffrey Lerman, 20, of New York; and Albert Bryndza, 32, also of New York, pleaded guilty to federal copyright charges.
• Harvard Rejects Applicants Who Hacked Site - Harvard Business School says it will reject the applications of the 119 applicants who hacked into the school's admissions Web site last week.
• Aus. Govt moves to ban websites promoting suicide - The Australian federal government is once again showing its cluelessness regarding the workings of the Internet. The short article tells us how, under legislation to be introduced this week, corporations would be fined up to AU$500,000 and individuals AU$100,000 if they use the Internet to incite or promote suicide methods. In Australia it is illegal to commit, or attempt to commit suicide.

OFFTOPIC...

• Human Out-Muscles Robots - Six years ago, Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher Yoseph Bar-Cohen challenged scientists to create an artificial arm that could beat a human in an arm-wrestling match. The catch: The arm must be made of a pliable plastic material controlled by electrical impulses. In other words, no motors allowed. Monday, in front of a battalion of TV cameras and an audience of hundreds, three groups of scientists took on Bar-Cohen's challenge -- and failed. One of the robot arms seemed to flop helplessly, while the other two quickly fell to a 17-year-old high-school student.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Xbox2 goes core to core to core with PS3 - Microsoft's second version of its Xbox console will feature a CPU with PowerPC cores, according to GameSpy (#1 / #2) , which claims to have scooped the specifications. Expectations that the console would be formally announced at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco this week were quashed last month. Xenon, as it's codenamed, will feature ATI's next-generation graphics card and a 12X dual-layer DVD. The system will also have a camera, to liven up online gaming, while the hard disk is optional. Sony's third-generation PlayStation will use the 4Ghz Cell processor jointly developed by IBM, Toshiba and Sony's microprocessor division. Sony is expected to unveil the PSP3 in May.
• Taiwan game producer InterServ to hunt talent at GDC 2005 in San Francisco - InterServ International plans to expand its design staff with experts found at the 2005 GDC in San Francisco from March 7-11 this year, according to company managing director Sheree Tsao.
• Microsoft Office 12 Preview 1 - As with previous Office versions, Microsoft has developed a high-level "vision" for Office 12, and this time, it's all focused on the enterprise.
• Microsoft Unveils "Office Communicator" - Microsoft has given a name to its Windows Messenger successor: Office Communicator 2005. The new communications client, formerly known by its code-name Istanbul, integrates IM, voice, video, telephony and Web conferencing capabilities into a single interface and makes them accessible in Microsoft's Office applications.
• Firm intros Mac OSX Windows emulator - MSXINC has introduced an emulator called Cherry OS (thanks TheInquirer) which it claims allows you to run Mac OS X on a Windows XP operating systems. The $50 package comes with an installer which allows both CherryOS and OS X to be installed - and allows the use of a number of Mac applications including Safari and Apple Mail. The system requires a Pentium 4 1.6GHz CPU or equivalent, 512MB of memory, and 3GB of hard drive space, but doesn't come with OS X, which can be downloaded separately from the Apple site.
• NTL Broadband Upgrades Official Information -  It is now official to collaborate on NTL's upcoming broadband speed increases. The bandwidth assumptions were not 100% correct.  The correct info is:  -From 300k To 1MB [3GB Per Month] / - From 750k To 2MB [1GB Per Day] / -From 1.5MB To 3MB [1GB Per Day]. All the speed increases can still be confirmed as a free upgrade, all existing users will be upgraded as of 14th March 2005.
• Samsung Develops 7 Megapixel Camera Phone - Samsung Electronics has set the camera phone bar higher by developing the world's first 7-megapixel camera phone. The world's No. 3 handset maker announced Wednesday it is unveiling its new SCH-V770 phone at the 2005 CeBIT expo that runs in Hannover, Germany from March 10 to 16.
• Sony unveils cheap flash memory walkmans - Sony has unveiled a line up of cheap flash-memory based walkman digital audio devices in another attempt by the company to knock Apple Computers off the top of the digital player market. The devices will sell for as cheap as less than EURO100 ($132.2) and support the MP3 format. You can now get Sony devices that store 256MB, 512MB or 1GB of music.
• Samsung Shows 82-Inch LCD - Samsung Electronics has built what it says is the largest LCD panel yet made and will show it at this week's Cebit show in Hanover, Germany. The 82-inch widescreen LCD panel supports high-definition and was built on the new seventh generation production line at the factory of S-LCD in Tangjung, South Korea, the company says.

HARDWARE... 

• AMD announces mini-ITX motherboard - AMD has announced the availability of its Geode NX DB1500 development board and reference design. The board features an SIS 741CX north bridge coupled to a 964 south bridge in a miniscule mini-ITX form factor. The DB1500 will cost $599 per unit and is available now.
• Asetek makes Micro phase cooler  - The Inquirer has the goods on an interesting new phase change cooler from Asetek that will apparently sell for less than $40. The VapoChill Micro PCU cooler is filled with hermetically sealed gas/liquid captured in chambers and exploiting phase change cooling principles. The company claims it's much more efficient than the currently heavily used heatpipe cooler principle.
• HP IPAQ HX2410 Pocket PC - Even a Gamer needs mobility! The IPAQ hx2410 is one of HP's most recent models. It basically has all the bells and whistles that you'll ever need except for maybe a biometric fingerprint reader for enhanced security. I was trying to get my hands on the hx2750 but I couldn't find one so its younger sibling will be on trial.
• HP Pavilion ZE2000 Notebook - HotHardware.Com has posted a review of a value-priced notebook from Hewlett Packard, the ZE2000. The HP ZE2000, which is based on the Intel 855GME/ICH4-M Chipset for Pentium/Celeron-M processors, sports a 15" LCD and a great set of built-in Hardmon Kardon speakers.
• Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP Notebook - This notebook delivers enough performance for work in office and multimedia applications as well as in 3D graphics processing suites and games (but not for the latest games which are sometimes too hard even for a serious desktop machine). With the numerous preinstalled programs the Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP is ready to work right out of the package. You don't have to install any more programs.
• AMD Athlon64 3800+ Socket 939 64-bit CPU - The Socket 939 AMD Athlon64 3800+ that we've looked at today is clocked at a fast 2.4 GHz and built on AMD's trusty 0.13 micron manufacturing process. Compared to the older Socket 754 Athlon64 3200+ with its single channel memory controller, the Athlon64 3800+ only has half the L2 cache. However, AMD has now upgraded the memory controller with dual-channel DDR capabilities. By doing this, AMD not only increased performance, but saved manufacturing space and money as the actual silicon itself is now much smaller than before; 144mm2 vs. 193mm2.
• Intel's Pentium 4 660 Processor - The Pentium 4 660 runs at 3.6 GHz clock speed and sells for about $700. GamePC compared this processor against Intel's chief competitor in this price range, AMD's Athlon64 4000+ processor. they've also included benchmarks of both processors in today's Windows XP 32-bit and the upcoming Windows XP X64 Edition.
• Ultra 1024mb PC3200 XL Memory - Several low latency PC3200 (DDR400) memory kits are currently available running memory timings of 2-2-2-5. The tighter timings give you increased performance over standard memory at this same speed. The bonus of these memory kits is that as you relax the timings you are able to increase the overclocking ceiling of the RAM. Ultra goes so far with this as to have a table with speed and overclocks at selected timings and voltages up on their web site.
• Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI and 3D1 together - TweakTown take a look at the K8NXP-SLI motherboard based on nVidia's nForce4 SLI chipset along with the innovative Gigabyte 3D1 graphics card which places two GeForce 6600GT cores onto the single card which is able to produce some brilliant performance in current games. Another review can be found here.
• HIS ATI Radeon X800XL IceQII 256 Meg PCI Express Videocard - It looks great, it performs exceptionally well for a performance value solution and it has included cooling not even seen on more expensive x800/850XT alternatives. It didn't matter what I threw at it, even at the highest quality and 1280x1024 resolution, the card just toyed around with every benchmark and gaming scenario and taunted my to push it some more.
• ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT - Marrying the All-In-Wonder hardware with something as complex as the R420 reference design was never going to be easy but the end result is worth it. You get blistering 3D performance (almost as good as it's ever going to get on AGP) with the ability to tune TV, listen to the radio, timeshift and archive your favourite TV shows, capture video from your camcorder or games console and the ability feed audio back out to digital receivers, to name just a few of the cornerstone AIW features.
• Western Digital Raptor WD740 SATA Hard Drive - In this review, PCstats is testing out a pair of sleek 10,000 RPM Western Digital WD740 Raptors - "The first obvious conclusion is that 74GB WD740 Raptor is one fast drives. As we rather anticipated they would, the 10,000RPM Western Digital Raptor WD740s consistently out-paced the 7200RPM 80GB Seagate drives in almost every test. What was more impressive was that the WD740 Raptor drive was also quieter and didn't produce much more heat than the lower-RPM Seagate units."
• External Hard Drives from CoolMax, Maxtor and Seagate - All three manufacturers convincingly relieve users of the irksome task of making backups - even if the range of functions craves improvement. Maxtor and Seagate also provide automatic shutdown to go easy on the drive. A package consisting of the XtremeFiles and a hard drive of your choice, however, is generally cheaper.
• Asetek VapoChill XE II case - TrustedReviews has posted a review of the Asetek VapoChill XE II refrigerated case: "Although there were limitations to how far the test system could be pushed, close to 4GHz was not a problem. Using an MSI 925XE Neo Platinum motherboard and 1GB of PC5300 Crucial Ballistix memory I managed to push the system over 4GHz but it wasn't quite stable enough to run a full set of benchmarks."
• Arctic Cooling's Silentium T2 Case - The power supply included with the Silentium is definitely not a no-name brand. Arctic Cooling has incorporated a Seasonic SS-350ATC PSU into this case. The power supply is a 350W unit and includes active PFC, which is a feature many people will be happy to see. The amperages for each voltage rail as listed on the side of the PSU are as follows: +3.3V = 28A +5V = 30A +12V = 17A.
• A4 Tech Round-up - The package contains everything you need to use the mouse. You get the mouse, a specially designed mouse pad for this particular mouse, and, last but not least, the software media. What is so special about this mouse, you will ask. As you can see, it's got its own mouse pad, something that other computer mice cannot brag about it. But this takes us nowhere. So, what about the batteries, the charger? There isn't one. No, there is no trick about it.
• Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0 - GruntvillE.com has posted a review of Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0. "While the tracking wasn't quite up to par for fast-paced FPS games such as Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 like its wired brethren, it's larger size and overall layout was a definite plus in the comfort department. "
• Samsung SyncMaster 711t 17" LCD - It doesn't take long to fall in love with this display. Some features like the pivot technology are not going to be used by the majority of the home users. The overall quality and sharpness of the display alone make this display a must have. Combined that with features like Samsung's MagicTune and digital DVI in you have a awesome piece of equipment. But Samsung did not stop there. On top of all this throw in a 3 year manufacturer's warranty on parts, labor, and the backlight.
• Samsung SyncMaster 920T - The SyncMaster 920T is a solid performing monitor that would work great in any environment of computer use except the hardcore gamer. I found even after playing Half-Life 2 for an hour, after about the first five minutes, I was able to get used to the slight ghosting, and it did not bother me anymore. Another review can be found on GideonTech.
• Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 8200 Scanner - If you need a really high-performance office machine to digitize sheet originals you may want to consider Epson GT scanners. And if you intend to spend no more than $500 and have a good device with an option of scanning slides and film, Epson's top-model will suit you best. Hewlett-Packard has long lost its leading role in this market.
• Samsung CLP-550 series printers -  If you're an impatient person and need those prints ASAP, it may be time for you to get yourself either the CLP-550 or one of the CLP-510's, capable of 26 ppm. The one thing I'd like to see improved is the No-NOIS technology. To some they may think it is already dead silent, however I feel there is a bit of room for improvement. Perhaps a more silent means of feeding the paper into the printer will be more effective in reducing the noise. The clicking I heard during warm up and the noise the paper makes while being injected back into the printer during duplex printing or while being ejected out could be muffled.
  If you don't do much printing, ink cartridges for desktop inkjet printers tend to dry up and become useless; something that doesn't happen with toner.
• Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z50 Digital Camera - The 7-point AF system is very quick, taking under half a second to lock on, and as a result there is virtually no shutter lag. Focusing also works extremely well in low light, especially impressive considering that there's no AF-assist illuminator on this model. The control layout is fairly conventional, with a recessed power switch on the top, the usual menu and display mode buttons, a zoom rocker that also controls playback magnification, and separate buttons for recording and playback mode.

.GUIDES... 

• WinXP Tweaking: Protecting your PC from the outside world - The guide looks at which programs you should use to protect your system from viruses and spyware along with which browsers and firewalls are best and what they do along with intelligent computing practices and basic Windows XP installation tips. If you're concerned about computer security as a new or average user, make sure you read on.
• Firefox Tweak Guide - The current guide is really just a placeholder until I compile and publish a comprehensive TweakGuides-style Firefox Tweak Guide, so stay tuned for the real deal soon.
• Exchange Server 2003 Security Hardening Guide (updated) - Updated February 2005. The download package for this guide includes important security templates. These templates were updated November 2004. This guide walks you through the process of hardening your Exchange 2003 environment, including configuration recommendations and strategies for combating external threats.
• Intel's Matrix RAID explored - Intel's Matrix RAID technology allows users to combine RAID 0 and 1 arrays with only two drives, promising mirrored redundancy for important data and striped performance for speedy access.
• Basics of RAID - Bigbruin.com has published a new article posted about RAID.
• HD-DVD and Blu-ray: Do you know the difference? - These two formats are heralded as the successor to the current DVD technology. Blu-ray and HD-DVD have both been developed to enable recording, playback and rewriting of high definition video and data. The key to these technologies is the blue-violet laser that is used to write the data to the disc. This blue laser has a much shorter wavelength than the current red laser DVD system, which makes it possible to read and write smaller pits, as a result, these discs can hold up to 15 GB (HD-DVD) and 25 GB (Blu-ray) of data on a single sided single layer 12cm disc.

SOFTWARE...

• Update for Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB892236) - This optional update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail. This update was released in March 2005.
• Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool v1.2 (KB890830) - The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (homepage) checks Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 computers for and helps remove infections by specific, prevalent malicious software-including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom. When the detection and removal process is complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed. The tool creates a log file named mrt.log in the %WINDIR%debug folder.
• NVSG 1.0.11.4 - The NVIDIA Scene Graph Software Development Kit (NVSG SDK) is an object-oriented programming library for creating scene graph-based applications.
• CherryOS 1.0.1 Trial - With CherryOS (download trial), a G4 Emulator,  you can install Panther, Apple's award-winning operating system, onto your PC. In addition, you will be able to use many of the day-to-day applications such as Safari and Apple's Mail. Perfect for learning a new environment, expanding your PC's capabilities or finalizing your purchase decision.
• BitTorrent 4.0 - Bram Cohen's official BitTorrent client has been upgraded to version 4.
• eXeem 0.22 Public Beta - eXeem (download) is a brand new Peer-To-Peer program, which is based on the BitTorrent idea. eXeem eliminates the need for trackers as nodes in the program will be taking their role. eXeem also features easy publication of files to the network as well as a rating and comments system.
• The GIMP 2.2.4 - The GIMP (GNU/Image Manipulation Program) is a very nice graphics manipulation application that works on many operating systems, in many languages, on many file formats and is used for a variety of computer imagery purposes.
• StraightMARK 2005 v1.2.1 - The software simply examines your processor in a variety of different tests, and then outputs the findings to a text file and a graphical HTML file. The text file merely gives you the number results of your processor, but the HTML file shows you several understandable graphs comparing your processor to others on the market - both new and old.
• Forceware 71.84 64-bit WHQL - The drivers are dated the 24rd of February 2005 and are the first WHQL release for the 64-bit platforms. As they are not an official (posted by Leadtek though) release they should be treated with the same care that you should maintain when using all beta software.

SECURITY...

• Windows Server 2003 and XP SP2 LAND Vulnerability - By sending single LAND packet to file server causes Windows explorer freezing on all workstations currently connected to the server. CPU on server goes 100%. Network monitor on the victim server sometimes can not even sniff malicious packet. Using tcpreplay to script this attack results in total collapse of the network.
• Trojan gets the cell phone message - Antivirus researchers are investigating a new Trojan horse that could prove to be a more pervasive threat to cell phones than Cabir. The malicious software, dubbed "CommWarrior" and described as a virus by some antivirus companies, takes aim at the version of the Symbian operating system running on Nokia Series 60 handsets. F-Secure, SimWorks International and other security providers issued reports about the threat Monday. CommWarrior attempts to spread by sending messages via Bluetooth wireless connections and Multimedia Message Service--different from the Cabir virus, which only used Bluetooth to proliferate.
• Blooover - J2ME Phone Auditing Tool -  Blooover is a proof-of-concept tool that is intended to run on J2ME-enabled cell phones that appear to be comparably seamless. Blooover is a tool that is intended to serve as an audit tool that people can use to check whether their phones and phones of friends and employees are vulnerable.
• Moscow prosecutor lets low-cost MP3 site off the hook - Russian prosecutors have decided they are unable to take legal action against controversial online music provider Allofmp3.com - despite the music service's lack of sufficient licences to offer the content it does. Last week, the Moscow Southwest regional prosecutor's office said no criminal indictment could be brought against the music seller because it has not violated Russia's copyright law, a local blogger has reported.
• Tracking PCs anywhere on the Net - A University of California researcher says he has found a way to identify computer hardware remotely, a technique that could potentially unmask anonymous Web surfers by bypassing some common security techniques.

OFFTOPIC...

• Zapped neutrinos zip through the Earth - Scientists are to zap neutrinos through the Earth to better understand the mysterious particles' shifting nature with a new experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, US. Scientists at Fermilab will zap neutrinos underground from Illinois, across the state of Wisconsin, through Lake Superior to a particle detector in the Soudan Underground Mine in Minnesota State Park, US. A trip of 457 miles (735 kilometres).
• New particle physics collider coming soon - The 50-foot-long magnet weighing 38.6 tons is the first of 1,232 the same size that will be placed in the tunnel to speed subatomic particles around the accelerator, said Renilde Vanden Broeck, spokeswoman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by the French initials CERN.
• Invisibility Shields Planned by Engineers - Electronic engineers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia are researching a device they say could make objects "nearly invisible to an observer." The contrivance works by preventing light from bouncing off the surface of an object, causing the object to appear so small it all but disappears. The concept is based on a "plasmonic cover," which is a means to prevent light from scattering. (It is light bouncing off an object that makes it visible to an observer). The cover would stop light from scattering by resonating at the same frequency as the light striking it. If such a device could cope with different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation (including visible light), in theory, the object would vanish into thin air.
• Dr.Who Episode Leaked - BBC News is reporting on how an episode from the brand new series of the old science fiction TV show, Doctor Who, has been leaked onto the Internet.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Google Adds Features and Plugin to Desktop Search - Google Desktop now supports alternative Netscape based browsers like Firefox, PDFs, images, video, and music files. Google also added a plug-ins feature so that developers can integrate their software into the Google Desktop catalog.
• Microwires: replacement for the CD-ROM? - A ballpoint that detects if we are forging a signature or a substitute in miniature for the CD-ROM are some of the applications that can be carried out using microwires. 3 or 5 times thinner than a human hair, these fine threads were invented in the old Soviet Union for military purposes but, the broader scientific community has been studying them for some time now for other applications – including at the University of the Basque Country (EHU). The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 billion divisions or cells (10GB) and in each one of these a bit can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
• Sony PSP to hear the music - Speaking at the iHollywood Digital Living Room forum, Yair Landau, vice chairman of Sony Pictures, said the Japanese giant plans to release software that would let the PSP synchronize with Connect, Sony's entertainment download service. The company also plans to launch software that would let the PSP link to PCs and Macs within a year, he said.
• Firefox developer feels like throwing in the towel - Firefoxer Mike Connor is complaining in his blog that the development of the Mozilla-sponsored alternative browser isn't getting the attention it deserves from its parent. An exasperated Connor says he's "on the verge of just walking away indefinitely" from the project because of its "glacial pace of development." (thanks TheInquirer)

HARDWARE... 

• Athlon 64 4200+ pictured - AMD is close to releasing its next Athlon 64 CPUs. Busy people at the Xtreme Systems forum managed to get a CPU-Z snapshot of the AMD upcoming 4200+ CPU. That is what that site reckons. This CPU is actually clocked at 2600MHz just the same as the FX55 but in the case of Athlon 64 4200+ the multiplier is locked higher. The 4200+ has 1MB of cache built on 90 nanometre marchitecture and works with 1.4 volts.
• AMD shows off first Geode chipset - AMD has announced the availability of its first development board designed specifically for its low-power Geode NX processor line. The Geode NX DB1500 board and reference design includes a chipset from Silicon Integrated Systems in a small Mini-ITX form factor. It has been designed for thin client applications and embedded systems using Windows or open source software.
• Gigabyte GA-8I915P Dual Graphic - TrustedReviews posted today a review of the Gigabyte GA-8I915P Dual Graphic motherboard which is based on the 915P chipset and offeres support for two PCI Express graphics cards.
• HIS X800XL IceQ II Turbo 256MB PCI-E Video Card - 3DGameMan has posted a video review of the HIS X800XL IceQ II Turbo 256MB PCI-E Video Card. This product is based on the ATI R430 chip, has a core speed of 400MHz, a memory speed of 985MHz, and 256MBs of GDDR3 memory
• Fanless Power Supply Roundup - XYZ Computing take a look at  at fanless power supplies from Coolmax, Thermaltake, Antec, and SilverStone.
• Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router - Despite the suggestive brand name this access point doesn't support the draft 802.11n high-speed wireless standard and will not be compatible with it when it is expected to be ratified late in 2006. What it does do is use a technology called MIMO (multiple input multiple output) that was developed by Airgo Networks in 2003 and which may form part of the 802.11n standard
• The Ergonomic-Friendly RollerMousePRO - The idea behind the RollerMousePRO (picture) is to offer a solution to the awkward stretch required for using a mouse. This helps reduce muscular discomfort associated with repetitive use, and potentially increase productivity by letting you keep your typing position as you control your cursor. Some people with muscle pain screech at the notion of reverting back to a normal mouse and would rather use a more ergonomically friendly alternative. Contour has designed a product that is the first of its kind
• Actiontec Internet Phone Wizard - The Internet Phone Wizard is a phenomenal device that allows a person to make free and cheap calls over the Internet through a regular or cordless phone. Instead of utilizing speakers and a microphone, the Internet Phone Wizard makes it possible to use a regular phone. With Skype, a regular long distance or international phone call is extremely low cost or free. Actiontec Internet Phone Wizard is the perfect device to save money making phone calls with a phone instead of a headset.
• Samsung SGH-Z107 - Samsung SGH-Z107 is the first 3G phone introduced here in Singapore. The SGH-Z107 is based on a clamshell design It has a dimension of 89 x 48 x 25 (mm) and weighs only 120g. It is one of the smaller and lighter 3G phones available in the market.  SGH-Z107 has an internal QCGA 262K TFD LCD (176x192) and an external 65K OLED (96x96). The phone comes standard with 2 batteries, a ear piece, battery charger, EasyStudio III CDROM. Similar in design to the GSM phones, SGH-Z107 features photo (VGA) and video recording of up to 30s. It supports the MMF ringtone format and has a rotatable lens for video calls, photo and video taking.
• Motorola V3 Razr -  $500 for a phone is a bit outrageous. And although you may get this phone for cheaper online, walking into a Cingular store and buying this phone sill set you down $500. You can do quite a bit for $500.

.GUIDES... 

• Are you ready for the next Major Desktop Migration? - OK, the 64-bit is a big step ahead, but what about the final users?
• Microsoft adds Universal Printing to Terminal Server - In this article, Terminal Server printing guru Stefan Vermeulen (webmaster for printingsupport.com and fellow BriForum speaker) explores the new UPD printing capabilities that Microsoft is building into Service Pack 1 for Terminal Server on Windows 2003.

SOFTWARE...

• Bench'emAll v2.65 - Bench'emAll! - this program can help you to do automatic common benchmarking or stability tests (Painkiller, Half-Life 2, etc) with your computer, basically 3D hardware.
• XboxMediaCenter (XBMC) 2005-03-04 CVS build - XboxMediaCenter (XBMC) is a new free open source (GPL) multimedia player for Microsoft's Xbox. XboxMediaCenter is still in beta stage but can currently be used to play and view most video/audio/picture formats such as MPEG/MPG, VOB, AVI, OGM, DivX, XVID, MP3, OGG, JPG, GIF and many more direct from a CD/DVD in the DVD-ROM or of the Xbox build-in hard disk drive, it can also play files over a network (LAN) from a PC via an "XStream Server" application or from a Windows (SMB) share.
• Bluetooth Headset Presenter - The Headset Presenter turns your Bluetooth Headset into a Powerpoint remote; it is as simple as that.
  Kaspersky AV 2006 beta - With the amount of features "coming soon", this looks more of an alpha, but well ..check it out.
• AVG Anti-Virus Free edition v7.308 - AVG updates automatically, usually every day, so this is only required if you can not connect to their server in automatic updates. Save to a temporary location, open AVG control center, select the update button at the bottom, then the select folder button, and follow the prompts.
• Driver Cleaner Professional Edition 1.1 - Driver Cleaner Professional Editon is a program which helps you to remove parts of drivers that are left after uninstalling the old drivers. The program is for ATI, nVidia, Creative, Realtek, SIS, 3Dfx, S3 and more drivers.
• GreenBrowser - tabbed web browser - GreenBrowser (download) is yet another IE based browser that offers tabbed, multi-page browsing and many additional features including grouped pages, ad filtering, search engine integration, privacy cleaner, form filler and much more.
• Google Desktop Search 20050227 - Google Desktop Search provides full text search over your email, computer files, chats, and the web pages you've viewed. By making your computer searchable, it puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails, and bookmarks.
• Google Toolbar 3.0.119.9 Beta - Google Toolbar increases your ability to find information from anywhere on the web
• PowerStrip 3.58 - 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.
• XP TCP/IP Repair 1.0 - XP TCP/IP Repair is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) (download) for commands in Windows XP® that repair your TCP/IP registry settings and your Winsock LSP's.
• DNA-Force 1.2.7590 (NVIDIA ForceWare) - These are modified NVIDIA ForceWare drivers (download) for Windows 2000 & XP. Modified drivers simply means that the author takes official or beta drivers from the manufacturer and starts to tweak them for either better image quality and or performance.

SECURITY...

• Microsoft unveils new technologies, targeting worms, hackers - One of the technologies on display, dubbed Vigilante, proposes a detection and protection system for Internet worms. The system would consist of "honey pot" computers connected to the Internet that would serve as bait for the worms. Once an attack was detected, the computers would analyze the attack and create alerts that included details on how to protect against the new threat. The alerts then would be pushed out to other computers, which would automatically put up shields and filter traffic to block the worm, Microsoft researchers said. Another forward-looking technology can prevent malicious code from executing. The system, called Control-Flow Integrity, would prevent malicious code from being run on a computer by checking application activity and validating it. Unexpected activity would be blocked, according to Microsoft.
• Scripting and Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) - The Scripting Guys wrote a good article on Technet yesterday summarizing how System Administrators can work around the script-blocking feature of Microsoft AntiSpyware. After reading the article it is also evident that it would be just as easy for Spyware to take the same hints to dodge the MS AntiSpyware Beta software.
• BPI nails "music pirates" - UK music fans have agreed to pay thousands of pounds in compensation for distributing music illegally via peer-to-peer networks, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) announced Friday. Music fans paid up to L4,500 each in a series of 23 settlements and agreed to accept injunctions against them illegally uploading music again. The BPI announced a further 31 cases across eight different P2P networks are in the pipeline as part of its attempt to broaden its campaign against illicit file sharing on the net. Other actions may follow.
• Feds Catching Up With Proxies - The Commerce Department has disputed claims by domain registrar Go Daddy that the department launched a new policy when it declared in February that people would no longer be able to keep their personal contact information private when they register a .us domain.

OFFTOPIC...

• Nicolas Cage's Next is The Wicker Man - Nicolas Cage's next picture will be director Neil LaBute's remake of 1973 thriller The Wicker Man, with Millennium Films, Equity Pictures and Emmett/Furla Films producing, reports Variety. The movie will begin production July 15 in Vancouver. Cage is currently shooting comic book adaptation Ghost Rider in Melbourne.
• Splinter Cell movie director Interview - Moviehole has posted an interview with Peter Berg, Director of the screen adaptation of the game.
• Zak Penn on Writing X-Men 3 - Zak Penn talked to Sci Fi Wire about the difficulty of writing "X-Men" movies. He is currently writing X-Men 3.
• Word1000.com's movie posters - Worth1000's yesterday theme was on recasting movies with different actors and actresses in ludicrous ways, and with humor and good blending.
• Hitler won atomic bomb race, but couldn't drop it - Adolf Hitler had the atom bomb first but it was too primitive and ungainly for aerial deployment, says a new book that indicates the race to split the atom was much closer than is believed. Nazi scientists carried out tests of what would now be called a dirty nuclear device in the waning days of World War II, writes Rainer Karlsch, a German historian, in his book Hitler's Bomb, to be be published this month. Concentration camp inmates were used as human guinea pigs and "several hundred" died in the tests, conducted on the Baltic Sea island of Rugen and at an inland test in wooded hill country about 100 kilometres south of Berlin in 1944 and early 1945.

TECHNOLOGY...

• WinFS Will Be Available on Windows XP - Microsoft may not be willing to talk file-system futures, but it is working to back-port its WinFS file-system technology to Windows XP, the same way that it is doing with its Windows presentation and communications subsystems, according to company officials. Longhorn client is set to ship in 2006; Longhorn server in 2007, according to Microsoft. Another article can be found on MSWatch.
• Zeus Releases New Load Balancer - The Cambridge, U.K.-based company, better known for its Web server, yesterday launched a new low-end version of its load-balancing and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) offload software, as well as three new AMD Opteron-based appliances. Zeus also announced that it has signed on Sun Microsystems Inc. and Pyramid Computer Inc. as reseller partners.
• New Batteries: Twice the Life - In PC World tests, new Panasonic Oxyride disposable batteries delivered more than twice the performance of high-end alkalines for the same price.
• Nokia Steers In-Car Communication System In VW's Passat - Nokia Corp. and Volkswagen said Friday that the new VW Passat will come equipped with Nokia's in-car communication system, which is compatible with handsets supporting Bluetooth wireless technology.
• Camera phones recognise their owner - Software that lets a camera phone recognise its owner's face could provide a handy new security measure, according to a Japanese company. The OKAO Vision Face Recognition Sensor software was created for existing phones with a digital camera fitted. After taking a picture of their face for reference, a user can configure their handset to lock itself or limit its functionality until another picture is taken.
• 20,000 Channels of Music Online? Legal? And Free? - Two Mercora network executives talk about their new music search and streaming service, which is free right now and 100% legal!

HARDWARE... 

• ATI Discloses Pricing of New "Bridged" AGP 8x Graphics Cards - The recommended pricing for AGP 8x flavours of graphics cards based on the RADEON X800, X800 XL and X850 XT visual processing units (VPUs) is $249, $349 and $499 respectively. While pricing of the RADEON X800 and X800 XL products is $50 higher compared to pricing of PCI Express x16 versions of similar graphics cards, an ATI spokesperson noted that the RADEON X800 XL for AGP 8x features video-in/video-out (VIVO) capability not available on PCI Express version. Furthermore, the spokesman told X-bit labs that the company was going to have a special rebate program for North America, which would allow users to obtain the RADEON X800 for $199.
• Intel's 64-bit vs. AMD 64 bit. - With its 6xx-series Pentium 4 processors, Intel has finally jumped on the desktop 64-bit bandwagon. Intel's EM64T architecture can implement Windows' x86-64 mode, and is also compatible with the AMD64 architecture. This means that you don't need different Windows operating systems to take advantage of 64-bit processing.
• TR's CPU decoder ring updated - Tech Repost has updated their CPU Decoder Ring. Among the changes are the addition of the newest CPUs (including the Opteron x52 and Pentium 4 6xx series) as well as some older chips that didn't make it into the last update. Additionally, columns have been added to show support for both the NX bit and 64-bit capability. A quick query reveals that 240 processors are currently represented on the chart.
• AMD Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 - Another appealing aspect of junior Sempron for Socket 754 models is their excellent overclockability. Our tests show that Semprons on the new 90nm Palermo core can add up about half their frequency at overclocking, to clock rates about 2.5GHz. For example, we managed to give our Sempron 2600+ a 56% frequency boost and the performance of the system subsequently grew by 35% in average and became comparable to that of systems with Pentium 4 3.4E and Athlon 64 3500+ processors.
• Club-3D X800XL 256MB PCI-Express - Regarding the design of the box and video card; it really looks nice and the white led in the fan is a nice extra for those hardcore mod creators. To be honest to you, the white led is useless for me, my case is closed all the time! With the case closed, the sound production of the cooler isn't much at all and in games (with ofcourse the audio turned on!) you hear really nothing. (ed.note...I've heard Club3D cards are pretty noisy...)
• Sony's DRU-720A DL 16x DVD±RW - The drive is capable of 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 4x DVD+R DL writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. This by itself is impressive. However, the DRU-720A also boasts features like 48x CD reading and writing speeds, 24x rewriting speeds, Power-Burn buffer underrun protection and an impressive software bundle from Nero.
• SilverStone LC11 Home Theater PC Case - Acrylic windows, neon and strobe lights, Day-Glo colors, and vaguely alien shapes may be appealing for desktop PC cases, but you probably don't want a large, showy case as part of your home theater setup, especially if you share your home with a significant other who has significantly more style than you. Additionally, home theater PC's need to be quiet. Fan and disk noise are easy to overlook if you're blasting MP3's while blasting Ant Lions, but white noise isn't welcome when you're watching a movie, especially if it's a quiet passage involving romance (I'm thinking of your significant other again). Purpose-built home theater PC cases are becoming more readily available, and today I look at SilverStone Technology's LC11 from their LaScala line of home theater PC enclosures.
• Konica Minolta Magicolor 5440 DL printer - At the back are sockets for USB 2 and direct Ethernet connection - you can set the Magicolor 5440 DL up as a network print server. A second USB socket is intended for directly connecting a digital camera, though the firmware for this feature has yet to be released.
• Sendo X smart phone - In terms of business features the X has a lot on offer as it comes with Bluetooth and IrDA as well as USB connectivity in the box. Sadly, it uses a proprietary USB cable and interface, which means that you have to carry the cable around with you. This shouldn't prove to be too much of an issue as you can use the Bluetooth or IrDA to sync the X with your PC.

GUIDES... 

• How much Graphics Power Does a PC Really Need? - Almost every PC sold today features a 3D graphics card. But other than powering games, there's not much use for advanced 3D features. Certainly you don't need a 3D graphics card for office work, surfing the Internet and other common tasks. Are the graphics manufacturers on the wrong track?
• Scripting and Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) - The Scripting Guys wrote a good article on Technet yesterday summarizing how System Administrators can work around the script-blocking feature of Microsoft AntiSpyware. After reading the article it is also evident that it would be just as easy for Spyware to take the same hints to dodge the MS AntiSpyware Beta software.

SOFTWARE...

• URL Discombobulator v1.8.1 - Understand those cryptic web addresses, and make a few of your own. Lookup the IP address(es) associated with any valid domain name. Or lookup the domain name associated with any IP address (if the owner of the IP address has added the corresponsing PTR record in the DNS server authoritative for the IP address range). As a bonus, the program generates alternate "shrouded" URLs for any web site, and can display…
• FileZilla v2.2.11 - FileZilla (download) is a powerful FTP-client for Windows 9x, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP. It has been designed for ease of use and with support for as many features as possible, while still being fast and reliable.
• RightMark CPU Clock Utility 1.4 - RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock) is a small GUI application designed for real-time CPU frequency, throttling and load level monitoring and on-the-fly adjustment of the CPU performance level of the supported CPUs via processor's power management model-specific registers (MSRs).
• RivaTuner 2.0 RC 15.4 - The purpose of this utility is to give you access to all the undocumented features of Detonator and Catalyst drivers. Drivers have a lot of undocumented registry entries. Some of them don't affect anything, but there are some that are very useful
• Realtek ALC AC97 Audio Driver v3.70 WHQL -  Realtek released version 3.70 driver for their ALC AC97 audio chipsets. The driver supports all ALC series audio chipsets from ALC100 up to ALC850 mainly used as onboard sound on various motherboards.

SECURITY...

• [!] Auto download adware carries vicious payload - Security experts issued a warning this morning after detecting infections caused by Searchmeup, the first adware to use the Exploit/LoadImage vulnerability which downloads itself onto computers without the user's permission. Panda Software's PandaLabs warned that the pages from which Searchmeup are downloaded also contain a series of exploits to download other malware onto the computer, such as the Tofger.AT Trojan, which steals banking passwords, Dialer.BB and Dialer.NO, and adware called Adware/TopConvert. Searchmeup affects computers running Windows 2003, XP, 2000, NT, Me and 98, and allows arbitrary code to be run. Microsoft has released a patch to correct this problem, and users are advised to install it immediately. Non-Affected Software:  Microsoft Windows XP SP2.
• No new security updates from Microsoft for March - On 8 March 2005 the Microsoft Security Response Center is planning to release no new security bulletins. Although we do not anticipate any changes, the number of bulletins, products affected, restart information and severities are subject to change until released.
• Security patches issued for RealPlayers - RealNetworks has released patches for its audio-video players in an effort to prevent attacks via buffer overflows.
• Second kid sentenced for Releasing Worm That Attacked Microsoft Web Site -  A second person, a juvenile, has been sentenced in connection with the release of a computer worm in August 2003 that attacked the same vulnerability in computer software as the Blaster worm did.
• Programmer sues author over role in Microsoft history - Tim Paterson, who created the software later known as DOS and sold it to Microsoft, filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against Harold Evans and the publishers of his book, "They Made America."  The lawsuit is over a chapter in Evans' book about Gary Kildall, who founded Digital Research and died in 1994 at age 52. The book claims Paterson's software was simply a "slapdash clone" and "rip-off" of Kildall's CP/M operating system, developed in the 1970s.
• Symantec granted patent for virus scanning technology - The US patent office has granted Symantec is for technology allows just parts of threatened pieces of data to be scanned - such as e-mails - instead of full bodies of data. Older types of industry anti-virus software focus on portions of data portions or scan the full body of data. This has meant that the scanning process was slow or not reliable enough in response to evolving security attacks, such as self-mutating viruses, worms and spyware.

OFFTOPIC...

• Knighthood for Microsoft's Gates - The king of computer software Bill Gates has received an honorary knighthood from the Queen. Mr Gates, 48, the world's wealthiest man, said it was "a great honour" to be recognised for his business skills and for his work on poverty reduction. As an American citizen he cannot use the title "Sir" but will be entitled to put the letters KBE after his name.
• Unusual life forms found in the Atlantic - A strange world of see-through shrimp, crabs and other life forms teems around a newly explored field of thermal vents near the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists report.
• Adidas boots up smart trainer  - Adidas has developed intelligent training shoes which it claims will stop runners feeling down at heel by dynamically adjusting the cushioning it offers to aching feet. The Adidas-1 trainer, which hits the shops this week, is fitted with a microprocessor, sensor and motor.

TECHNOLOGY...

• IDF Spring 2005 coverage - @X-bit Labs | @Hardware Zone | @WindowsForDevices | Day 2: The Yonah Scoop | Intel shows off Mac Mini-like concept PC | Intel Dual-Core Architecture | Intel confirms chipset graphics update | Seagate spec important hardware move | Tech Toys for the boys at IDF | Portable player drive interconnect spec completed
• Microsoft Showcases Robots to Watch Kids - The teddy bear sitting in the corner of the child's room might look normal, until his head starts following the kid around using a face recognition program, perhaps also allowing a parent talk to the child through a special phone, or monitor the child via a camera and wireless Internet connection.
• Ntl Upgrade 14th March - Cable Forum have revealed that the speed increases debated about so much over the last few months are about to go ahead from the 14th March, 2005. Ntl now appear to have changed their tune from the earlier reports with regard to the admin charge. The following now appears to be true. Speed increase from 750Kbps to 2Mbps - Free / Speed increase from 1.5Mbps to 3Mbps - Free / Speed increase from 300Kbps to 1Mbps - Free, see Below. Existing 300Kbps customers will be given the option to upgrade to the 1Mbps. But, on doing so the monthly data transfer cap will reduced from 30GB to 3GB! Some customers may therefore prefer staying on the 300Kbps service with a 30GB monthly usage allowance.
• Google's Technology Explored - Internetnews offers a moderately detailed peek at Google's technology.
• MS Loses Key Windows Architect to Google - Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft distinguished engineer, has quietly abandoned the Redmond ship for one of Microsoft's archrivals.

HARDWARE... 

• Soundstorm is gone forever? - Hexus has a flashy headline proclaiming that SoundStorm is gone forever. This has been confirmed to them whilst talking about the NVIDIA nForce 4 SLi (P4 Edition).
• Intel Pentium 4 660 and EE 3.73 GHz - BeHardware has posted a review on the Intel Pentium 4 660 and EE 3.73 GHz processors.
• DDR-2 PC-5400 Performance Memory Shootout – OCZ vs. Corsair vs. Kingston - People intending on overclocking their DDR-2 system should probably choose the OCZ memory since like we have already highlighted, it loves every bit of its 2.2V memory voltage and is able to overclock quite a bit higher than the other modules.
• Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 2x512MB - Benchmarks show, even with the addition of the LEDs and control circuitry, that they retain all the performance and overclockability of Crucial's Ballistix line. Considering how remarkably the regular Ballistix perform, this is no small feat. The ability to overclock to DDR514 speeds and being able to run with low latency timings allows the user a lot of flexibility to configure these modules to their system setup.
• Corsair XPert TWINXP1024-3200XL - The XPert memory modules worked best at 240Mhz Front Side Bus with best stability. These modules are mainly for show, but as most all Corsair memory modules, they always allow for overclocking headroom, and the XPert tapped out at around 245Mhz Front Side Bus, but not as stable.
• Asus P5GDC-V Deluxe 915G Motherboard - The Asus P5GDC-V Deluxe is a unique Intel 915 motherboard from Asus that supports both DDR and DDR2, in addition to having the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 video onboard. This flexibility of technology allows you to use the integrated video and older DDR technology instead of having to upgrade to PCI Express and DDR2 respectively.
• Gigabyte RADEON X700 - Gigabyte RADEON X700 128MB is an excellent competitor to GeForce 6600 in general, it often demonstrates higher performance, the only problem is the AA+AF modes (I guess, programmers from the Canadian company have much to think about).
• Samsung TS-H552 DVD+RW - Samsung DVD±R/RW Drive is a new innovative product which provides powerful data storage. Features include creating personal DVD title : DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, data back-up for DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW, Buffer Under Run Free Technology with EIDE/ATAPI Interface with Ultra DMA 33 mode
• Iiyama ProLite E435S 17" Monitor - I'm not sure how close iiyama really get to 10 ms, but having seen it in action that's almost academic. The E435S is the first budget/mainstream display that I'd feel comfortable telling a friend to buy, and though it comes up short on frills like headphone socket, USB ports and swivel/height adjustment, that doesn't alter the fact that it's a supremely capable performer at a very tempting price.
• The Stylus Photo R1800 printer - The $549 large-format inkjet model offers several outstanding features, including very high resolution and enhanced fade resistance, which make it a good choice for photography buffs or anyone who wants to produce high-quality archival prints. I tested a shipping version of the R1800 and found it capable of producing beautiful color prints from a variety of images.
• Samsung DVD-L300 Portable DVD Player - The Samsung DVD-L300 Portable DVD Player is a great value for both home and portable use. It features a 10-inch LCD screen, Stereo Speakers, Cinema Mode, Dialogue Enhancer and Chapter Preview. The unit is fully-featured for use as a home or travel DVD player

GUIDES... 

• Digital Cables vs. Analog Cables - What's the Difference? - Many of the best video cables on the market today were designed primarily for use in the digital domain; but can a digital cable really perform well as an analog cable? Can an analog cable be used as a digital cable? What's the difference, anyway, between digital and analog cables? They both move electrons, don't they? All of these are interesting questions, and bear some discussion. To begin that discussion, let's first talk about what digital and analog signals are, and how they perform in cables.
• How to enable Windows 98/ME/NT/Mac clients to logon to Windows 2003 based Domains - Most companies have legacy operating system like - Windows 98, that give them backward compatibility for legacy applications. The default settings of Windows 2003 domains prohibit the logon of these clients, to overcome this limitation, a change of behavior is needed.

SOFTWARE...

• Kaspersky Free Cleaner 12.0.0.1 - Utility for cleaning infection by: I-Worm.Zafi.b, I-Worm.Bagle.at,au, Virus.Win32.Implinker.a, Not-a-virus.AdWare.Visiter. If program finds any processes in memory, infected by these viruses, it will try to unhook virus hooks and patch needed processes to stop reinfection or stop them and delete/cure their files on hard drive and delete links to their files from system registry and other startup places.
• Fraps 2.5.3 - Fraps (download) is designed as a generic tool for DirectX and OpenGL games. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as: Benchmarking Software, Screen Capture Software and Realtime Video Capture Software.
• SQL Server 2005 Express February CTP - Download the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. Unlike beta releases that receive a much higher level of testing and feature work, CTPs are intended to expose the latest working build to developers.  SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (SQL Server Express) is the next version of MSDE 2000. It is a free, easy-to-use, lightweight version of Microsoft SQL Server 2005.
• Some betas - 3D Traceroute 2.0.2:21 Preview  | Netscape 8.0 public beta | WinAce 2.6 beta 5 | Avant Browser 10.0 Build 133 | nLite v0.99.8 beta 4
• WinDVD Platinum 6.0 B06.128  - WinDVD Platinum 6 (download) is the ultimate DVD software player, providing you with the finest quality video and audio playback. Watch movies with a theater experience right on your computer or laptop. WinDVD Platinum 5 is loaded with features.
• AnyDVD 4.5.8.1 - SlySoft has updated its AnyDVD software to version 4.5.8.1. This new version adds once more support for a new version of the Sony ARccOS protection as found on "The Forgotten" (UK), "Little Black Book" (UK) or "She hate me" (UK) to the option to remove "Protection based on unreadable Sectors"
• PE builder v3.1.4-beta - A new beta of PE builder is available ~ download.
• Sysinternals tools updated - Process Explorer v9.02 / RootkitRevealer v1.10 / Autoruns v7.0 / PsService v2.13.
• HDDlife 1.2.21 - HDDlife can work in the preventative mode when it checks the health of your hard drives at regular intervals and informs you about the results of these checks in an unobtrusive way. If you get warned about a possible hard drive failure , you will protect yourself against losing your naturally priceless personal data.
• ForceWare 71.90 Win2000/XP WHQL - These drivers are date stamped at the 27th of January 2005 making them the absolute newest set to date. Furthermore these drivers WHQL (Microsoft tested) signed.
• NVIDIA ForceWare 70.84 official beta drivers - NVIDIA has made a beta version of its latest driver, ForceWare 70.84, available on its nZone website.  They claim this new driver will improve performance of both single-card and SLI configs "significantly." The driver contains SLI profiles for over 70 applications, and NVIDIA has published a how-to guide for creating your own SLI profiles.

SECURITY...

• Microsoft claims disabling Internet activation won't be an issue - As reported earlier, the updated program calls for the top 20 PC makers to activate Windows XP on every system before it ships. If a customer has to reinstall the operating system, as long as they use the restore disks from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), activation will be automatic, said Keith Beeman, director of worldwide license compliance for Microsoft.
• 8 More Bugs Found In Firefox And Mozilla - Don't panic folks, if you installed the 1.0.1 version of Firefox you’re fine. Now if you haven’t installed then you could be screwed.
• Three more Bagle variants on the loose - Three newly discovered variants of the Bagle virus are running wild on the internet, security experts warned today.
• Virus Top Twenty for February 2005 - Many antivirus experts believe that email worms are slowly dying out and being replaced by network worms with Trojan capabilities. February statistics confirm this trend. On the one hand, this could be the result of a successful campaign waged by av vendors against email worm outbreaks. The antivirus industry implemented a number of innovative technologies to halt email worms in their tracks: detecting worms in password protected archives, preliminary analysis of incoming emails with executable attachments and so forth.
• Artists break with industry on file sharing - A prominent group of musicians and artists, breaking with colleagues and the major entertainment studios, is urging the Supreme Court not to hold online file-sharing services responsible for the acts of users who illegally trade songs, movies and software.

OFFTOPIC...

• Star Wars Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) Trailer on March 10th - The much anticipated full release trailer for Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith is on its way. Consisting of over two minutes of new footage from the movie, the full trailer will soon appear on television, on starwars.com and in theaters. First, on Thursday, March 10th at 8 p.m., be sure to tune in to FOX to catch an all new episode of "The O.C." During the broadcast, FOX will air the Episode III trailer.
• Vin Diesel working to reduce budget for Hannibal - Diesel is in soft pre-production, a term that probably means pre-pre-production, for Hannibal, a project he has been trying to get going for some time. It appears he got a budget returned from a studio quoting something like $217million...perhaps they were actually thinking of dropping Elephants by helicopter onto the top of the Alps? Diesel is having none of it. (thanks TheMovieBlog)
• TV Ads For Violent Games Banned Before 9PM In UK - The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was asked to investigate after receiving eight complaints about two adverts featuring game extracts. They were shown before 2100 GMT when children could have been watching.
• Mel Gibson buys Fiji island - The director of "The Passion of the Christ" and star of the "Mad Max" films purchased the 5,411-acre (2,164-hectare) Mago Island from Japan's Tokyu Corp. for about US$15 million (euro11 million).
• 10 Dirtiest Foods That Can Make You Sick - Men's Health magazine has identified the 10 dirtiest foods--from bad burgers and dangerous deli meats to hazardous health foods

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Gears Up for Windows x64 April Launch - Microsoft Corp.'s officials expressed at Intel Developer Forum the company's strong intention to release its long-awaited operating system for computers based on the so-called x86-64 chips that can execute 32-bit and 64-bit code natively in April.
• Internet Explorer 7 not just for Windows XP - Despite previous indications, the upcoming Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) will be available for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 SP1, as well as Windows XP SP2.
• Online Community Set To Leap Beyond Solar System - Today craigslist announced plans to offer its users the opportunity to have their postings transmitted trillions of miles beyond the confines of the Solar System. craigslist currently handles 5 million earthly postings each month, from 8 million humans, in 99 cities and 19 countries on the planetary surface.
• Sony Ericsson talks up Walkman MP3 phone - The W800 Walkman handset features a high quality digital music player with up to 30 hours battery life, and a 2-megapixel camera, the company said. The device is compatible with the MP3 and AAC music file formats, and comes with a 0.5GB Memory Stick Duo giving it capacity for around 150 music tracks. It also comes with Disk2Phone software to transfer music from CDs onto the phone via a PC.
• Nokia unveils raft of new handsets - The 6230i adds a 1.3 megapixel camera and push-to-talk to the 6230. It is capable of recording up to one hour of video on a removable MMC and has a high resolution 208x208 pixels display. The on-board music player supports MP3, M4A and AAC files and sits alongside an FM radio with Visual Radio. There is also a hands-free speaker. With Bluetooth and tri-band support, the 6230i will cost around EURO350, excluding taxes. There were 339.80 million subscribers of mobile phone services and 315.63 million fixed-line telephone accounts in China, as of the end of January 2005
• China had 339.80 million mobile-phone users by end of January 2005 - There were 339.80 million subscribers of mobile phone services and 315.63 million fixed-line telephone accounts in China, as of the end of January 2005

HARDWARE... 

• ATI announces Radeon HyperMemory cards - ATI is announcing two HyperMemory products, the Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory, and the Radeon X300 SE 256MB HyperMemory. Both are native PCI Express parts and use the same RV370 SE GPU as other Radeon X300 SE cards. Both cards have a 325MHz core clock, a 300MHz memory clock, and a 64-bit local memory bus. They differ in the amount of memory they have on-board. The "128MB" HyperMemory card comes equipped with 32MB of local memory, while the "256MB" card gets 128MB. With a $59 suggested retail price and a projected sub-$50 street price, the Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory is perhaps the most promising HyperMemory card. If its price hits $50, the Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory card could look pretty good against the TurboCache competition.
• IDF Spring 2005 coverage - IDF Spring 2005 Day 1 Keynote | Craig Barrett's keynote@AnandTech | Day 1 Coverage@X-bit Labs | Intel's dual core info &PCPer.com | PentiumD Info@AnandTech
• Apple Mac mini - The Mac mini is a master stroke by Apple – it's essentially a headless iMac, supplied without a monitor, keyboard or mouse, enabling users to get on the Mac ladder for less money than ever before, by reusing their existing peripherals.
• AOpen's XC Cube EY855-II mini-barebones system - AOpen's XC Cube EY855-II is an attractive small form factor system with many of the common SFF features (USB 2.0 and Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet and an AGP slot) and at least one very uncommon feature: a 479-pin socket suitable for a Pentium M.
• INTEL 660 3.6Ghz & 3.73GHZ EE 64bit - As mentioned previously, Intel's prescott line of processors have been known to be rather warm. I found that the new 6XX based processors did indeed run a bit cooler at full load and did run quite a bit cooler at idle when compared to the full speed idle processor speeds applied with the older LGA775 Prescotts and Extreme Edition processors. Another review can be found on TrustedReviews.
• Mid-Range PCI-Express shootout - The BFGTech GeForce 6600GT OC was able to be clocked to 589/1180MHz from its default 525/1050MHz clocks. The clock speeds that we have attained here fall in line with what other reviewers have been able to gain from this video card.
• ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT - This is the new benchmark in multimedia performance cards, and while its $500 price tag may seem a little high at first, when you factor in everything you're getting, it's actually a pretty solid value.
• ATI TV Wonder Elite - The ATI TV Wonder Elite features full hardware MPEG-2 compression, a 3D comb filter and full personal video recorder capabilities. Bundled with our review unit is ATI’s own Remote Wonder Plus remote control, the RF receiver, ATI’s Catalyst software drivers and a special version of Cyberlinks PowerCinema media software.
• PowerColor Theater 550Pro TV Tuner - The PowerColor Theater is 550Pro is a very nice piece of hardware. MSRP is a very reasonable $99 USD and video quality is very good in general although the video seems a bit on the soft side. The filtering algorithms used by ATI seem to be effective the videos have very little noise and color bleeding seems minimal.
• Leadtek PX6800 TDH - If you don't plan on investing in an SLI setup then I would suggest the X800 since you can currently find it for about $30 cheaper if you really hunt around for good prices plus it is a bit smaller and felt more stable when experimenting with overclocking. If you are going to give SLI a shot or are even considering that option then the 6800 is the way to go for sure. You can find the Leadtek PX6800 TDH 256MB PCIe video card for about $350.00.
• Chaintech AV-710 Sound Card - This sound card is based on the VIA Envy 24 chipset, the AV-710. There isn't much to be found on the card, either; the most obvious part is the large IC in the middle of the board - the 24 bit Envy itself in all its glory. This is the HT-S version, unlike the HT, which can be found on high end gear like M-Audio Revolution.
• Intel P4 Aircooling - Heatsink Roundup Q1 2005 - MadShrimps compared 11 different P4 heatsinks made by Thermalright, Spire, Primecooler, Zalman, Evercool, Vantec and Titan. Using different fans at low and high speed they try to find the best bang for the buck, best performer and most silent HSF combo out there.
• Asetek Waterchill Watercooling - Can watercooling bring down that nasty temperature below 45-50 Degrees C? Of course Asetek can and even better.
• Antec Phantom 350W Fanless PSU - Antec did it right with the Phantom; this is one fanless PSU that's hard to top.
• TTGI PLUG-N 550W 14cm Fan Power Supply - There are lots of optional features with the PLUG-N line of power supplies, the most popular being: Active PFC or Passive PFC, Electronic Fan Speed Switch, and the Fan Delay System. Active PFC is a regulatory requirement in many European countries so technically it wouldn't be an "option", in the US many people like to have the feature but it is definitely not a requirement. The electronic fan speed switch allows for adjustable fan speed settings (Auto, Silent, Turbo), and the fan delay system keeps the fan running for 5 minutes after the system is shutdown, both of these options are highly recommended.
• A4 Tech Wireless Battery Free Optical Mouse - I'm sure quite of you are wondering how well this NB-30 works for gaming, well to be honest, it's OK. I'm not going to say it's great, because going of the mousepad will kill you. But besides from that the response times are very good, and the mouse is accurate. Small movements are easily spotted, so you won't see yourself moving your mouse around like a DJ on steroids.
• Ultrasone HFI-15G headphones - While Ultrasone products are not really aimed at gamers, it's hard to not justify their use in any audio application due to the high fidelity and reasonable pricing. Yes, they are more expensive than your typical ‘gamer headset', and lack a microphone for whatever you might need it for, but the cost isn't that far out there.

GUIDES... 

• Optimizing PC Hardware for Gaming - Part 2: Cooling - This is the second part of the VIA Gamers Arena "Optimizing PC Hardware for Gaming" article (the first part focused on driver updates and BIOS tweaks). The second half will cover what is possibly the most vital aspect of any gaming rig. This is of course the cooling properties of not only the case but also other internal system components such as the processor, graphics card and even power supply. Even the more recent motherboards are beginning to generate quite a lot of heat causing even more issues for both processor and case cooling.
• Current Problems with Linux - Why do this article? Well, in the interest of being fair.Yes, it is easy to dismiss Windows users as whiners, and people who can't be bothered to learn about their machines, but life is not that simple, is it?
• How to remove Windows XP Service Pack 2 from your computer - This article describes how to remove Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) from your computer.

SOFTWARE...

• Linux Kernel 2.6.11 - Linus Torvalds has just announced the availability of the newest Linux kernel release, 2.6.11 (download). The newest addition to Linux that's stirring up some excitement is the inclusion of Infiniband support.
• SiSoft Sandra 2005 (1050) -  SiSoft Sandra 2005 Guru3D.com edition - SiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. This is the special Guru3D.com distribution edition.
• Win32Whois 0.9.3 - Win32Whois (download) is a small and efficient Whois client. It is able to retrieve domain information for most of the common TLDs (top level domains). It has it is internal list of servers that it connects to in order to provide a detailed report on a requested domain
• PeerGuardian2 Beta 2 - PeerGuardian 2 is Methlabs' premier IP blocker for Windows. With features like support for multiple lists, a list editor, automatic updates, and blocking all of IPv4 (TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc), PeerGuardian 2 is the safest and easiest way to protect your privacy on P2P. Plus, by integrating with Blocklist.org, lists are built custom just for you. (thanks NeoNSX)
• Media Player Classic 6.4.8.3 - Media Player Classic (download Win2K/XP version / Win9x/ME version) is similar to windows media player 6.4 but with features pertained to minimalist advanced users. It also supports DirectX 9 and VFW drivers for capture.
• QuickTime Alternative 1.41 - QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player. It also supports QuickTime content that is embedded in webpages
• Real Alternative 1.31 - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install the official RealPlayer. You do need a media player that is capable of playing RealMedia files. The included Media Player Classic supports it. Supported are RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealVideo (.rm .ram .rmvb), RealText (.rt), and ReadPix (.rp). Not fully supported are: Streaming smil files (.smi .smil) and Realmedia embedded in webpages.
• K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.20 - K-Lite Mega Codec Pack combines the contents of three codec packs: K-Lite Codec Pack Full, QuickTime Alternative, and Real Alternative. It also includes some extra features: BSplayer.
• ASUS Smartdoctor 4.64 - ASUS has a new version of their Smartdoctor monitoring utility for Windows available. This one supports all ASUS ATI and NVIDIA based videocards in Windows 2000 and XP.
• Xtreme G 71.84 (ForceWare)  - This is the Xtreme G driver (download) which includes many performance and Image Quality tweaks. These are modified NVIDIA ForceWare drivers for Windows 2000 & XP. Modified drivers simply means that the author takes official or beta drivers from the manufacturer and starts to tweak them for either better image quality and or performance.
• ForceWare 71.84 Win2000/XP - This new driver set was released as BEta driver by NVIDIA. The driver supports the entire range of graphice cards to date and most Mobile and Quadro cards also.
• BIOS updates - PCTuning.cz has posted a lot of new motherboard BIOS updates

SECURITY...

• Microsoft Steps Up XP Anti-Piracy Drive - Microsoft is cracking down on fake copies of Windows XP in use across Europe. The firm said it is beefing up procedures to deal with PCs sold in Europe with fake or stolen certificates of authenticity (COAs). If a user attempts to activate a copy of XP online using a suspicious COA number -- for example after rebuilding a machine -- they will be redirected to a call-center program. Staff will ask a series of questions, such as where the customer bought the PC, in order to work out whether it is a legitimate Microsoft product.
• Microsoft suing Israeli spammer - Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against an Israeli man suspected of sending spam. The software giant alleges that Amir Gans, head of marketing company New Approach, has sent 10 million junk emails and is responsible for half of the spam sent from Israel.
• Anti-piracy companies overcharge - Consumer electronics companies say they do not want to be over charged for the latest wave of anti-piracy technology. The price for anti-piracy technology, proposed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), has been set at a dollar a unit. However, several producers have told Reuters that this is far too high.
• Phishers chip away at web security - Nearly 13,000 new phishing emails and more than 2,500 phishing websites were spotted last month, the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) has reported.
• Study finds majority of US customers dislike copy protection - Among respondents in Parks Associates' survey "Profiles of PC Usage," when given a choice between a normal music CD and a "copy-once" CD priced $5 less, 33% of those who do not rip CDs and 27% who rip CDs preferred the copy-once CDs."

OFFTOPIC...

• Texas Gaming Festival's ATI Ultimate LAN Party coverage - TechReport, EliteBastards
• Short History of Cellphone Ringtones - This week's New Yorker magazine includes an interesting short history of cellphone ringtones, including statistics on their (huge) profitability worldwide.
• Unseen Trinity's Revenge from The Matrix Reloaded movie - Here is the deleted scene of what Trinity actually did as a revenge on Neo when the white Twins were around :P

TECHNOLOGY...

• Toshiba fuel cell is the smallest in the world - A direct methanol fuel cell created by Toshiba has been certified in the 2006 edition of Guinness World Records as the world's smallest DMFC. The device, which outputs 100 milliwatts of power and can power a small music player for as long as 20 hours on a single 2 cubic centimetre charge of highly concentrated methanol, is only 22 millimetres wide, 56 mm long and 4.5 mm high, making it the smallest fuel cell in the world. Toshiba plans to introduce commercial samples of the DMFC for small handheld electronic devices in 2005.
• 5 Features Operating Systems Should Have - This article goes over five features that could be implemented into operating systems that could increase productivity, improve performance, and provide all kinds of new avenues for third party developers and users.
• MP3 Download Prices to Rise? - Several big labels are in talks with online music retailers to get them to increase prices,according to the FT. The labels are looking to increase the wholesale prices shops pay for tracks. Sites in the US typically sell tracks for 99 cents each. The wholesale price is currently 65 cents per track, according to the FT.
• AOL Integrates Buddy Lists With Outlook - Users of America Online Inc.'s instant messaging service can now automatically see from Microsoft Corp.'s popular Outlook e-mail application whether their friends and colleagues are online. A free tool AOL is offering beginning Monday integrates "buddy list" information from AOL Instant Messenger with Outlook.
• IBM Teams with Zend on PHP Programming Core - In a move to expand its support for open-source technologies, IBM announced a partnership with Zend Technologies yesterday that will integrate Big Blue's Apache-based Cloudscape database and Zend's open-source PHP environment.

HARDWARE... 

• Intel nForce Announced - NVIDIA has officially announced that their nForce chipset for Intel Pemtium 4 series of CPUS will be unveiled tommorow March 1st at IDF. The new nForce chipset line will include a chipset which will allow for Intel CPU powered SLI setups.
• ATI Officially Releases New RADEON X850, X800 (AGP) - The RADEON X850 is a native AGP 8x visual processor (PR) family code-named R481 featuring the RADEON X850 XT and other models. The R481 is produced using 0.13 micron process technology with low-k dielectrics and can operate at up to 540MHz clock-speed. The RADEON X800 XL originally known as R430 is a native PCI Express visual processing unit (VPU) that uses ATI’s PCI Express to AGP Bridge chip code-named Rialto, which allows PCI Express graphics processors to be used in AGP-based computers. ATI produces R430 using 0.11 micron process technology at TSMC. While this process technology does not allow extremely high clock-speeds, it gives ATI opportunity to offer the chips at lower cost compared to 0.13 micron fabrication processes.
• NV48 is NV45 with 512MB RAM - Despite earlier claims, Nvidia will introduce one more card codenamed NV48. It won't be an exciting part of the phenomenon hardware thang, as Nvidia will use NV45 chips and will plug 512 MB of memory at the card. Actually, this time NV48 is the codename for graphic card more than it is for the chip. Clocks will remain the same it will be the same card clocked to 400 MHz core and 1100 MHz memory as it is with NV45, Geforce 6800 Ultra card.  In related new, some 512MB GeForce 6800 Ultra in pictures can be found  here.
• Voodoo Rage F:5 gaming PC - Inside, the machine packs an overclocked (by 100MHz, to 2.7GHz) Athlon FX-55 on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe board. Two nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra cards in SLI mode power the graphics, and there’s 2GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR400. Unlike the Katana SLi (reviewed on page 68), the Rage F:5 uses two 1GB DIMMs instead of four 512MB DIMMs. This provides an upgrade path that doesn’t involve junking your old DIMMs.
• Sony VAIO VGN-FS115B Sonoma based notebook - Inside the FS115B is a 1.6GHz Pentium M CPU and 512MB of memory - although Sony has decided to go with DDR rather than DDR2 memory. Sony has made use of the dual channel memory support and installed two matched SODIMM modules. The down side of this is that you're left with no spare memory slots for future upgrades, although 512MB should be fine for most users of this type of notebook.
• SLI comparison - DFI vs. Asus - Hexus compares the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe to the DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-D.
• Leadtek WinFast PX6800 GT TDH (GeForce 6800 GT) - Obviously, the 6800 GT should slap around the 6600 GT like a freshman in a locker room. That will not surprise anyone. The main thing I want to look at is if the price premium that the 6800 GT demands is worth it. For example, if 6800 GT performs less than 20% better than the 6600 GT on the majority of the benchmarks, perhaps paying twice as much for the higher-powered GPU is not worth it.
• Netgear DG834GT - The main differences between the DG834GT and the older model is the fact that it supports faster 108Mbit/sec operations. Physically, it’s much smaller than its predecessor, although this white plastic lozenge offers an equally good hardware specification. For starters, you get an integrated ADSL modem teamed up with a four-port Fast Ethernet switch, while the internal wireless access point (AP) supports simultaneous access from 802.11b and g clients.
• MSI MEGA View 561 - ViperLair take a look at MSI's latest media device, capable of playing not only MP3s, but DivX files as well.
• LCD roundup: 7 low priced 20'' LCD - The release of reasonably priced 20" LCDs was, however, quite inevitable. They replace 22" CRTs which also have 1600 x 1200 pixels. The pixel size of the 20" LCD and 22" CRT is almost identical and the display surface the same (it’s even a couple of millimetres bigger for the LCD).

GUIDES... 

• DVD Troubleshooting Guide - You really enjoy those DVD movies and games and the last thing you need or want is to experience problems with your DVD drive. If your DVD is not feeling its best, then this troubleshooting guide should bring it back to life.
• Cooling down your video card - If your system is freezing or resetting when it's using a graphically intensive program (such as gaming), it could be caused by all sorts of issues and heat is one of them. It might be wise to investigate the matter further and possibly insert an extra case far to get air directly flowing over the video card. This guide will show you how.
• OverClocking the Socket 754 AMD Athlon 64 - If you choose to overclock your system or any components inside of it, you do so at your own risk. This is simply an informational guideline, which you may use at your own risk.
• The easy way to set up the hard drive and set up the system - Sooner or later every PC user faces a full operating system installation. While there is not absolute correct procedure there are hints, tips and tricks that can save any user time and problems in the future. This guide takes the novice step by step through the process of setting up Windows XP and reminds veterans of a few good habits.
• 5 impressive Windows XP tricks - From the folks who brought you the ever sturdy, always controversial Windows XP operating system. Check it out.

SOFTWARE...

• Update for Exchange 2003 - This update resolves problems that were found in Exchange 2003 since Exchange 2003 SP1 was released.
• Attach Plus - Attach Plus (download trial version) adds a button to your e-mail application's "Select Files" dialog window. From the "Select Files" window you can attach the file "as-is", convert it to an Adobe Acrobat PDF or compress it into a ZIP file. On the same screen you can secure the file by selecting a password and choosing only the pages you want and attach. It's that easy, efficient and secure!
• DVD Region+CSS Free 5.80 - DVD Region+CSS Free enables you to watch and copy any region-coded/CSS-encrypted DVD movies on any DVD drive! It works automatically in the background to make a DVD appear region code free and unprotected to any DVD player and DVD copy software. With its help, DVD copy software is able to copy DVD's which are CSS protected.
• Nero InfoTool 3.00 / Nero CD-DVD Speed V3.70 - Nero InfoTool a utility which analyses and displays the most important information about a drive, disc, configuration and software. CD/DVD Speed is a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM benchmark which can test the most important features of a CD/DVD-ROM drive.
• Serious Samurize 1.61 - Samurize (download / changelog) is a system monitoring utility with outstanding configuration power. The configuration program is totally separated from the client for minimal memory usage.
• Maxthon (MyIE2) v1.2.000 - Maxthon (MyIE2) (download standard / combo) is a powerful web browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer engine (your most likely current web browser) which means that what works in IE, works the same in Maxthon but with many additional efficient features.
• Yahoo! Messenger 6.0.0.1922 - download / homepage
• Mozilla 1.8 Beta 1 - Mozilla (download / changelog) is an open-source Web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. Mozilla is a cousin to Netscape Communicator that is being developed by the Free Software Community with the cooperation and support of Netscape.
• X-Setup Pro 7.0 - X-Setup Pro is a so-called "hacker" or "tweaker" program. It allows you to change settings that are normally hidden deeply in some configuration-files like the registry fast and easily. It offers several advantages, making it the "ultimate tool for black belt system tuning". It's runs on any Windows version, is clutter-free, easy to use, extensible, powerful, covers any aspect of your computer and has more configuration options than any other tweaker.

SECURITY...

• Firefox fix plugs security holes - The open-source project released Firefox 1.0.1 to fix, among other bugs, a vulnerability in the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), a standard for handling special character sets in domain names that lets companies register domain names that appear to be the same in different languages. (->download 1.01)
• Bank of America loses a million customer records -  A "small" number of backup tapes with records detailing the financial information of government employees were lost in shipment to a backup center, Bank of America said on Friday. The tapes contained information on the customers and accounts of the U.S. government's SmartPay charge card program, which has more than 2.1 million members and annual transactions totaling more than $21 billion, according to the General Services Administration. Reports have pegged the number of cards affected at 1.2 million.
• Think Finds Flaw Revealing Up To 100,000 Social Security Numbers - Think Computer Corporation has released another security-related White Paper detailing how anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 Social Security numbers may have been accessible to the public for several years. The discovery of the flaw is particularly timely given the recent controversy surrounding similar problems at ChoicePoint, Inc., as well as changes in California state law that require companies to notify California residents whose Social Security numbers may have been compromised.
• Limp Bizkit porn leak could lead to Hilton hacker - Late Tuesday night, an amateur porn video of Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst and an unknown woman hit the Internet. Schmidt, a Phoenix-based publicist who has made a business out of representing celebrities for the sale of nude photos, said that people describing themselves as hackers who stole the video from Durst's PC had approached him to cut a deal with the singer. The video appeared online after the purported hackers backed out of the talks, Schmidt said.

OFFTOPIC...

• Web lets parents spy on driving kids - One in eight cars in the US currently has some form of data recorder installed which logs details of the vehicle's movements. But a wave of new devices is giving parents the chance to follow their offspring and receive alerts by email or phone of any dangerous driving, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph.
• Nanoscopic 'ruler' could provide microchip benchmark - The "nanoruler" was developed by researchers at the US government's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Maryland, US, and industry collaborators. They say it will enable nanoscale researchers and engineers working on nanoscale objects to calibrate their instruments more precisely, resulting in and guarantee greater accuracy in their work.
• Kilogram Poses Weighty Problem - Work has been underway for about 25 years to switch the kilogram from being defined by a physical model to corresponding instead to a constant. A paper to be released Monday proposes redefining the unit via fixing the values of one of two well-known universal constants. The choices offered up are Avogadro's constant or Planck's constant; the former measures the amount of carbon-12 atoms in 0.012 kg of that element, while the latter is used to explain the sizes of quanta, which are tiny electromagnetic energy packets.
• European scientists believe in life on Mars - European Space Agency scientists think there was and could even still be life on Mars - and they want a new European mission to the Red Planet to take samples, a conference heard on Friday.
• Cultured bone offers novel wedding rings - Some will think it a romantic gesture, others will find it grisly. But one willing couple in the UK is about to get the chance, thanks to a government-funded project intended to promote awareness of the issues surrounding tissue engineering. The tricky part is that the lucky couple will have to provide bone cell samples, for which the team will get ethical approval only if both people already need surgery.
• Hydrogen ball fuels dark-matter speculation - The discovery of a big ball of hydrogen in a far-flung region of the universe might help unravel one of the thorniest problems in modern cosmology: Where is the missing dark matter in the universe?
• US Navy downs dummy ballistic missile - The US has successfully downed a dummy ballistic missile in a test of the sea-based element of its Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) programme. The cruiser Lake Erie used a Standard Missile (SM)-3 to intercept the mock warhead fired from the US Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai. The SM-3 was guided by Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System, which can, according to the company, "detect, track, characterize and engage short- and medium-range ballistic missiles".
• Final Fantasy creator working on Xbox 2 titles - Mist Walker, the development studio created by former Square executive Hironobu Sakaguchi - considered to be the "father of Final Fantasy" - has signed up with Microsoft Game Studios to create two RPG titles for the next Xbox console.
• Virtual girlfriend comes to life - Hong Kong-based Artificial Life has created a virtual girlfriend (#pic) that it hopes to make available for users of 2.5G, 2.75G and 3G phones. Named "Vivienne Rose," she will flirt, chat and argue with subscribers, who will be able to call up panoramic views of her on the screens of their handsets. Continue to pages two through seven of this gallery for more images of Vivienne and her life.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft offers $5 windfall for errant software - Afraid Microsoft's anti-spyware will muck up your hard drive, erasing your digital photos, music collection and work files?  Don't worry, you've got a $5 rebate coming your way in this worst-case scenario--enough to buy five songs on iTunes. That is, if you read and take advantage of Microsoft's legal promise. According to the AntiSpyware Beta end-user license agreement (EULA), Microsoft will reimburse direct damages up to $5 for problems associated with the new downloadable tool that wards off spyware, adware and any other "potentially unwanted software."
• Microsoft Preps for the 64-Bit Wave - Microsoft has made no bones about its plans to release new 64-bit versions of Windows client and server in the next couple of months. But until now, the company has said little about its schedule for porting some of its own applications to 64-bit systems. During the past couple of weeks, Microsoft has begun to inform customers and partners of its 64-bit migration strategy for SQL Server, Exchange Server, BizTalk, Virtual PC and Virtual Server, and other key enterprise applications.
• Microsoft launches SQL Server for 2005 - The new products promise better reliability and security as well as improved user tools. The four new editions that comprise SQL Server 2005 are SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition targeted at large mission-critical business applications, a Standard Edition for medium-sized businesses, the Workgroup Edition a database solution majoring on ease of use for small to medium-sized organizations.
• China favours EVD over DVD - China has formally declared its Enhanced Video Disc (EVD) format the national standard for digital video discs, its Ministry of Information Industry (MII) said this week.
• Production of Sony's ill-fated PSX media centre halted - Sony Japan has stopped manufacturing both models of the PSX media centre cum game console, with the company revealing that production has stopped and giving no indication of whether it plans to resume at some point in future.
• NTT Develops Mobile-Phone Hydrogen Fuel Cell - Nippon Telegraph and Telephone has developed a prototype fuel cell that it hopes to commercialize within three years at a size small enough to fit inside mobile phones and other portable consumer electronics devices, the company said Thursday. The prototype is a micro polymer-electrolyte fuel cell that works by combining hydrogen with oxygen, generating electricity and water. It is more powerful than the direct methanol fuel cells currently being developed by many companies, said Kazuya Akiyama, a researcher at the energy systems project at NTT's energy and environment systems laboratories.
• Orange preps 240x320 SPV C550 - The first Smartphone to feature a QVGA resolution, the C550 features: 1.3 Megapixel Camera, GPRS Class 10, 240x320 65k TFT colour screen, 64MB Internal memory and Mini SD external memory, USB, IrDA and Bluetooth, Video MMS
  Java 2.0, the following features are unconfirmed, but rumoured:Integrated SZGA and Flash, 262K not 64K Display, May have 3G technology too but no internal camera.
• Sony demos HTPS LCD panel with inorganic alignment layer - Sony announced today the development of the world's first HTPS LCD panel for front projector TV sets. The company said the technology increased display reliability and is capable of outputting higher picture quality through the incorporation of an inorganic alignment layer. Compared to conventional LCD panels, the use of this new material nearly quadruples HTPS panels' resistance to light which results in higher brightness and contrast ratio.
• AMD claims it's catching Intel on 65 nano tech - Robert Rivet, chief financial officer of AMD, spoke at the Goldman Sachs technology investment symposium 2005 and gave a fair amount of details on its process plans. AMD is on track to produce 65 nanometre processors, he said. While he said that Intel is clearly behind AMD on 64-bit technology, AMD won't be that far behind the firm on the move to 65 nanometre. Reliable sources inside Intel claim Intel has already got 65 nanometre versions of its chips taped up and running at its development fabs.

HARDWARE... 

• ATI's RADEON X850 XT 512MB: Not a Significant Design Challenge, Says ATI.- ATI RADEON X850 XT 512MB graphics card looks similar to ATI's RADEON X850 XT 256MB flavour: both have nearly the same power supply circuitry, coolers, etc., the actual difference is in memory layout. ATI Technologies, the world's largest supplier of graphics and multimedia processors, will demonstrate its graphics cards with 512MB of onboard memory at the Texas Gaming Festival in Dallas, February 25th to 27th, 2004.
• VIA unveils K8N800A chipset for slim AMD-based notebooks - VIA officially announced the availability of the new mobile chipset with integrated graphics - K8N800A. The novelty supports all the current AMD Mobile Athlon64 and Mobile Sempron processors as well as the coming Mobile Turion64. It´s especially underlined that the chipset also supports all energy saving features of processors aforementioned.
• LinuxHardware.org 64-Bit Desktop Battle! - For the majority of people that say they do more of the other tasks presented here, Athlon 64 processors are really your only options. The Pentium 4 in most applications just does not have enough performance versus the competition. If you look at value, AMD gives you more performance, at the same price point, in more applications. It will also be easier to cool it using less expensive cooling methods and save you on energy costs
• NVIDIA Multi-GPU SLI Technology: New Approach to Old Ideas - That said, we could agree with NVIDIA's claims about a super-high efficiency of SLI technology if it were not for one problem. SLI does not work with all games. In many gaming applications there was no performance gain whatever or there even was a negative effect from enabled SLI. In some cases enabling SLI made the system unstable, or a game just would not start up. Another drawback of SLI technology is its dependence on the optimizations for each particular game in the ForceWare driver. If the game is optimized for SLI, the performance gain can be huge, but if the game is not in the database, there's a high probability of your getting a very small speed bonus (far from the promised 70-90 percent) or none at all.
• Intel Pentium 4 600 series & 3.73EE CPU - The Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor has now moved to 90nm process. It has 2MB L2 cache but also has slightly faster clock speed of 3.73GHz and 1066MHz FSB support but is otherwise the same core as normal Pentium 4 600 series. But of course AMD Athlon 64 processors running at much slower clock speeds still give higher performance. It only needs AMD to increase the speed and they will leave Intel in their dust.
• Mushkin PC4400 1GB DC Kit - InsaneTek has posted a review on the Mushkin PC4400 1GB DC Kit.
• MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI Motherboard - The MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI is actually the third revision of MSI's popular K8N Neo series, and it's now based on the brand new nVIDIA nForce4 SLI chipset. The motherboard supports Socket 939 AMD Athlon64 processors with HyperTransport running at a smooth 1 GHz.
• nForce4 SLI, Real World System -  Since a GeForce 6800 GT can play any game out at this moment with all the setting set to high at 1280x1024 without problems, we ran all three of our tests at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 8xAF. Also, the game settings are set too have all the settings set to highest detail. This should give you an idea how the cards can handle high stress.
• GeForce Go 6800 Ultra: Powering the Dell Inspirion XPS Gen 2 - The "new" GeForce Go 6800 Ultra graphics card is exactly the same as the original Go 6800, except that we are finally seeing it at the high clock speeds NVIDIA originally promised we would see.
• SB Audigy 4 Pro & Audigy 2 ZS notebook card - In an effort to maintain its leadership position in the PC sound card market, Creative Labs has recently released its new Notebook Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA card and Audigy 4 Pro PCI card for desktops. The card itself only has the three main speaker outputs on it, and a modular plug for the break-out box - all other connections go straight to the box. Once again, we don't care for this design as it requires some sort of dependency on the bulky box if you want to use all the available features of the Audigy 4 Pro.
• U.S. Robotics 802.11g wireless turbo multi-function access point - U.S Robotics's Wireless 'turbo' access point is capable of delivering 100Mbit/s wireless networking - in theory at least. The access point increases standard 802.11g performance up to 25 per cent, according to the company, and comes with built-in 256-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption and WPA (Wi-Fi protected Access) to help protect against hackers.
• LG Flatron L1740P monitor - TrustedReviews has posted a review of the LG Flatron L1740P 17in TFT monitor which has taken more than one design que from the latest Sony panels.
• Lexmark T430 laser printer - Lexmark makes a full range of business laser printers from simple, one-per-desk models through to full departmental devices, with all the collators and stackers you could reasonably want. The T430 sits around halfway between these two types and is a typical small workgroup printer with an output speed of an impressive 30 pages per minute.
• Sony PSP - Overlocking project take a look at the Playstation Portable, which is currently set to launch in North America on March 24.
• Siemens SF65 1.3 mpixel Camera Phone - OCW has posted a review of the Siemens SF65 1.3 mpixel Camera Phone. With an integrated 1.3 mpixel digital camera and 18MB of storage, LED Flash, 4x Zoom, swivel action screen and 65K colour TTF display,every single moment can be captured in details. SF65 has a high gloss finish in Polar White and a distinctive minimalist feel. It is stylish and weighs only 97g.

GUIDES... 

• ATI Radeon to ATI FireGL mod guide rev. 4.2 - If you read our Radeon 9800 SE to Radeon 9800 Pro Mod Guide, you should have known ATI's R350 and R360 cores are used in the Radeon 9800 series of graphics cards. In fact, ATI used the same cores in their FireGL X2 workstation graphics card as well! Yes! The GPUs ATI used in their desktop graphics cards are the same GPUs they use in their FireGL series of workstation graphics cards! They only make some minor changes to the PCB of the FireGL cards. In some cases, it looks like they even use the same PCB used in the desktop cards!
• 3D Performance with Chronicles of Riddick: High-end cards - As far as performance is concerned, NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 6800 Ultra put up a very strong showing in Chronicles of Riddick, sweeping all tests we conducted. At lower resolutions, the margins between the NVIDIA and ATI cards are pretty great - in one case the X850 XT PE trailed the GeForce 6800 GT by 15% at 800x600 -- but the X850 XT Platinum Edition begins to reel in the 6800 GT once AA and AF are turned on, especially at 1600x1200, thanks to the X850 XT PE's memory bandwidth advantage. For example, with 4xAA and 8xAF enabled, the GeForce 6800 GT outperforms the X850 XT PE by just 3% at 1600x1200, but at 800x600 the margin between both cards is a more substantial 9%.
• Memory Timing Comparison - For testing at DDR400 I ran the processor at 10x200, with a htt multiplier of 5x and for ddr500 I ran at 8x250 with a htt multiplier of 4x. This insures that everything is running at the same speed other than the memory
• Quadro vs FireGL - In some areas the cost performance ratio is heavily outweighed by the PNY Quadro in its outstanding excellence and prevailing raw performance in the applications. Many customers still rely upon the Quadro name for quality and long term value.
• Installing The XP Fax Service (XP Pro/Home) - Not everyone has a dedicated fax machine in their home or office. XP includes a fax service that provides you with complete faxing capabilities. Using your XP computer, you can send, receive, track, and monitor faxes. The Fax service is not installed with XP by default. Therefore, if you want to utilize this feature, you must first install it. Once you have the Fax service installed, you must configure it before you can start using it.
• What is Bluetooth Technology? - Just like 802.11 b/g wireless networking systems and many cordless telephones, Bluetooth devices operate on 2.4 GHz radio signals

SOFTWARE...

• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition RC2 Preview -  In short, XP x64 looks and acts like the 32-bit version of XP Pro with Service Pack 2 (SP2). Virtually everything you see in a default XP Pro system is present in XP x64, including the Security Center, with just a few exceptions. There are also occasional features in XP x64 that aren't present in XP SP2, such as a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer.
• Apache HTTP Server for Windows 2.0.53 - Undoubtedly the best HTTP server. For those of you experiencing crash during shut down of apache, try to update your OpenSSL DLL files in your windows\system32 directory. When I was using old versions of openssl dll, the apache would crash during shutdown. This problem can easily be reproduced. Update to latest version, no more problems!
• Update for Windows XP (KB884883) -When you work in a program that loads both version 5 and version 6 of the Comctl32.dll file in Microsoft Windows XP, the program may stop responding, and an access violation may occur in the Comctl32.dll file. (patch)
• SimplyMEPIS 3.3 - For the beginner, SimplyMEPIS is a complete desktop Linux that bundles and preconfigures the KDE 3.3.2 desktop, OpenOffice 1.1.3 (with WordPerfect document support), Firefox 1.0, Mplayer plugin, Gaim, Xchat, Konqueror, Kmail, Pan, Skype, GIMP, Digikam, Acrobat Reader, Real Player, Xine, XMMS, Kino, GTKPod (with automatic support for both Mac and PC iPods), Scribus, Checkbook Tracker, KPilot, QTParted, Synaptic, Kpackage, and many other applications.
• Trillian 3.1 - Trillian is a multi-network chat client that currently supports IRC, AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger.
• PDFCreator 0.8.1 RC5 - PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.
• XP Codec Pack 1.0.5 - XP Codec Pack is one of the most complete codec pack which helps you to play all major audio and video formats. And to complete your multimedia experience, instead of 3 or 4 different players you get one simple integrated player that plays almost all audio and video files: Media Player Classic
• MenuShrink  - MenuShrink (download) is a small app that lets you compress DVD motion menus by turning them into still menus with or without audio. In many cases, the space savings is tremendous. For the Star Wars movies, the main menus take about 600MB, and can easily be shrunk to about 40MB (keeping the audio).
• CCleaner 1.17.094 Final - 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. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less that a second to run) and Free.
• SCARABAY v2.5 - SCARABAY is an easy to use password manager that can store your Web site logins in an encrypted database. It offers a convenient drag and drop approach to enter the username and password into the Web site form. The program includes a built-in password generator, and supports multiple users, each with their own database files.
• Opera 8.0 Beta 2 - Opera has released their second beta version of Opera 8.0. There are a few apparent changes such as the new Appearance settings and a new option to "Report a site problem".
• ResizeSearchBox for Firefox - ResizeSearchBox is an extension that adds a resize thumb to the toolbar which can be used to resize the search box. The resize thumb is added by customizing the toolba
• ATI Tray Tools v1.0.1.527 - ATI Tray Tools is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which then allows instant access to options and settings.
• DHzer0point Drivers 0.6766 (ForceWare) - Zer0point Drivers are modified Forceware drivers, meaning they are NOT supported or endorsed by nVidia, or any 3rd party OEM manufacturers. They are not covered by any warranty or guarantee, and you install them at your own risk
• Xtreme G 75.90 (ForceWare) - This is the Xtreme G driver which includes many performance and Image Quality tweaks. These are modified NVIDIA ForceWare drivers for Windows 2000 & XP. Modified drivers simply means that the author takes official or beta drivers from the manufacturer and starts to tweak them for either better image quality and or performance. Please bare in mind that the driver manufacturer, in this case NVIDIA, does not support drivers like these.
• ATI Radeon DNA-drivers 3.7.5.2 - These are modified/hacked ATI Catalyst drivers, use them at your own risk. The drivers have been optimized with two things in mind, better Image Quality and more/stable frames per second when compared to the Beta Catalyst drivers from ATI.
• ForceWare 71.84 Win2000/XP - This new driver set was tracked down by rflair, one of Guru3D forum members. The driver supports the entire range of graphice cards to date. As far as I could tell these drivers are not WHQL (Microsoft tested) signed.

SECURITY...

• U.K. to issue public virus alerts - The British government has created a Web site with virus alerts and security advice for home PC users and small businesses. The site, called ITsafe, will provide free information on the latest virus threats as well as advice on Internet surfing, e-mail use and protecting personal and business data.
• Virus hidden in fake FBI email - The FBI is warning internet users to beware of a virus masquerading as an email from the US law enforcement agency. The scam emails tell the recipients that their surfing has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Centre and that they have accessed illegal websites. Recipients are urged to open an attachment and answer some questions, but the attachment contains a computer virus.
• Microsoft Confirms IE Phishing Flaw - According to a Microsoft spokesperson, Windows XP SP2 requires the URL of pop-up ads to display in the title bar when a pop-up has been opened without the address bar. "Our early analysis indicates that only pop-up ads that contain extremely long URLs can be spoofed in this scenario," the spokesperson confirmed.
• Microsoft Patches "Blue Screen Of Death" In Windows XP SP2 - The problem, which has actually been public since December 2004, also affects Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. In some cases, installing third-party anti-virus or firewall software -- Microsoft didn't name makers or package titles -- can bring down the operating system in a Blue Screen of Death with a cryptic error that reads "Stop 0x05 (INVALID_PROCESS_ATTACH_ATTEMPT)."
• Office 10 applications & flashdrives can be used to browse restricted drives (Win2k) - After you establish a group policy to restrict access to a drive by selecting the Hide these specified drives in My Computer and Prevent access to drives from My Computer options, you can use a Microsoft Office program to browse and read the contents of the drive.
• More Security Problems for phpBB - An update of phpBB has been released to address new security holes in the open source application. "One of the potential exploits addressed in this release could be serious in certain situations and thus we urge all users to upgrade to this release as soon as possible," the phpBB Group said in its advisory. The security fixes address multiple bugs that disclose the full path to system files in phpBB, which is powered by the PHP server-side scripting language. A vulnerability reported by iDefense could, under some configurations, allow malicious users to view system files.
• Multiple Vulnerabilities in RealArcade - The vulnerability lies in the handling of RGS files. Each RGS file is defined using an integer of a 32 bits that specifies the length of a GUID string and a name of a game to install. When the user launches a RGS file he can choose if to continue installing or not.
  The vulnerability allows to overwrite the return address of the vulnerable function which in turn can be used by an attacker to execute malicious code.
• Changes in Windows XP Product Activation - On February 28, Microsoft will disable Internet activation for all Microsoft Windows XP product keys located on the Certificates of Authenticity (COA) labels distributed by large, multinational OEMs. The first phase of this Product Activation policy update will affect product keys from the top 20 Direct OEMs only. This policy will go into effect on February 28th with additional updates throughout the year to extend this policy to all OEMs authorized to use SLP. This change will affect all Windows XP product keys already shipped from the top 20 OEMs in the market today as well as shipments going forward.
• Silence Fuels Speculation on Microsoft Security Plan - Microsoft's silence on its Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) architecture has some industry insiders wondering if the technology has been substantially delayed, or even axed. Microsoft unveiled NGSCB, formerly known by its Palladium code name, in 2002. The technology, Microsoft has said, uses a combination of software and hardware that boosts PC security by providing the ability to isolate software so it can be protected against malicious code
• Arrest, But no Relief From IM Spam - Anthony Greco of Cheektowaga, New York, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on February 16, and charged with violating the federal CAN-SPAM Act, after the 18-year-old allegedly sent over 1.5 million instant messages advertising mortgage refinancing services and adult pornography to users of MySpace.com's IM service, according to a statement released by U.S. Attorney Debra W. Yang.
• Microsoft says sorry for AntiSpyware error - Microsoft has publicly apologized and compensated Web directory Startpagina.nl, one of MSN's main competitors in Holland, after the software giant's anti-spyware product incorrectly flagged the site as malicious.
• Free SSL Certificate Project - Most web servers, such as Apache, IIS and others are capable of running the 128-bit secured and encrypted SSL protocol. All you need, in most cases, is a SSL certificate to make it work. StartCom is going to provide you with this certificate through a simple web based interface wizard and sign up process free of charge. Together with the installation instructions, you'll have your secured web site running within a few minutes.

OFF-TOPIC...

• The History Of The Computer - Unlike most devices, the computer is one of the few inventions that does not have one specific inventor. Throughout the development of the computer, many people have added their creations to the list required to make a computer work. Some of the inventions have been different types of computers, and some of them were parts required to allow computers to be developed further.
• Frozen Bacterium Has Implications for Mars -NASA - A newly discovered life form that froze on Earth some 30,000 years ago was apparently alive all that time and started swimming as soon as it thawed, a NASA scientist reported on Wednesday, in a finding he said has implications for possible contemporary life on Mars.
• Hydroelectric power's dirty secret revealed - The green image of hydro power as a benign alternative to fossil fuels is false, says Éric Duchemin, a consultant for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "Everyone thinks hydro is very clean, but this is not the case," he says. Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels.
• The Power of Nukes - This video shows nukes in all of their amazing albeit destructive beauty. If only people could forget the destructive power of nukes and focus on the good they could achieve.
• Compression algorithms harnessed to fight HIV - HIV mutates rapidly, thus evading the human immune system. This means that vaccines developed to counteract one strain may not be effective against another variant. But the researchers hope that algorithms capable of finding patterns in digital information could also help identify key genetic features across many different strains of HIV. This could enable them to engineer an HIV vaccine that is effective against several strains at once.
• Battlestar Galactica Season 2 This Summer - SCI FI Channel announced that the second season of its hit original series Battlestar Galactica will premiere this summer with 20 new episodes, after earlier confirming their commitment to the show.
• Quentin Tarantino to direct CSI season finale - Quentin Tarantino has signed to direct the season finale episode of CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, says The Hollywood Reporter. Tarantino also has come up with an original story for the episode, which is expected to shoot in early April and air May 19, according to "CSI" executive producer Carol Mendelsohn.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Internet Explorer 7 Preview 1 - From a factual basis, here's what we know about IE 7 right now: IE 7 was originally scheduled for Longhorn. The new features we're going to see in IE 7 were originally going to be available only as part of Longhorn, IE 7 will be focused on security, not new features. Like the version of IE that Microsoft shipped in XP SP2, IE 7.0 will consist, mostly, of security-oriented features. One of these features will be an anti-phishing technology. IE 7 will be free. Like previous versions of IE, IE 7 will be free.
• WinZip Companion For Outlook Launched - WinZip Computing has introduced WinZip Companion for Outlook, which is designed to make it easy for Outlook to zip and encrypt attachments to their outgoing e-mail messages.The WinZip Companion can be configured to zip files automatically, to ask if the user wants them zipped, or to manually zip and attach files. Toolbar and menu items control the program's functionality on a message-by-message basis.
• How to Kill Linux - While chatting over dinner with the executives of a middleware company during the recent RSA conference for encryption and security in San Francisco, I heard about a secret project. It concerned the development of a version of Linux that runs smoothly as a task under Windows. The project was completed and then shelved. Whether it will ever reemerge is doubtful, but it does offer some interesting possibilities and hints as to what Microsoft may be up to with MS-Linux
• Peer Impact P2P signs deal with four major labels - Wurld Media, provider of Peer Impact P2P software, has completed a deal with four major music lables including Sony/BMG and Universal Music Group. In case you don't know, Peer Impact is an application that allows the downloading of music legally, but with a twist. You can potentially earn money if the music you like and buy, is uploaded to another peers computer. Details are not clear as the program is presently in the beta stage.
• German Search Engines Self-Regulating - Heise reports the German search engines Google.de, Lycos Europe, MSN Germany, AOL Germany, Yahoo.de, T-Online and T-Info today in Berlin announced the forming of a self-regulating organization (Babelfish version) under the hood of the German FSM (the "Voluntary Self-Control for Multimedia Service Providers"). (thanks Slashdot.org)
• Xbox 2 set to feature removable hard drive - reports - Microsoft's next-generation Xbox console is set to feature a removable hard drive bay, according to online reports today, which will allow users to upgrade their entry-level systems to include mass storage capabilities.
• Apple pipes in new iPods - The company introduced a higher-capacity, 6GB Mini, along with new 30GB and 60GB iPod Photo models (photo), which can use an adapter to connect directly to digital cameras and display photos. The Minis also feature a boost in battery life.
• AMD to demo a dual-core desktop chip - The chip, code-named Toledo, will feature two separate Athlon 64 processing cores on the same piece of silicon. It will start appearing in PCs in the second half of 2005, said Theresa DeOnis, desktop brand manager for AMD. Putting two cores on a chip will allow a computer to perform two tasks at once, she said, or run specially tweaked applications faster. Windows XP Professional will be the operating system of choice for many dual-core desktops, as it is already threaded to run two processors.
• Dell No Longer Plans to Use AMD Processors - CEO - Following Intel Corp.'s release of Intel Pentium 4 processors 600-series as well as yet another lineup of Intel Xeon DP, the world's largest computer maker Dell Inc., who exclusively use Intel's microprocessors in its products, said the company does not have plans to introduce systems powered by AMD processors.

HARDWARE... 

• NV44a is native AGP 6200 - NV44 PCIe is what we know under the Geforce 6200 TC brand but the AGP version won't be TC - Turbo Cache compatible, as this is a PCIe game only. It still might be called Geforce 6200. Nvidia needs a good card in a market that brings a lot of money to the company and has to fight ATI's offering in this league. Now, that's the Radeon 9250 but we heard that ATI might have a new low end AGP player soon as well.
• First pictures of ATI's 512MB Radeon X850 - EliteBastards just received the first images of the 512MB variant (pic#1 / pic#2) of ATI's Radeon X850 board.
• Evesham Duel SLi gaming PC - The star of the show internally is the pair of GeForce 6800GT cards, located in the two PCI Express slots on the Asus A8N-SLi motherboard. There is in fact another PCI Express slot in between these but it is totally obstructed by the large bulk of these cards. Evesham has selected to use Leadtek cards, probably for the simple reason that it was able to secure supply of this brand. This is slightly unfortunate as while these cards certainly perform well, they make an awful lot of noise. In fact as well as a CPU fan, there's a 120mm rear fan, a front fan, and even one on the motherboard Southbridge chip.
• Intel Pentium4 3.73GHz EE - From the past few pages of benchmarks, its quite clear that the performance of the 3.73GHz EE is not what one would expect from Intel’s highest-end desktop CPU which is about 300Mhz faster than their previous EE CPU. This was bound to happen as Intel moved the EE to the 90nm based Prescott core which has a longer 31 stage pipeline. We saw the same thing when the normal Pentium4 shifted from Northwood to Prescott.
• AMD's Athlon FX - CPU Scaling to 3GHz and 250MHz dHTT - AMD recently released their latest Opteron running at 2600MHz, the same speed as the Athlon FX-55. With one Opteron speed hike usually comes the next one on the desktop, which for Athlon FX means 2800MHz and FX-57. Apply the logic above and we can examine the performance of FX-57 before launch, using an existing FX processor and its unlocked multipliers. With FX-55, all that means is the use of the 14x multiplier at the standard 200MHz dHTT (derived HTT, calculated by the use of the base HTT clock and clock divisors). While it's not quite a front-side bus, since the memory controller always runs at core frequency, it's close.
• Pentium 4 at 5.2GHz - Due to diminishing returns the Pentium 4 processor needs a whopping 5.2GHz clock speed to keep up with AMD's flagship processor. So was it a good decision on Intel's part to announce it will not be shipping a 4GHz processor? We think so, as the Pentium 4 was just never going to best AMD's Athlon 64
• OCZ's DDR Booster - OCZ's DDR Booster is a supplemental power supply for your DDR memory that plugs into an empty DIMM socket to improve memory stability.
• ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition - Looking back at our tests on the X800XT, X800 Pro, 9800XT and so on, it's easy for me to say that the X850XT Platinum Edition is the best and the fastest video card we have ever seen. The card has everything any computer enthusiast could ever want, but like most things it's not completely perfect. I hate to be nitpicky, but I feel that the cooling system could be a little better by using a larger copper heatsink. With the amount of heat this card produces, better cooling couldn't hurt.
• Gigabyte Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition -  Legion Hardware take a look at the Gigabyte Radeon X850XT PE. This is not only the fastest graphics card ATi currently has on offer; it is also the most expensive. The average Radeon X850XT PE can be had for anywhere between $500 and $700 US.
• Sapphire Radeon X850 XT - Traditionally Sapphire's retail cards haven't varied very far from ATI's reference design, after all, in many cases, ATI has farmed out production of their boards to Sapphire, therefore it was no surprise to us to see that Sapphire's RADEON X850 XT was so similar to the X850 XT reference board
• Dual MSI NX6600GT-TD128E SLI videocard -  PC Stats has posted a review of Dual MSI NX6600GT-TD128E SLI Videocard
• BenQ DW1620A DVD±RW/R Drive - This overall nice impression is somewhat spoiled by some flaws concerning DVD burn operations which I hope will be corrected in future firmware updates. Another point in favor of the BenQ is its wide functionality. Besides Plextor's devices of the 712 and 716 series, the BenQ DW1620 is among the most feature-rich optical drives in the market.
• Asetek WaterChill Antarctica KT12A-L30 Water Cooling System - The Asetek WaterChill Antarctica KT12A-L30 kit includes three water-blocks: for the CPU, GPU and the chipset's North Bridge. They are all designed alike: a copper sole with a milled channel for the passing of the liquid plus a thick acryl cap the 0.5” Push-on fittings are attached to.
• Logitech MX1000 Mouse - Cleverly packaged, and with out-of-the-box use, the MX1000 appeals to graphics professionals, gamers and mainstream users alike; comfortable and easy to use, the SetPoint software only extends its functionality.
• Slappa Optical Disc Storage - So, putting the name to one side, what Slappa produces is a range of high-end storage and transport solutions for your digital media. OK, so that's a fancy way of describing CD/DVD cases, but calling the Slappa products CD cases seems to be selling them short - these cases really are a cut above the your average optical disc storage solution and sport a number of very useful features.
• Canon PowerShot SD300 - Offering a 4 megapixel output and 3x optical zoom, the SD300 has a lot to offer. On top of the basic still recording modes that we have come to expect from current digicams, the SD300 offers a versatile movie mode that can record at 640x480 at 30 fps. It can even record at 60 fps with a resolution of 320x240
• Kreisen LT-30FMP HDTV - Kreisen's LT-30FMP has a lot to offer and should not be a disappointment for those that do research before purchasing. Because Kreisen uses panels from both Samsung and LG.Philips, you are sure to get a great looking picture. PC Users will love how the LT-30FMP doubles as a PC monitor and with the advanced PIP options; you can watch television at the same time.

GUIDES... 

• AMD Cool'n'Quiet How-To - EN staff member Troy Fontaine has put together a quick and easy guide on how to put AMD's Cool'n'Quiet technology to use. If you're finding yourself confused trying to get it working, this guide should help get you on the right track.
• Making Windows XP Start Faster - Whenever you start your computer, you are faced with a few moments of thumb twiddling while Windows XP boots and prompts you to log on. Although you should expect to wait for a few moments, sometimes Windows XP seems to boot rather slowly. In fact, you may notice that over a period of time the PC that used to roar to life seems a bit sluggish instead. Fortunately, you can perform several techniques that help Windows XP get the bootup speed you want. This chapter explores how to put these techniques to work.
• Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.9.0 - Clean Spyware and Viruses + Optimize Windows XP to improve both work and gaming performance safely. Windows XP's default configuration is far from optimized. This guide will help you improve your overall system performance.
• How To Make A Slipstreamed Win XP SP2 Disc - What is the solution? "Slipstreaming" is the process of taking that old, non SP2 (or in my case not even SP1) copy of Windows XP and upgrading it to a fully patched (well, close to fully patched) version that can be installed in one-step
• ForceWare Driver 75.90 Performance Comparison - Origo3D have published their ForceWare 75.90 Driver Comparison (translated by Google) They tested ForceWare 75.90 against ForceWare 71.50 ,71.25 ,71.80, 71.81 and 67.71 using a Geforce 6800 Ultra.

SOFTWARE...

• Critical Update for XP and 2003 on Windows Update - You receive the Stop error "Stop 0x05 (INVALID_PROCESS_ATTACH_ATTEMPT)" in Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2003. This patch has been available since nov 2004, but is now available on windowsupdate and autoupdate.
• phpMyAdmin 2.6.1-pl1  - phpMyAdmin (changelog) can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you`ll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database
• NetServer 0.1 Beta 3 - You want to get hosting for your website? You can't afford a hosting service for your website or you don't like the services offered by free hosts? You have a PC at home that you can connect to the Internet 24/7 ?You need a development platform for your PHP scripts? Download NetServer and your PC will become a Web Server, MySQL Server, FTP Server, Mail Server in 5 minutes.
• DVD Rebuilder 0.74 - One click DVD backup tool that uses CinemaCraft Encoder Basic/SP or QuEnc(ffmpeg) encoder or ReJig transcoder engine. This tool helps you to do a full dvd backup(movie, extras, menus) of your DVD9s to one DVDR using one of the best video encoder available, CinemaCraft Encoder.
• BSPlayer 1.2 Build 815 - BSplayer (download) is a Windows player that plays back all kinds of media files ( avi / mpg / asf / wmv / wav / mp3...) and specialises in video and divx playback.
• Fraps 2.5.2 - Fraps is a tool that lets you monitor current framerates in a corner of the screen for programs using DirectX or OpenGL technology. It also allows you to easily take screenshots of games, make movies of gameplay, and manually determine the average framerate between two points.
• BWMeter v2.3.0 - BWMeter is a powerful bandwidth meter, monitor and traffic controller, which measures, displays and controls all traffic to/from your computer or on your network. Unlike other products, it can analyze the data packets (where they come from, where they go, which port and protocol they use). BWMeter can create statistics for all computers in your network, measure, display and control all LAN traffic as well as download / upload from the internet.
• Screamer Radio 0.3.6 - Screamer Radio (download) is a simple to use Internet radio player and recorder. Supported stream formats include Shoutcast/Icecast (mp3 and ogg) and Windows Media Audio
• Nokia Lifeblog 1.50.8.2 - Nokia Lifeblog is a PC and mobile phone software combination that effortlessly keeps a multimedia diary of the items you collect with your mobile phone.
• nLite 0.99.8b - nLite is an all-in-one GUI utility that will give you the ability to permanently remove unwanted components such as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Media Player, MSN Explorer, MSN Messenger and a variety of other components from your own Windows CD. This results in a slimmer Windows CD, faster Windows installation, more hard disk space, and is also known to free up RAM resources when using a cut-down version of Windows
• Matrox Parhelia/P650/P750 AGP/PCI 1.08.00 driver - Matrox has released new Matrox Parhelia drivers - download

SECURITY...

• Microsoft To Force SP2 Update On All XP And XP SP1 Machines - April 12th is the very last day - the day that your Windows XP or Windows XP SP1 computer will be automatically updated to XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) whether you want it to or not. Period.
• Agressive New Sober worm moving fast - A new version of the Sober worm wriggled out of its hole early today and set about quickly attacking computers in Europe and the U.S., a security services company said. The worm is a mass-mailer, meaning it spreads itself via e-mail using contacts listed in the address books of computers it infects.
• Security breakthrough kills "evil twins" - Unveiled at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the 'delayed password disclosure protocol' was created by Markus Jakobsson and Steve Myers of Indiana University. The pair said that the system may have applications in any environment where "mutual identity authentication" is required. The protocol is designed to prevent consumers from getting tricked into connecting to a fake wireless hub, a so-called evil twin, located by hackers in public spaces alongside legitimate access points.
• IE 7: No Phishing Allowed - The full version of IE 7.0 will be included in "Longhorn," which is due next year. Gates said the new version will include significant security upgrades, namely technologies to help prevent URL spoofing in phishing attacks.
• Paris Hilton's cell phone hacked? - Paris Hilton seems to be having more trouble keeping her personal life personal, and this time the socialite apparently exposed several A-list celebrities after the contents of her cell phone were published on the Internet. The content included the phone numbers of the hotel heiress' friends. A representative for T-Mobile confirmed Monday that information from Hilton's T-Mobile Sidekick has been posted online.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Mars Express finds evidence of frozen sea - Images captured by Europe's Mars Express spacecraft have revealed what could be a frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, just below the surface of the Red Planet, according to an international team of scientists. The apparent underground sea is located just five degrees north of the Martian equator, and as such, it would represent the first large body of water to be found beyond the planet's polar ice caps.
• Good vibrations rule the termite's world - Termites use the vibrations produced when they chew into wood to decide which bits to eat, researchers have discovered. They also seem to use the acoustic vibration signals to detect the presence of other species of termite on the same piece of wood, and to help control the development of immature workers into sexually-active breeders.
• 10 Things Your Lawyer Won't Tell You - Expecting a bundle from a big lawsuit? Don't start spending it yet. You may be shocked to learn how little you'll get to keep. Lawyers may not like to mention it, but federal taxes  - at a rate of 25 to 35% - can easily wipe out most of the money you win in civil lawsuits; bodily injury suits are the only exemption. You'll probably even have to pay federal taxes on the part that's earmarked for your attorney, unless you live in the one of the few regions, including Alabama, Michigan and Texas, where federal appeals courts have sided with taxpayers.
• Crazy Woman Starts Fight in Pizza Parlour Boyfriend Enters And Beats The Crap Out of Patrons - check it out!

TECHNOLOGY...

• Opera Calls for Consortium on IDN Fix - Opera Software has called on its fellow browser makers and the Internet community as a whole to band together in an effort to fix the security issues related to Internationalized Domain Names. The problem with IDN stems from its use of the Unicode character set to enable domain names that include international letters. But because the DNS system that facilitates the Internet only understands ASCII, or U.S. English characters, Unicode URLs must be converted by a Web browser into a format called "Punycode." 
• 90 million Chinese now use Internet - The population of Internet users has kept rising. By June 30, 2004, there were 87 million Internet users in China. The number topped 90 million by the yearend. The Internet sector is also regarded as the industry in China that merges into the international market most closely. It has changed the life of many Chinese people.
• Did the Army get out-gamed? - In a unique deal with Hollywood, the Army spent more than $5-million in taxpayer money to create Full Spectrum Warrior, a video game that was supposed to teach soldiers about urban combat. The Army got what some say is a mediocre training tool, but the companies that designed the game got a sweet deal. Pandemic Studios and its partner THQ have sold nearly 1-million copies for PCs and the Xbox game system; a PlayStation 2 edition will be released next month.
• More Megapixels Hit Your Pocket - A dizzying array of camera models are on display at the PMA 2005 show here. But standing out from the mix of the powerful--such as Canon's EOS Digital Rebel XT consumer SLR--and the penny-pinching--Concord's $80 3-megapixel starter 3047--are compact, point-and-shoot digicams cameras that pack at least 7 megapixels of image resolution.

HARDWARE... 

• Intel unveils new class of Pentium 4s - Intel introduced a line of Pentium 4 desktop chips Sunday that contain 2MB of secondary cache, twice as much as current Pentium 4s, as well as technology from its notebook line that's designed to cut power consumption. Larger caches, a pool of memory located on the processor, generally improve performance. The four chips included in the new 600 series of Pentium 4s range in speeds from 3GHz to 3.6GHz, and all of them feature an 800MHz bus. The top-of-the-line 660 Pentium 4 sells for $605 in quantities of 1,000, while the 630 sells for $224.
• Intel releases information on their new 64-Bit Processors - The company said that these new processors when coupled with the Intel 925/915 Express chipset family would improve performance and response times of applications comprehensively. The five processors are: Intel Pentium 4 Processor Extreme Edition 3.73 GHz and four others in the Intel Pentium 4 Processor 6xx sequence. All of these processors support Hyper-Threading (HT) technology and comes with support for 64-bit memory addressability through Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T).
• AMD readies faster Opterons - AMD has announced faster versions of its Opteron 64bit processors, and detailed plans for dual-core and multi-core Opterons. The AMD Opteron Models 152, 252 and 852 have a clock speed of 2.6GHz. The 252 and 852 chips are due to ship this month. The 152 will be available from April.
• AMD Sempron 3000+ to have 128KB cache - AMD recently announced the Sempron 3000+, a socket 754 CPU featuring 128KB cache, The Sempron 2600+ also features 128KB cache, while the 2800+ actually managed to climb to 256KB of memory.  The 3000+ rocks at 1800MHz and has thermal dissipation of an acceptable 62W. The Sempron 2800+ with 256KB cache, has max power of 62W and works at 1600MHz. The slowest of the socket 754s, the 2600+, also works at 1600MHz but in this case has only 128Kb of cache. And 128KB of cache makes it a 2600+. Its maximal thermal power also stops at 62W.
• Shuttle launches first Nvidia nForce4 SFF PC - The XPC SN25P features a Socket 939 motherboard supporting AMD Athlon 64 CPUs, a 1GHz HyperTransport system bus, one PCIe x16 slot and one PCIe x1 slot, as well as support and physical space for three hard drives (two IDE and one SATA drive). Built using an Nvidia nForce MCP (media and communication processor), the system also supports an integrated hardware firewall, SATA I and integrated RAID. In addition, the SN25P is housed in Shuttle’s P chassis, which features a 350W power supply yet still only produces noise at about 31dB when the system is at rest, the company stated.
• Plextor introduces PX-716AL - The Plextor PX-716AL is a highly versatile 10-in-1 slot-loaded DVD/CD burner that supports 6x DVD+R DL Double Layer, 6x DVD-R Dual Layer, 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, and 48x CD-R Writing; 8x DVD+RW, 4x DVD-RW, and 24x CD-RW Rewriting; and 16x max DVD-Reading and 48x max CD-Reading.
• Less is More? Part One - NVIDIA's TurboCache -  EliteBastards take their first in a two-part look at ATI and NVIDIAs new low-end video card technologies. Part one today takes a theoretical look at NVIDIA's TurboCache technology - Part two will cover ATI's HyperMemory upon its official launch.
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - A Shader Model 2.0-free zone - It seems that such marketing-related deals may be taking a more sinister turn. I give you Exhibit A: The leaked demo (thanks Olcay Sonkurt) of the next Splinter Cell title, Chaos Theory. Take a look at the graphical options for this leak and you'll find two options with regard to Shader Model - 1.1 and 3.0. Yep, that's right - Shader Model 2.0 is conspicuous by its absence.
• Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz - Reviews can be found on AnandTech | Beyond3d | Hexus.net | GamersDepot | MBReview | Hardcoreware | HotHardware | LegitReviews | PC Perspective | TweakTown | X-bit Labs
• Corsair XMS2 DDR2 TWIN2X1024-4300C3PRO - Corsair has tightened the reigns on DDR2 latencies reducing seek times below that of many high-speed DDR kits. Able to run at CL3-3-3-6, Corsair's 4300C3PRO has brought hope to those who believed the only way to extract performance from DDR2 was to run the memory at super high clock speeds and hope for bandwidth. Does Corsair's 4300C3PRO perform and overclock without the need for insanely high latencies?
• Ultra Products PC3200 XL 2-2-2 DDR Memory - Ultra can proudly boast that its new PC3200 XL RAM can hang with the best and put up impressive performance and overclocking numbers.
• Abit KV8 Pro - The KV8 Pro BIOS comes with some great voltage options and memory adjustments. Although not as rich as the DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb, the KV8 Pro also provides extra memory settings than the typical CAS, TRCD, TRP, TRAS. While the VDIMM may seem a little lacking to some, it is actually enough for the popular TCCD based memory. If you own a pair of BH5 or UTT, you'll be happy to know that uGuru supplies up to 3.2v.
• Albatron 6600Ultra - The Albatron 6600U is a very impressive video card, providing some outstanding numbers and great game play detail. This card came with 128 megs on board and 16X graphics, DVI and TV-out connections which simply added to the extras. Also with the card designed with high clock speeds and using BGA memory, this unit promises has the ability for overclocking.
• MSI RX850XT 256MB PCI-Express - This card is based on the Radeon X850 chipset architecture and is, at the moment, the fastest card on the market. With 16 pixel pipelines and up to 43 billion shaders per second, the fastest and the most valuable card for gamers.
• PowerColor 550 Theater Pro TV Tuner - The PowerColor 550 Theater uses the newly designed ATI 550 Theater chipset (go figure). This particular chipset includes such features as noise filtering and a 3D comb filter which scans a frame ahead and calculates what the picture should look like. This all translates to, supposedly, a better picture with lower power consumption and CPU load.
• Seagate Pocket External 5GB Hard Drive - A portable microdrive tucked away into a small, circular, well designed plastic shell. It was envisioned by Seagate to provide consumers an easy, affordable, and convenient way to bring almost any type of data on the road with them.
• Iomega NAS 200d - The 480GB model on review is equipped with a triplet of 160GB Hitachi Serial ATA hard drives in removable carriers. These are accessed behind the front door but are only cold-swap units so the appliance must be powered down before any can be removed and replaced. The 200d is well endowed with network connectivity with a pair of Intel Gigabit Ethernet adapters and these can be teamed together for fault tolerant or high speed links.
• NEC ND-3520A - If you're looking for a fast DVD writer, the ND-3520A won't disappoint. Thanks to its 16x DVD+R and DVD-R writing speeds, the NEC's new drive took less than 6 minutes to write an entire 4.7GB DVD. This level of performance carried over to our rewriting tests where the ND-3520A turned in some very good writing times with both DVD+RW and DVD-RW media. For whatever reason though, the drive would not erase or packet write to DVD-RW discs at anything faster 4x. Writing to double layer DVD+R media wasn't a problem for the ND-3520A either. While it wasn't able to top the Plextor PX-716A, it took less than 27 minutes to burn an entire 8.5GB DVD. Unfortunately, due to the lack of media, we weren't able to test the ND-3520A's DVD-R DL writing speeds.
• Plextor PX-230A CD-RW - The PX-230A is an internal 3-in-1 CD-RW drive; writing at 52x, rewriting at 32x, and reading at 52x. Now, here's the best part. Remember what I said just a second ago about being willing to pay a little more for a Plextor? Well, PX-230A has an M.S.R.P. of only $65.
• Plextor ConvertX Personal Video Recorder - video-review @ 3DGameMan
• OCZ ModStream 450 Watt - Overall for a good looking solid performer the OCZ ModStream series is a good choice. Some improvements could be made to really make this a top of the line power supply, but it'll look great inside most anyone's case!
• Content Switches roundup - Network Computing compared four content switches (thanks Milhaus)
• Advent 7056 Laptop - The Advent 7056 is based on a Mobile Pentium 4 processor which ticks over at a reasonable 3.2GHz, with a 533MHz bus. Add to this 512MB of memory and you have a specification that can challenge many desktop PCs. The only downside is that the memory is made up of two 256MB modules taking up both the available memory slots.
• Digiana AudiaX Version 2 (FM tuner) - The ideal way would be to plug your iPod or other portable music device directly into your car stereo, but then very few offer an auxiliary input, and very few of us still have cassette decks in our car to use that type of adapter. This leaves us with really one option, barring the purchase of a new stereo deck with an aux input, that option is FM modulated transmission.
• USB Powered Thermal Wrist Protector - Supposedly, the USB Thermal Wrist Protector will alleviate some pain resulted from repetitive stress injury until you get real help. The neoprene band secures to your wrist and uses the Far Infrared Ray to create soothing heat to relax the muscles.
• Nikon CoolPix 4800 digital camera - The 4800 is a mid-range 4megapixel camera designed for the user who wants something a bit more impressive than a pocket compact but doesn't want to go to the expense of buying a full-spec semi-pro model such as the CoolPix 8800. With a comparatively low street price of around L249, the 4800 offers a tempting specification and seemingly good value for money.

GUIDES... 

• Serial ATA - technology backgrounder - James Morris explains why we need this new hard-disk connection.
• NVIDIA 6600GT Thermal Paste Upgrade - Very easy, don't be afraid, just be careful. The results speak for themselves.
• Disable Call Waiting In XP - If you are using a dial-up connection to access the Internet, you may find that you get disconnected by incoming calls, especially if you use your home phone line to dial into your ISP. You can easily fix this problem by disabling call waiting.
• Convert DVD Soundtracks to CD - Read this free tutorial on converting DVD audio to CD to find out how.
• HOWTO defeat the DRM on your coffee-maker - If you've got a Senseo coffee maker -- the kind that takes little proprietary, pre-measured coffee "pads" and converts them to hot mud -- then you've got a DRMed kitchen appliance. Those little pads contain countermeasures to keep them from being refilled and/or replaced by third-party coffee delivery-systems. This HOWTO explains how to circumvent your coffee-maker's DRM and roll your own pads.

SOFTWARE...

• New game development tools - Irrlicht Engine v0.8 (3D Engine C++) | Espresso3D v0.3 (Java-based 3D engine) | True Axis Physics SDK (physics engine) | VC++ 2005 IDE Enhancements
• CentOS-4.0 (RC1) for x86_64 - The CentOS team is happy to announce the availability of CentOS-4.0 (RC1) for x86_64. This product supports AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon64, AMD AthlonFX and Intel EM64T CPU based computers. A bittorent for the 4 CD binary installation set (in .iso format ) is available from here.
• Bluetooth AutoSync for Microsoft Smartphone 2003 - BTAutoSync SP (Bluetooth AutoSync) for Smartphone 2003, is an application which will schedule repeated, automatic ActiveSync over Bluetooth! BTAutoSync SP will "wake up" at user-defined intervals (as often as every minute) and attempt to locate your Bluetooth/ActiveSync partner desktop (over Bluetooth) and establish an ActiveSync connection.
• McAfee AVERT Stinger 2.5.2 - Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system.
• ForecastFox v0.59 - ForecastFox is an extension for Firefox that displays the current and upcoming U.S. weather in the browser status bar.
• AbiWord for Windows 2.2.4 - AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, etc. It is designed to integrate perfectly with the operating system it runs on. It will take advantage of the functionality provided by the system, such as image loading or printing capabilities.
• Directory Printer 5.01 - Karen's Directory Printer can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file's size, date and time of last modification, and attributes (Read-Only, Hidden, System and Archive)! And now, the list of files can be sorted by name, size, date created, date last modified, or date of last access.
• Style XP 3.01 - Style XP (download) is theming software that helps customize the way your Windows XP, Windows XP Service Pack 1, Tablet PC, or Server 2003 system looks. Style XP can manage and rotate themes, visual styles, backgrounds, and logons, which are freely available at ThemeXP. Now with Win XP SP2 Final support.
• Yahoo! Messenger 6.0.0.1921 - Yahoo!'s Instant Messenger (download) service has been updated again.
• PuTTY beta v0.57 - PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. The new version fixes two security holes which can allow a malicious SFTP server to execute code of its choice on a PSCP or PSFTP client connecting to it.
• FileZilla 2.2.11 - FileZilla is a fast FTP and SFTP client (download) for Windows with a lot of features. FileZilla Server is a reliable FTP server. This new minor version fixes a critical security vulnerabilty  which may allow remote code execution.
• RegDefend v1.000 - RegDefend is a kernel based registry protection system, designed to use as few resources as possible. Instead of polling the registry looking for changes, RegDefend intercepts the changes before they occur. RegDefend comes installed to protect registry autostarts and some special registry keys, custom rules can also be added.
• Keyboard Tweaker 2.1 - Keyboard Tweaker is a Hotkeys manager. It transform a normal keyboard with 101/102 keys into a multimedia keyboard using the hotkeys. The program sets some combinations to the keyboard keys for a function.
• Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.8 - Nero has released an updated version of Nero on its FTP mirrors. They also released version 1.4.0.29 of its Nero Media Player and NeroMIX 1.4.0.29.
• PlexTools Professional V2.20 - Plextor has today released a new version of their PlexTools Professional software
• ATITool 0.24 Beta 2 - ATITool is an overclocking utility designed for ATI video cards.
• VIA Sound Drivers (Vinyl Stylus Audio) v.5.80c - VIA Tech has released new drivers (changelog) for the internal AC97 sound in their chipsets i.e. south bridges VT82C686A, VT82C686B, VT8231, VT8233, VT8233A, VT8233B, VT8233C, VT8235, VT8237, VT8287. The driver can also be found on Guru3D.
• Xtreme G 71.81 (ForceWare) - This is the Xtreme G driver which includes many performance and Image Quality tweaks. These are modified NVIDIA ForceWare drivers for Win2k/XP. Modified drivers simply means that the author takes official or beta drivers from the manufacturer and starts to tweak them for either better image quality and or performance
• ForceWare 75.90 Win2k/XP - These drivers support everything ever made by NVIDIA, multiple info files with device info on many devices are included, setup.exe and of course it's multi-language supported.

SECURITY...

• Mobile Phone Virus Found in United States - The world's first mobile phone virus "in the wild" has spread to the United States from its birthplace in the Philippines eight months ago, a security research firm said on Friday. The virus, called Cabir, has spread slowly into 12 countries and marks the beginning of the mobile phone virus era, which could one day disrupt the lives of many of the world's 1.5 billion mobile phone users.
• Another Form of Encryption Goes Down for the Count - The findings are that SHA-1 is not collision free and can be broken in 2^69 attempts instead of 2^80. This is about 2000 times faster. With todays computing power and Moores Law, a SHA-1 hash does not last too long. Using a modified DES Cracker, for the small sum of up to $38M, SHA-1 can be broken in 56 hours, with current computing power. The scope of the problem is enormous. Virtually all application and server software that incorporates SHA-1 into its functions--including Web browsers, e-mail clients, instant messaging programs, secure shell clients, and file- and disk-encryption software--will need to be replaced or upgraded.
• Yahoo! Messenger File Transfer Filename Spoofing - Secunia Research has discovered a vulnerability in Yahoo! Messenger, which can be exploited by malicious people to trick users into executing malicious files. The problem is that files with long filenames are not displayed correctly in the file transfer dialogs. This can be exploited to trick users into accepting and potentially executing malicious files. Solution: Update to version 6.0.0.1921.
• Multiple vulnerabilities in Glftpd v1.26 - v2.00 default zip - The exploit is not in glftpd itself, instead inside a suite of zip based plug-ins that come with the glftpd package by default, these plug-ins are widely used in installations of glftpd. This advisory will focus on the plugin sitenfo.sh, a script to allow users
  to read .nfo and .diz files from within zip archives("SITE NFO" by default). Although the exploits are synonymous with all the .sh scripts listed above. Due to improper input validation several flaws exist in the script that can allow for unprivileged access to files within the glftpd chroot and information disclosure of private files. (thanks Paul Craig)
• Phishing hole found in IE and OE - Another major vulnerability has been found in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. The flaw is in the way that these applications can be manipulated in simple HTML code to display an URL other than the one specified in a link, to be displayed in the status bar.
• Experts beat script kiddies at their own game - Script kiddies could be easier to defeat than at first thought, security experts have claimed. Iain Thomson at the RSA Conference in San Francisco explained that hackers would formerly spend time investigating specific systems, spending hours researching their targets, going through office litter to find information and then launching attacks based on that background work. In contrast, today's script kiddies simply download tools from the internet and scan automatically to try and find vulnerable systems, finding targets of opportunity rather than tackling specific companies.

OFF-TOPIC...

• NASA Plans Discovery Launch May 15 - More than two years after losing the space shuttle Columbia and its seven crew, NASA said Friday it has set May 15 as its target date for once again launching shuttles into space.
• The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time - Whether they're strapped to our belts, sitting on our desks, or jammed in an overstuffed closet, we absolutely love our gadgets.
• Study Points to Sixth Sense in Humans - While some scientists discount the existence of a sixth sense for danger, new research from Washington University in St. Louis has identified a brain region that clearly acts as an early warning system -- one that monitors environmental cues, weighs possible consequences and helps us adjust our behavior to avoid dangerous situations.
• Huge "star-quake" rocks Milky Way - Astronomers say they have been stunned by the amount of energy released in a star explosion on the far side of our galaxy, 50,000 light-years away. The flash of radiation on 27 December was so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth's atmosphere.
  The blast occurred on the surface of an exotic kind of star - a super-magnetic neutron star called SGR 1806-20. If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction, it is said.
• Reno 911 goes fantasy - FiringSquad posted a funny downloadable video clip (3.3 MB ~ WMV).
• Paranormal Photography - This website offers some Paranormal Photos and Videos.
• Cameras Capture Oxnard Train Accident -  A man who set up videocameras near an Oxnard rail crossing to gather evidence in a traffic dispute inadvertently captured dramatic footage of a passenger train slamming into a semitrailer loaded with strawberries, authorities said Thursday.
• Gibson says her Playboy pics better than Tiffany's - Eighties pop music sensation Debbie "Shake Your Love" Gibson says she's still hotter than longtime rival Tiffany. And skeptics need only eyeball the March issue of Playboy to see why.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Firefox breaks 25 million downloads in less than 100 days - On February 15th, exactly 99 days after it was released, Firefox 1.0 smashed through the 25 million download milestone.
• Are Wine Users Just "Whining" About Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Plans? - Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program has had its share of critics. But this week, a number of open-source advocates joined the ranks of those questioning Microsoft's methods for thwarting software piracy.
  On Wednesday, a developer of Wine, an open-source implementation of the Windows application-programming interface that allows Windows applications to run on Unix and Linux, said he discovered that Microsoft's Windows validation tool checks for Wine and generates an error when it is found.
• Typing Style Can Be Password - The way you type is as unique as your eye color or speech patterns and can be used instead of a password to protect your computer, researchers at Louisiana Tech and Penn State say.
• Microsoft Smartphone with QVGA display - MSMobiles.com has posted the first photos of Microsoft Smartphone that has QVGA display, i.e. 240x320 pixels, instead of usual 176x220 pixels.
• Intel promises light-speed computing - According to the chip giant, the technology could bring relatively inexpensive, high-quality lasers and optical devices to mainstream use in computing, communications and medical applications. The breakthrough centres on using the so-called Raman effect and silicon's crystalline structure to amplify light as it passes through the material. When infused with light from an external source the chip produces a continuous, high-quality laser beam.

HARDWARE... 

• Archos hits 100GB for portable video player - The company announced on Friday its Pocket Video Recorder AV4100, as well as $50 price cuts to other devices in its AV400 series. The AV4100 will cost $800 and will be available in retail stores by the end of February. The 20GB AV420 now costs $500, and the 80GB AV480 costs $750. The devices can play back MP3, WMA or WAV files.
• Intel Pentium 4 EE 3.74 to arise on Feb 21st - Intel decided to introduce this CPU on the 20th/21st of February. This new member will feature 2MB of L2 cache.
• ATI's Radeon X800 256MB and Radeon X850 PRO - They're effectively the same GPU, built on different process nodes at TSMC, ATI's discrete GPU fabricator. Both are natively PCI Express, both have four fragment quads (groups of four fragment units), a sextuplet of vertex units to feed them, a 256-bit wide memory bus and all the core R4xx series technologies that define ATI's latest parts. That includes support for anti-aliasing at ever higher resolutions, 16X angle-adaptive anisotropic texture filtering and bilinear texture samplers (one per fragment unit), to name just a few.
• Gigabyte 3D1 (2xGeForce 6600GT) and K8NXP-SLI Motherboard - What suggested the idea to combine two GeForce 6600GT processors on a single PCB? The product will require a motherboard with SLI anyway! I have been thinking hard about the expedience of such a solution, and nothing but marketing and advertising considerations crossed my mind.
• Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE - This motherboard, based on the i925XE chipset for LGA775 Pentium 4 processors, has a very complete feature set and an excellent array of overclocking options.
• Trinity PC6600U - PC Stats takes a look at the latest 6600 variant by Albatron, the Trinity GeForce PC6600U.
• Western Digital's WD3200JB: 320 GB - The drive also offers very good performance as well, as its data transfer rates can be compared to those of the WD320 Raptor. The 36GB Raptor still offers a higher minimal transfer rate and lower seek times, but other than that the 320GB Caviar SE combines the performance comparable of the first 10,000 rpm drive with the pleasanter general framework of a 7,200 rpm drive.
• Philips unveils 16x DVD writer with LightScribe support - DVDR16LSK is the model name of Philips' first DVD writer featuring support for LightScribe. In case you somehow have missed what LightScribe is, it's a technology developed by HP that makes it possible to burn a label on specially coated discs using the DVD writer's laser. Besides burning nice labels the DVDR16LSK also supports writing 2.4x DVD+R DL, 16x/4x DVD+R/RW, 8x/4x DVD-R/RW and 40x/24x CD-R/RW.
• Wireless Trust Televiewer V2 - Xtreme Computing has posted a review of  the Wireless Trust Televiewer V2.
• Zalman VF700-AlCu - Taking a look at another VGA cooling solution from Zalman, the VF700-AlCu has a lot to offer in terms of performance and noise reduction. Overclocking was no problem for this unit...

GUIDES... 

• America's Army Tweak Guide Version 2.3 - TweakGuides.com has updated their America's Army Tweak Guide.
• 17 Inch LCD Display Buyer's Guide - The Buyer's Guide is going to take a look at some of the many 17" LCD display out there so as to help consumers learn a little bit and get a point to start from. The selection of 17" LCDs is almost unlimited so this is easier said than done, but if you know what you are looking for its not as daunting a task as it may seem.

SOFTWARE...

• GameVision SDK 2005  - Big Daddy Games announced the release of the GameVision SDK 2005, offering a 2D rendering API for Windows that's aimed specifically at 3d hardware using Direct3D.
• Love Invaders 1.0i - Love Invaders is a free retro game in which you may re-enact the famous "battle of '78" in space with your alien friends. It is simple to play, in classic style. Love Invaders supports systems with correctly-configured OpenGL
• xprobe2 v0.2.2 - Xprobe2 is a remote active operating system fingerprinting tool which uses advanced techniques, some which where first to be introduced with Xprobe2, such as the usage of statistical analysis ("fuzzy logic") to match between probe response(s) to its signature database and others, in order to provide with accurate results regarding the underlying operating system of a probed element(s).
• MySQL 4.1.10 - MySQL (changelog / download) is the world`s most popular open source database, recognized for its speed and reliability.
• AVG Free Edition 7.300 Build 456 - AVG Free Edition is designed and made available for individual home PC use and may not be used in business, commercial or organizational environments.
• Pimpzilla theme Firefox - Pimpzilla is a theme for the browser Firefox. It's also probably the most tacky & overdone piece of GUI design out there, aimed solely for true internet-connaisseurs. If you are into fur and lot's of bling, this is the theme for you.
• FileZilla Server 0.9.5 - FileZilla (download) is a fast FTP and SFTP client for Windows with a lot of features.
• World Wind 1.2e - Zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth ~ download
• ICQ 5.03 - A new version/build of ICQ client (changelog) is available.
• Gaim 1.1.3 - Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
• DVD Region+CSS Free/LiTE v5.70 - DVD Region+CSS Free enables you to watch and copy any region code DVD movies on any DVD drive! It works in the background to make DVDs appear region free and unprotected for DVD player and copy software automatically.
• The Codecs 2.7 - This version (lite / full) includes the following codecs: Divx (5) Free, DivX ;-) MPEG-4 Video (Fast&Low), XviD Koepi's build, ffdshow filter, Intel I.263 Video Driver, Huffyuv lossless video codec, AC3Filter (Audio), MPEG Layer-3 Audio Codec, InterVideo Audio Decoder, Moonlight Odio Dekoda, Ogg Vorbis Filter, and MM Stream Switcher.
• SpeedFan 4.21 - SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds, temperatures and voltages in computers with hardware monitoring chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported
• NiBiTor v2.0 - Extremetheme has just released a new version of NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) software. This tool allows users to tune and edit the NVIDIA GeForce BIOS. This to gain some extra performance and stability on the NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards.
• NVIDIA nForce RAID driver 5.06 - ASUS has released some new nForce RAID drivers (nForce1/2/3 | nForce4). Both are for Windows 2k/XP and Microsoft WHQL Certified.
• nForce2 C0/C1/C2 Cooling Patch V2.1 - Allow nForce2 chipset based motherboards with AMD CPUs to use C2/C1 idle state (S2K bus disconnection without HALT detection) reduce idle/load temperatures by 1-10c degrees!
• Overdrive 67.66 Final (ForceWare 67.66) - These are 3d party modified drivers based on ForceWare 67.66 Changes (67-65 to 67-66) and mainly targeted at the GeForce 4 series. Modified drivers simply means that the author takes official or beta drivers from the manufacturer and starts to tweak them for either better image quality and or performance.

SECURITY...

• Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) Refresh Released - Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software. This download has been updated to include signature version 5687, which is the most current as of February 10, 2005. Customers who have installed Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware prior to this date do not need to re-download. They will receive signature updates as part of their next automatic or manual signature update.
• MyDoom Worm Spreads Via Search Engines - Internet users are being threatened by yet another variant of the MyDoom mass mailing worm, which is spreading in part by using e-mail addresses found through popular search engines, security experts warn. The worm proliferates by e-mailing itself through its own SMTP engine, according to Sophos. When it infects a computer it scans the hard disk for e-mail addresses and then takes the domains of the addresses it finds and queries search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Lycos looking for similar addresses, Cluley says. Here's an updated W32.Mydoom@mm Removal Tool 1.5.1 removal tool from Symantec.
• "Deadcode" virus attempts political mischief - Security experts today warned users to be on their guard against the newly discovered Deadcode-A virus which infects executable files on compromised computers and displays a political message when launched. The text of the message, which reads 'BlackHand.w32 Long Live Great Serbia', is believed to refer to a nationalist slogan used by Serbian Radical Party politician Tomislav Nicolic to finish his speeches.
• Microsoft fixes potential antipiracy hole - Microsoft said Tuesday that Japanese hackers had discovered a potential weakness in its copy protection technology but that the software company fixed the flaw before it was widely used.The Redmond, Wash., giant on Tuesday introduced an update to its Windows Media Player, which included changes aimed at blocking the Japanese hackers' work, as well as a security update
• Microsoft on 'rootkits': Be afraid. Be very afraid. - Microsoft security researchers are warning about a new generation of powerful system monitoring programs, or "rootkits," that are almost impossible to detect using current security products and that could pose a serious risk to corporations and individuals. With names like "Hacker Defender," "FU" and "Vanquish," the programs are the latest generation of remote system monitoring software that has been around for years, according to Mike Danseglio and Kurt Dillard, both of Microsoft's Security Solutions Group.

OFF-TOPIC...

•  New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to Battle - The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in American history.
• Xbox 360 Revealed? - Kotaku claims to have an "exclusive source" who revealed to them many details of the Xbox 360, as it is now apparently known.
• Bubbles Flash Game - Your objective is to float a bubble through the water while collecting other bubbles to increase your size and score. Also, you must beware the nasty spiked balls that happen to be passing by that will pop your bubble and end the game. Check it out.
• Microsoft's Parent's Primer to Computer Slang - Leet words can be expressed in hundreds of ways using different substitutions and combinations, but once one understands that nearly all characters are formed as phonemes and symbols, leetspeek isn't difficult to translate. Glad to hear that someone at Microsoft is "1337" ;)
• Less liver cancer in coffee drinkers - A study of more than 90,000 Japanese found that people who drank coffee daily or nearly every day had half the liver cancer risk of those who never drank coffee. It's the caffeine in coffee that makes some people nervous and it has been shown in other studies to prompt mental alertness in many people. Some studies have suggested caffeine aggravates symptoms of menopause or intensifies the side effects of some antibiotics. Heavy caffeine use has been linked to miscarriage. But studies have also shown that a skin cream spiked with caffeine lowers the risk of skin cancer in mice.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Major Recall Burns Xbox Users - Microsoft announced today that it will recall 14.1 million Xbox power cords after discovering that a defect in the cords gave some users minor burns or damaged carpet. The recall involves Xboxes manufactured before October 23, 2003, in all worldwide regions except continental Europe. In continental Europe, the recall affects Xboxes manufactured before January 13, 2004. Xboxes made since then have been changed and don't exhibit this problem, Microsoft says.
• N.Y. Times to buy About.com for $410 million - The New York Times Co. on Thursday said it will buy online information portal About.com for $410 million from publisher Primedia as it looks for new ways to advertise itself online. The Times Co., whose newspapers include The New York Times and The Boston Globe, said it will expand About.com's content and visibility and use the site to market its products.
• Get a 1000 Mb Gmail account for free - Go to gmail.afraid.org and enter your e-mail address. Then you'll receive an invite to open a 1000 Mb Gmail account for free.

HARDWARE... 

• SiS PCI Express chipsets in mass production - Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) announced that the SiS656, SiS649, and SiS756 PCI Express chipsets have entered mass production. The SiS656, SiS649, and SiS756 chipsets are being adopted by at least 10 motherboard manufacturers.
• ATI's DX9 chipset hits the road - The graphics mavens up Toronto way have unveiled a new mobile chipset today, the Radeon Xpress 200M, for AMD-based laptop computers. The new chipset is substantially the same thing as the Radeon Xpress 200 with the addition of a few power-saving tricks for mobile applications, like this one, explained in this press-release.
• AMD's New Low-Power CPUs - AMD has released a new family of CPUs targeted at the portable computing market. The new CPUs, collectively named Alchemy, consume less than 1Watt of power! The CPUs have already been named the CPU of choice for Tivo's new Tivo-To-Go technology and are powerful enough to run DivX, WMV9, and MPEG. The AU1550 consumes just 0.5 Watts at 400 MHz and the AU1100 consumes 0.25 at the same clock speed.
• Samsung builds DDR3-1066 prototype - Samsung today said that it has produced the world's first working DDR3 DRAM module. The memory technology will replace today's DDR2 sometime next year with clock speeds of at least 800 MHz.
• Mushkin 1GB PC2-4200 (533) Dual Pack CL 3-2-2 - Overclocking wise, how can we complain? These Mushkin modules were able to take us up to DDR2-640MHz at tight timings of CL 3-2-2-6 and up to DDR2-750MHz at its most relaxed timing. That's 217MHz over its rated speed. You get a headroom that is sure to handle even the most extreme overclock while running at the tightest possible timings. And with the cost of PC4200 modules getting cheaper by the day, the Mushkin 1GB PC2-4200 (533) Dual Pack is a great buy no matter where you look at it.
• Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra) - The inaccurate CPU overclocking functions and the unstable operation at high frequencies of the clock generator somewhat spoil the impression from the product. On the other hand, the WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS can be a good choice if you are not into overclocking, provided its retail price is sufficiently low.
• Gigabyte 3D1 (Dual GPU) - Guru3D have tested Gigabyte's DUAL GPU based GV-3D1 which of course runs in SLI mode and is a rather cool looking graphisc card.
• Swiftech H20-120-FB Water Cooling Kit - Swiftech updates their popular H20-8600 water cooling kit, a new compact and silent pump and a large radiator and accompanying 120mm fan can make the H20-120 a true performer. Read on to find out how hard it can help push an A64 FX-55 and X800XT-PE towards overclock-heaven.
• ACER Travelmate 8104 - Looking closer, the specs on this baby are pretty impressive. ATI have replaced the powerful Mobility Radeon 9700 GPUs with their PCI-E X700 something to make the desktop and mini-server box boys a tad jealous. Sure, they might have X850s, but can they leg it for the last bus? Didn't think so. Other specs for this version you see here include a 2Ghz CPU, 1Gb dual DDR, 15" WSXGA screen, 100Gb HDD, tri-mode Wifi with 802.11a/b/g support and a dual layer DVD burner.
• IBM ThinkPad T42p - The T42p is Centrino branded, so it comes as no surprise that there's an Intel Pentium M CPU inside. This particular model has a 1.8GHz chip, backed up by 1GB of RAM - the spec definitely reinforces this machine's workstation aspirations. What's particularly impressive is that IBM has fitted a 1GB SODIMM inside the T42p, leaving the end user a free slot to increase the memory without having to discard any.
• Panasonic Technics RP-DH1200 headphones - The first thing you'll notice about these headphones is that they provide plenty of power. Part of the reason for this volume is the 50mm drivers that the sound is coming from. The headphones have a total impedance of 50 ohms, and a max current of 3500 mW, which is further proof of how much power these things can handle. These headphones are also relatively sensitive, rated at 107 dB/mW.
• Canon Selphy CP500 compact photo - The Selphy CP500 is about the size of a thick paperback, though there's a separate black power supply block and a cassette carrying the 6 x 4-inch postcard blanks, which clips in at the front. You also need to allow a space on your desk at the back of the printer, to accommodate each card as it's fed out during the printing process. Various other paper sizes, including credit card, are available, with separate cassettes and ink film cartridges for each.

GUIDES... 

• AMD K8 E4 Stepping: SSE3 Performance - The goal of this article is to bring out a quick look at what SSE3 brings to the table for Opteron and the future revision E Athlon 64 cores. As desktop parts do not enable coherent HT links at all, the 1GHz support won't matter. Also, the newer A64 parts are already 90nm on organic packages. Other than the usual small tweaks we see between steppings, the only thing that will be new across the board for K8 processors is SSE3
• ATI Radeon 9800 to FireGL X2 hard mod guide - As the title suggests, this guide is going to teach you how to hard-mod your Radeon 9800-series card into a FireGL X2 workstation card. This guide will cover all Radeon 9800 cards - Radeon 9800 SE, Radeon 9800, Radeon 9800 Pro and Radeon 9800XT.
• Mikhailtech's basic system buyer's guide (Feb2005) - Check it out!
• Wi-Fi hotspot security tips - Wi-Fi Hotspots are great but don't get so relaxed that you ignore security and give all your confidential information to some unscrupulous hacker. The next time you're at a Hotspot, use these security tips to keep yourself safe.
• Half-Life 2 optimization guide (updated) - The testbed has changed for this optimization guide. I have added a few more cards to the lineup and have dropped the MX440 8X and the Radeon 8500. The MX440 really has no chance of even pulling 30FPS out of this game with decent quality

SOFTWARE...

• Windows XP x64 RC2 available - Microsoft has finally made Windows XP Professional x64 Release Candidate 2 available to the general public through its Customer Preview Program
• Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) Refresh Released - Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software. This download has been updated to include signature version 5687, which is the most current as of February 10, 2005. Customers who have installed Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware prior to this date do not need to re-download. They will receive signature updates as part of their next automatic or manual signature update.
• McAfee AVERT Stinger 2.5.0 - Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system.
• Symantec W32.Mydoom@mm Removal Tool 1.5.1 - Symantec Security Response has developed a removal tool to clean the following infections: W32.Mydoom.A@mm | W32.Mydoom.B@mm |W32.Mydoom.F@mm | W32.Mydoom.G@mm | W32.Mydoom.H@mm | W32.Mydoom.L@mm | W32.Mydoom.M@mm | W32.Mydoom.Q@mm | Backdoor.Zincite.A | W32.Zindos.A | Backdoor.Nemog.
• YahooPOPs! 0.7  - This application emulates a POP3 server and enables popular email clients like Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, Mozilla, Calypso, etc., to download email from Yahoo! accounts
• Google Toolbar 3.0.119.6 Beta - When the Google Toolbar (download beta WinXP/2k ~ Win9x/ME) is installed, it automatically appears along with the Internet Explorer toolbar. This means you can quickly and easily use Google to search from any website location, without returning to the Google home page to begin another search.
• MemTest86+ 1.51 - MemTest86+ 1.51 has been released. This new version adds support for Intel i955X (Glenwood) and for nVidia nForce4.
• Pioneer A09 / DVR-109 Firmware 1.17 - This new firmware (DV adds support 16x writing on New 16x DVD-R Media, 16x writing (Mitsubishi Chemical/Maxell), 12x writing(FBeALL), Support 16x writing on New 16x +R Media, Support 8x writing on New 8x DVD-R Media, 8x writing(Daxon/Gigastorage), DVD-R/RW/+RW Writability Improvement  and Error correction at the Packet Write on the CD-RW. Here are two links to the appropriate firmware: Link one and Link two.

SECURITY...

• SHA-1 Broken - The research team of Xiaoyun Wang, Yiqun Lisa Yin, and Hongbo Yu (mostly from Shandong University in China) have been quietly circulating a paper announcing their results: collisions in the the full SHA-1 in 2**69 hash operations, much less than the brute-force attack of 2**80 operations based on the hash length; collisions in SHA-0 in 2**39 operations; collisions in 58-round SHA-1 in 2**33 operations. This attack builds on previous attacks on SHA-0 and SHA-1, and is a major, major cryptanalytic result. It pretty much puts a bullet into SHA-1 as a hash function for digital signatures (although it doesn't affect applications such as HMAC where collisions aren't important).
• Napster hack leads to free downloads - Blogs were buzzing Tuesday about the resurgence of an old technique for recording music on a computer, reapplied to Napster's all-you-can-eat subscription music plan. Using software freely available from America Online's Winamp division, it's possible to turn Napster's copy-protected downloads into unprotected files that can be burned by the hundreds or even thousands freely to CDs.
• Hacking victims face legal threat - Home computer users could be sued if they allow their computers to be taken over and used by hackers, legal representatives speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco have claimed. A panel looking at the usefulness of insurance against cyber-crime discussed the likelihood of home users being sued if their computers were used to perform distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
• Court: Wife broke law with spyware - A wife who installed spyware on her husband's computer to secretly record evidence of an extramarital affair violated state law, a Florida court ruled Friday. The Florida Appeals Court, Fifth District said that Beverly Ann O'Brien "illegally obtained" records of husband James' online conversations with another woman as the two played Yahoo Dominoes together. "It is illegal and punishable as a crime under (state law) to intercept electronic communications," wrote Judge Donald Grincewicz on behalf of a three-judge panel.
• T-Mobile hacker in guilty plea - Nicholas Lee Jacobsen was arrested in October on suspicion of accessing the personal information of potentially hundreds of T-Mobile customers. Under the initial charges Jacobsen faced two felony charges. That will now be reduced to a single charge of intentional access to a protected computer and recklessly causing damage as part of his guilty plea. The hacker could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
• Microsoft to offer free spyware blocker - Stepping up its fight against computer threats, Microsoft Corp. announced yesterday that it will give away a program to combat PC-clogging spyware and other virtual pests. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates also unveiled plans to release antivirus tools for consumers and make a major security upgrade to its Internet Explorer Web browser. At the same time, he showed off new software for businesses to combat security threats.
• Microsoft to Put Patch Service to the Test - Microsoft Corp. Tuesday confirmed that it will release in March a beta version of what it is calling a unified software update service for consumers and small and midsize businesses.  Called Microsoft Update, the service will provide a single location for users to get security and performance patches for Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Office 2003 and Exchange Server 2003.
• Free Tool Identifies Hidden Data in Office Docs - A company called Workshare Technology now offers a free safety net from the potential embarrassment of a public display of these hidden and forgotten comments and changes. The company's Trace application sends out an alert if hidden information, also known as metadata, is embedded in a Microsoft Office file. When hidden data is identified, a dialogue box pops up from your system tray alerting you. Clicking on the alert message generates a report of all the hidden data inside the file. Workshare Trace, announced early this month, is available for download now.
• Quake 3 Infostring DoS - The Quake 3 engine has problems to handle big queries allowing an attacker to shutdown any game server based on this engine: ERROR: Info_SetValueForKey: oversize infostring; In some of the vulnerable games is also possible to crash the server.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Trailer - The new trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is now online.
• Straczynski Offers To Re-Boot Star Trek - J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5 and Jeremiah) made a post on usenet where he talks about the cancellation of Enterprise. It seems he and a collaborator have already written a series bible and treatment for a new version of Star Trek - but it's not been pitched to Paramount out of 'political considerations' (Berman refusing to give up his dead horse?). JMS calls for everyone who thinks a JMS-run Star Trek series would be a good idea to write Paramount and let them know (thanks Slashdot.org)
• Brainpower as easy as X and Y - Michael Gurian, psychologist and author of "What Could He Be Thinking?", believes there are about a hundred structural differences that have been identified between the male and female brain. To find out why these differences exist, scientists have taken voyages deep inside the gray matter using MRI scans. The scans show that in most women, the corpus callosum area, which handles communication between the brain's two "hemispheres", is larger.

TECHNOLOGY...

• New copy-proof DVDs on the way? - Macrovision on Tuesday released a new DVD copy-protection technology in hopes of substantially broadening its role in Hollywood's antipiracy effort. Macrovision executives said that even if it's not perfect, the new RipGuard DVD technology can prevent much of the copying done with such tools and can help bolster studios' DVD sales.
• IE 7.0 Leaves Windows 2000 Users Out in the Cold? - As I mentioned yesterday, Microsoft is planning a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2. However, it seems that IE 7.0 will be available only to Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) customers. Asked to explain the rationale for limiting IE 7.0 to XP SP2 users when the majority of businesses are still running Windows 2000, Barzdukas (director of product management in Microsoft's security business technology unit) left the door open slightly. "Windows XP SP2 is the scope of the project at the moment. That's what we feel comfortable committing to. We haven't closed the door on potentially providing it to other platforms," he said.
• Novell Releasing Hula and 200,000+ Lines of Code - The project is derived from the Novell NetMail product and provides web-based email and calendaring.
• Ballmer *hearts* the new Xbox (Xbox 2) - In typically exuberant form, Steve Ballmer talked about the new Xbox yesterday at Microsoft's Redmond campus, telling tales of its 'unbelievable' graphics and stating that it was 'an amazing, amazing innovation.'
• Nvidia launches new wireless multimedia processor - Nvidia released a new wireless multimedia processor  - the GoForce 3D 4800, for mobile devices. The processor boasts pixel-shading and support for up to six simultaneous textures, which can improve the look of mobile games. It also handles 3D graphics better than its predecessors and includes a codec-supporting, VGA-resolution video of up to 30 frames per second. The GoForce 3D 4800 is expected to be less power-hungry than other chips, prolonging battery life. Phones based on the processor are expected at the end of 2005.
• SiS signs 1066MHz-FSB licensing agreement with Intel - Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) has signed a licensing agreement with Intel that will allow SiS to produce chipsets supporting front-side bus (FSB) speeds up to 1066MHz, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE).

HARDWARE... 

• Dell announces 24" widescreen LCD - The UltraSharpTM 2405FPW will be on sale for $1,199 in the Americas and Europe on March 1, 2005. The wide-screen monitor is ideal for graphics professionals, computing enthusiasts and gamers. The native resolution of 1920x12002 helps ensure detailed images are crisp and clear and typical response times of 12ms3 mean fast-moving content is displayed with minimal distortion.
• Sapphire Radeon X850 XT - The GPU of this card is the R480 - yeah we know it's listed as a completely different model than the R420 predecessor, however, it's functionally the exact same chip. The primary difference is that it's built using an advanced .11-micron process which allows for an overall smaller chip that can run at faster clock rates. It still has 16 pixel pipelines, six vertex shaders and a 256bit memory interface.
• Prolink GeForce 6600 GT AGP - When we tweak the product we see some nice overclocking potential, the 562 MHz core is good and boosting another 200 MHz out of its memory again will bring you an extra overall ~10% performance increase. So here you have this AGP 8x product with great performance, is 100% stable in an AGP 8x configuration (we did not have one crash), offers dualview, the latest 3D feature set including Shader Model 3.0, offers HDTV output and in general offers anything you expect from a good graphics cards these days
• Foxconn's WinFast NF4UK8AA motherboard - Foxconn's WinFast NF4UK8AA is the least expensive nForce4 Ultra motherboard on the market. With a street price hovering under $110, the board costs $30-40 less than most other nForce4 Ultras. That's quite a savings when you consider that the $110 price point is largely occupied by nForce4 "4x" motherboards that don't officially support a 1GHz HyperTransport link.
• 8ms 19" LCDs: Speed for Gaming, but at What Cost? - THG tested three 8ms 19" LCD monitors: the BenQ FP937s+, the Hyundai L90D+, and the much-awaited Samsung 913N.
• ViewSonic VP171b 8ms LCD monitor - Right now there are still plenty of 16ms monitors available in stores, so be sure to verify with the vendor that you want in the 8ms version. If the seller isn't sure, there are a number of ways to determine this. I'd ask them to confirm the model number, which can be found on the box. If the last two characters are either '4W' or '5W' then it's the 8ms display. If they are '2W' or '3W', it's the 16ms display. For those who have already bought one, you can always check out the model number by navigating your way to the 'Information' menu in the on-screen display (OSD).
• Canon's $250 Pixma IP90 portable photo printer - Canon's $250 Pixma IP90 portable photo printer offers good prints for mobile users. The 4-pound unit prints better and faster than its predecessor, the Canon I80, and even competes with full-size rivals. The PC World Test Center clocked the IP90 printing text at 6.3 pages per minute--faster than many desktop inkjet printers and 10 percent quicker than the I80. Color graphics came at a relatively slow 1.4 ppm, but our test photo printed in a reasonable 2 minutes, 33 seconds, nearly a minute faster than the I80.

GUIDES... 

• NVIDIA ForceWare tweak guide - This guide refers to the latest Official Nvidia Forceware drivers Version 66.93.
• Forceware 74.11 Benchmarks - OnlyNewZ informed us they have got their hands on the Forceware 74.11 beta drivers and took some benchmarks with it. Benchmark results for Doom 3, Half-Life 2 and 3DMark05.

SOFTWARE...

• Excel 2003 Add-in: XML Tools Add-in - Learn how to use the Microsoft Office Excel 2003 XML Tools Add-in Version 1.1. With it, you can provide information about a selected cell's XML properties, create XSD files for XML maps, rename the Root and Row elements, or refresh all of the XML maps in a workbook at once.
• Windows Media Player 10 Build 10.00.00.3802 - MicroSoft has released an updated build (non-english) of its Windows Media Player 10 bringing it to version 10.00.00.3802
• FastStone Screen Capture 1.5 - FastStone Screen Capture is a screen capture utility with integrated image viewer. It enables you to capture Windows, objects, selections or the entire desktop, and apply additional editing tools like resizing, sharpening, and more.
• SpamExtract 2.10 - SpamExtract (download) is built to understand that what may be considered spam to you, may not be considered spam to someone else. SpamExtract is effective because it uses complex algorithms to sort between what is spam and what is not spam.
• ActiveLaunch v 1.71 (shw) - ActiveLaunch (download trial version) gives you the ability to open frequently used applications and documents from the keyboard, without having to memorize a multitude of hotkeys.
• ASUS Ai Booster 1.01.14 - The ASUS Ai Booster (info ~ PDF)is an innovative application that allows overclocking of system components in Windows environment. This utility lets you overclock the CPU either manually or automatically without the hassle of entering the BIOS Setup.
• NVIDIA Forceware 71.81 - This one is version 71.81, works for Windows 2000/XP and is Microsoft WHQL certified. The driver is dated January 28 2005.

SECURITY...

• Vulnerability prompts forced upgrade for MSN Messenger users - Starting February 10, 2005, the MSN Messenger service will notify customers running a vulnerable version of MSN Messenger that there is an upgrade available. Customers that have accepted this upgrade and have applied the update will be protected from this vulnerability. Customers that have not accepted this upgrade may not be allowed to connect to the MSN Messenger service with a vulnerable version of the client. Clients may be upgraded immediately by installing the update available here - MSN Messenger 6.2.0205 / Windows Messenger 4.7.2009 (SP1) | 4.7.3000 (SP2).
• Teen Sentenced in Microsoft Attack - On Friday a federal judge sentenced a teen to probation and community-service for releasing the so called RPCSDBOT worm which infected computers and directed them to attack the Microsoft.com website. The Microsoft website was taken down for four hours due to the attack in 2003. The Judge Robert Lansik sentenced the teen to 3 years probation and 300 hours of community-service, he also wants the teen to write him a letter every six months describing his community-service activities.
• Microsoft Plots Fixes to IE Browser - Microsoft Corp. recently held a secret Webcast with some of its closest partners to discuss ways in which the company might improve its Internet Explorer browser and customer confidence in the platform. Sources said Microsoft officials discussed potential "fixes" to IE as the company is losing market share to other browsers, such as the open-source Firefox. Though the strategy is still in its initial phases, Microsoft is looking to resolve some fundamental issues with IE's operating system.
• Lavasoft and Pest Patrol removed WhenU? -  According to this thread on Broadband Reports security forum, both Lavasoft and Pest Patrol removed WhenU from their detection databases. Lavasoft removed WhenU's applications from their definitions database sometime in the last month -- it looks like it was probably the Feb. 5 update, but it might have been earlier. It also appears that Pest Patrol removed WhenU from its detections database, though the situation here is a bit murkier.
• Apple attacked for attacking hacks' sources - US Organisation the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said it has asked the California supreme court to protect three online journalists being forced by Apple to reveal their sources. The EFF said Apple is asking a court to get three hacks to turn over their unpublished materials to the corporation. But, says the organisation, US online journalists are protected by the reporters privilege laws from doing that.
• China net cafe culture crackdown - Chinese authorities closed 12,575 net cafes in the closing months of 2004, the country's government said.
  According to the official news agency most of the net cafes were closed down because they were operating illegally.

OFF-TOPIC...

• NASA: 2005 could be warmest year recorded - A weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s, NASA scientists said this week. While climate events like El Nino -- when warm water spreads over much of the tropical Pacific Ocean --affect global temperatures, the increasing role of human-made pollutants plays a big part.
• Altered HIV Attacks Mice Tumors - The UCLA AIDS Institute scientists genetically altered HIV and folded it into an envelope made of another virus called sindbis, which typically infects insects and birds. That turned the altered HIV into a missile that hunted down metastasized melanoma cells in the lungs of living mice.
• Europe launches super rocket - Europe's reputation for rocket engineering got a boost with the successful launch of the Ariane 5 ECA at 21:03 GMT on 12 February. The 50-metre high rocket is Europe's largest, able to deliver up to 10 tonnes of payload into orbit around Earth.
• Hobart man dies testing bulletproof vest - A man whose friends initially said he was killed by gunfire outside a Gary liquor store actually died after he donned what he thought was a bulletproof vest and asked a cohort to shoot him. A friend then shot Daniel Wright with a .20-gauge shotgun, but it turned out the vest Wright had put on Thursday was a flak jacket not designed to stop a bullet. Wright, 20, was mortally wounded in the shooting and died later at a Gary hospital after two of his friends drove him there.
• This must be love - If you're 35 and you've been sleeping on the same pillow for 31 years, you don't take that lightly." This isn't a joke to Raza, or to the many other adults who are deeply attached to the cushions that lull them to sleep each night. Before getting married, Raza told his fiancee, "My pillow is really important to me." She laughed, so Raza reiterated: "No, I'm not kidding. This is really important." Despite the occasional joke about security blankets, "she has actually been very respectful of it," he says. "She knows what I'm like without it."
• Microsoft goes Hollywood: "Halo" to hit big screen - Microsoft may finally be getting into a business where "blue screen of death" could actually be a good thing. The company is going from writing code to writing a movie script adapting the "Halo" video-game franchise, according to a report yesterday in Daily Variety.
• Britney Spears Wins First Grammy -  Pop star Britney Spears won the first Grammy Award of her brief but colorful career on Sunday, taking the prize in the best dance recording category.
• The Credibles! - Check it out! (Flash)

TECHNOLOGY...

• Xbox 2 to Release in Fall of This Year - GamesIndustry.biz has the news that the Xbox 2 will be launched sometime in late fall of this year.
• Microsoft & Nokia Collaborate on Digital Music - Today at 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, Microsoft and Nokia announced an agreement to give Nokia handsets the benefit of Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10. Microsoft and Nokia are working to ensure consumers can enjoy music from the newly-launched Nokia and Loudeye mobile music service platform on both Nokia handsets and Windows XP-based PCs.
• Motorola Unveils RAZR Successors, iTunes Phone - The popular RAZR ultra-thin flip phone which was launched last year will be joined by three more high-tech models, dubbed the RAZR black, the SLVR and the PEBL. The black RAZR, nicknamed BLZR, will be available for the Oscars this spring. The SLVR, a model without a flip, will be thin like the RAZR with Motorola hoping to bring excitement back to monoblock phones, which have lost ground to clamshell designs.
• Motorola, Oakley introduce Bluetooth sunglasses - Available in three frame colors, RAZRWire was developed to meet the needs of active consumers seeking seamless mobility, offering them an integrated easy-to-use design. For cyclists, skateboarders, rock climbers, golfers - practically anyone who is active outdoors - the innovative eyewear encourages hands-free connection while on the go.
• Meet the A1010, E1060, E1120 Motorola communicators - The new Motorola A1010 communicator sports WCDMA 2100 MHz, GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz functionality, a large TFT screen with a resolution of 208 x 320 pixels, a 2 MP and a VGA camera enabling 2-way video conferencing, as well as multimedia streaming, capture and playback (MP3, MPEG4). Running Symbian OS 7.0 and the UIQ 2.1 platform, the A1010 is also utilizing the Opera web browser and its small screen and full screen rendering technology. Other software include Picsel Document Viewer/Edit and PIM applications. The A1010 is also equipped with a TransFlash memory slot, A-GPS support for location services, and Bluetooth. The Motorola A1010 is expected to be available in Q4 2005.
• British Broadband Picks Up The Pace - Many BT customers will now have download speeds of 2Mbps, although there are usage allowances of between one gigabyte and 30 gigabytes a month. The new speeds start to come into effect on 17 February for home customers and 1 April for businesses.
• MySQL Network shifts pricing and licensing - The company is expected to announce on Tuesday at LinuxWorld here the MySQL Network, a yearly subscription service, rather than an up-front fee, for the right to use the MySQL software and access the company's support services.
• Sun beefs up Java Comms Suite security - The JSC Suite, which includes System Messaging Server, System Calendar Server, and System Instant Messaging, is designed to provide a platform for deploying email, calendar, instant messaging and other collaboration services. Enhanced features include support for the Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions protocol in the Communications Express web client, which now enables users of the JSC Suite to sign and encrypt messages, resulting in increased client-side security and stronger end-to-end security.
• New Xandros V3 Open Circulation Edition available - The Open Circulation Edition of the Xandros Desktop OS provides a secure, stable Windows replacement for everyday desktop use and everything users need for a carefree Internet experience . It offers free Skype-to-Skype calling worldwide, Firefox browsing, and Thunderbird e-mail with automatic spam filtering.

HARDWARE... 

• AMD cuts chip prices - The company nipped the price of its flagship Athlon 64 4000+ chip by 12 percent to $643. The Athlon 64 3800+ and 3700+ processors were lowered by 34 percent and 30 percent, respectively, to $424 and $329. The Sempron for desktops using Socket A motherboards--the same type of socket used by the company's older Athlon XP chip--were among those cut. The Sempron 2800+ for Socket A boards was clipped by 17 percent to $90. The Mobile Sempron 2800+ for full-size notebooks, meanwhile, dropped 19 percent to $87.
• AMD unveils latest x86 Opterons - According to the firm, the 852 and 252 chips feature performance-enhancing features including support for SSE3 software instructions, and better HyperTransport performance through an increase in bus frequency to 1GHz. AMD also announced its AMD-8132 HyperTransport PCI-X 2.0 tunnel, scheduled to ship for servers and workstations this month.
• Intel ships 2MB cache 64-bit Xeon - The new Xeon DPs contain 2MB of on-die L2 cache, up from the 1MB built into the previous version, and are clocked at 3.0, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6GHz. The chips are priced at $316, $455, $690 and $851, respectively.
• SanDisk queues up 1GB mini memory card for $100 - Underscoring the dramatic price drops in the market for memory cards, flash memory specialist SanDisk said Monday that it will sell a 1GB mini SD card for $100.
• GeForce 6600 goes mobile - NVIDIA has announced the launch of their GeForce 6600 Go GPU for thin and light laptops. The GeForce 6600 Go GPU is like its desktop counterpart is SM 3.0 compliant and has Purevideo technology. NVIDIA has also announced the immediate availabilty of PCI Express GeForce 6600 Go and GeForce 6200 Go powered laptops from a wide range of vendors
• Intel Xeon 3.6 2MB vs AMD Opteron 252 Database Test -  For dual-processor applications, Intel leads the way in everyday small to heavy transactional applications, whereas AMD shines in the analytical side of database applications "Data Warehousing".
• NVIDIA nForce4 Chipset Series for AMD64 - The new generation of chipsets from this company is represented by three products. The basic modification is "simply" called nForce4, the modification with advanced functionality - nForce4 Ultra, and finally the topnotch modification with intuitive name - nForce4 SLI.
• The ASUS DRW-1604P DVD±RW DL drive - Besides its 16x DVD+/-R capabilities, this drive will write a DVD+R DL at 4x, DVD+/-RW at 4x, CD-R at 32x and CD-RW at 24x speed. It reads DVD-ROM with a maximum of 16x and CD-ROM with a maximum of 40x speed.
• ViewSonic VP171b - up of the ViewSonic VP171b 8ms 17in TFT display which you can find here - Trustedreviews take a look at the ViewSonic VP171b 8ms 17in TFT display.

GUIDES... 

• Curing Laptop Overheating - This article focuses on the true "air breather" laptops/notebooks; those that have case openings, an internal heat exchanger and (usually) a fan.
• Memory Market Overview: February 2005 - New releases, company news, prices, events...@X-bit Labs
• How To Avoid Internet Theft, Fraud and Phishing - Phishing is one of the main scams in the present moment. People set up phoney websites and email addresses. Then they spam Email inboxes with official-looking messages explaining that your account with Company X has encountered a problem and that they need you to login and confirm some details. The email addresses are masked to appear official and the links provided in the email all seem to check out. If you click on the link provided then you will usually be taken to a site that looks for all intents and purposes to be official. When you click 'submit' your details will be sent to a criminal somewhere who will do as they please with your information, such as withdrawing money from a bank account or purchasing things in your name.
• ATI Catalyst 5.2 Performance Analysis - EliteBastards take a look at this driver to see how it measures up against ATI's claims. Another similar article can be found on TweakTown.

SOFTWARE...

• Firefox Preloader Build 366  - This is a little program for people who use Mozilla Firefox on older machines. It is designed to preload Firefox in the background so it will load faster when requested.
• XP Codec Pack 1.0.3 - XP Codec Pack is one of the most complete codec pack which helps you to play all major audio and video formats.
  And... to complete your multimedia experience, instead of 3 or 4 different players you get one, simple integrated player that plays almost all audio and video files: Media Player Classic.
• VirtualDub 1.6.4 Experimental - VirtualDub (changelog ~ download ~ download AMD64 version) is a video capture and processing program. It features fast capturing, process files larger than the 2 gigabyte limit, optimized for linear editing, support for Motion-JPEG, MPEG-1 video and layer 3 audio, real-time and near-realtime video processing, video job queues, and much more.
• Jet-Audio 6.1.1 - Jet-Audio (download) features an impressive home audio system interface, including independent A/V components for Digital Signal Processor, Audio CD Player, Digital Audio (MP3, RA, etc.), MIDI (MID, MOD etc.), and Digital Video (AVI, MPG, MOV, etc.), along with a Mixer and a Remote Controller.
• SSH Tunnelier - Windows - Tunnelier is a friendly and flexible SSH client for Windows which includes state of the art terminal emulation, graphical as well as command-line SFTP support, an FTP-to-SFTP bridge, powerful tunneling features, and also remote administration for WinSSHD. Free for individual use!
• nHancer v1.0.3 - nHancer (NVIDIA Advanced Profile Editor) is a replacement for NVIDIA's own Profile Editor, which is integrated in their driver. With nHancer you can also change the global driver settings, but the focus is on creating and manipulating profiles.

SECURITY...

• Virus warning hits Windows Media Player - Computer users have been warned to be on their guard when viewing images after the discovery of a vulnerability affecting the processing of PNG (Portable Network Graphic) files by popular applications including MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player. The issue affects applications including Windows Media Player 9.0 (when running on Windows 2000, XP Service Pack 1 and Server 2003), Windows Messenger version 5.0 (standalone version that can be installed on all supported operating systems), and MSN Messenger 6.1 and 6.2.
• F-Secure flaw opens door to intruders - The security hole in the antivirus library affects 18 products for desktops, servers and gateways, with the network products at "critical" risk, F-Secure said in a bulletin Thursday. By creating a specially crafted ARJ archive file, an intruder could use a buffer overflow to run arbitrary code on an unpatched machine, said Tony Magellanez, a systems engineer at F-Secure. Update details are here.
• TriCipher Ships Multipart Authentication System - TriCipher Inc., which was spun off from Japanese technology company Nippon Systems Development Inc. in Kansai, Japan, says its authentication technology uses a multipart credential. This works by placing part of the authentication credential on the user's computer, and the other part on the server on which authentication is desired.
• Hewlett-Packard throttles viruses between network and desktop -  Rather than offering yet another hunter for viruses, HP's new virus throttle software takes an unusual approach: It acts as border patrol and aims to contain attacks. Instead of relying on existing virus definitions, the software monitors network connection requests and detects "abnormal" activity that could indicate an attack.
• Windows more secure than Linux - Nash said that Vole compares very favourably with Linux on security. In the year-to-date Microsoft has fixed 15 vulnerabilities affecting Windows Server 2003. However, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 users have had to patch 34 vulnerabilities and SuSE Enterprise Linux 9 users have had to patch over 78 vulnerabilities.
• Proposed Norwegian law limits cross-media copies - The Norwegian government has proposed a new copright law regarding copying music. The proposed law would make it illegal to copy songs from CDs to a different medium such as an MP3 player. It would still be legal to duplicate a CD, as long as it's copied to the same medium.
• Lokitorrent website downed - Despite attempts to raise money to defend itself, it seems that web site Lokicurrent has lost. The website, here, has a notice on it from the Motion Picture Association of America, warning about breach of copyright. The notice says that the site has been permanently shut down by court order because it contributes to the illegal downloading of films.
• Philips developing tools to identify and block P2P video content - Researchers at Royal Philips Electronics are developing new "fingerprinting" technology that could automatically identify and block transmission of digital-video files, potentially handing movie studios a new weapon in its war on peer-to-peer networks.
• Hackers sued for tinkering with Xbox games - According to the complaint, Greiling and Glynn were webmasters of ninjahacker.net, an online forum dedicated to creating custom content and modifications for certain video games. Also included in the suit, filed January 21st in Illinois, are up to 100 anonymous users of the site, whose identities the company vowed to unmask.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Man constructs replica of Apollo guidance computer - CNET News has a fun story about John Poltorak, who spent his free time the last few years building a reconstruction of the guidance computer used in the Apollo space missions: "The AGC is a piece of computing history. It had a 1MHz processor, 1K of random-access memory and 12K of read-only memory. By contrast, typical desktop computers today have about 1,000 times the processor speed and about 500,000 times the RAM, and have dropped ROM for hard drives with millions of times the capacity."
• Falling in Love in Three Minutes or Less - It seems that the heart wants what the heart wants -- and it can figure it out fairly quickly, according to evolutionary psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania. Psychology has often viewed relationships as transactions where people select mates based on substantial qualities a mate has to offer, such as power and money. According to Kurzban, the data show that, when people meet face-to-face, things like smoking preferences and bank accounts don seem to loom large in intricate complexities of attraction.
• Man Arrested Over Valentine's Net Suicide Pact - An American man has been arrested after allegedly trying to arrange a mass online suicide pact for Valentine's Day on Monday. Gerald Krien, 26, was caught after one woman alerted authorities after hearing one of those planning to take part talking about killing her children. Krien, of Klamath Falls in Oregon, had apparently recruited more than 30 people to take part in the pact, which had been arranged through chatrooms. Police are now trying to trace some of those involved in an attempt to make sure they are safe.
• Chinese used diamonds to polish sapphire-rich stone in 2500 BC - Researchers have uncovered strong evidence that the ancient Chinese used diamonds to grind and polish ceremonial stone burial axes as long as 6,000 years ago -- and incredibly, did so with a level of skill difficult to achieve even with modern polishing techniques.
• Tom-Yung-Goong Trailer -  The trailer for Tony Jaa's (star of Ong Bak) new action film Tom-Yung-Goong is now online and ready for visual consumption
• Nuke Test - This is video of an underground nuclear bomb test

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Delays CRM Update, Again - Microsoft's famously slippery ship dates are sliding once again when it comes to the company's long-delayed Microsoft CRM 2.0 update. Microsoft said this week it is expanding the software's feature set and delaying its release-to-manufacturing until the fourth quarter of 2005.
• Google Offers Assistance To Wikipedia - Google has offered to assist online encyclopedia Wikipedia, by providing some much needed storage and hosting services to the giant non-profit site.
• Cell phones get surround sound -  A new line of multimedia phones has hit the streets in Japan over the past few weeks that incorporates three-dimensional sound technology from British start-up Sonaptic. As yet, the content for it is slim--a fishing game, a handful of sound and video clips--but the technology promises a substantial advance for mobile-phone audio.
• Macromedia Flash On Nokia Mobiles - Nokia is to install a version of Macromedia Flash in its Series 60 mobile platform. The licencing agreement between the two companies will also stretch to other Nokia devices. Tools will be made available to allow developers to produce cell phone flash content with ease.
• First Linux-powered UMTS 3G mobile arrives - The world's first UMTS/Edge smartphone reference design based on the Linux operating system has been unveiled. Developed by a group of companies including Samsung Electronics and Infineon Technologies, the platform is designed to incorporate advanced 3G and multimedia services such as UMTS/Edge dual mode voice calls, video calls and video streaming. It also supports high performance multimedia applications (H.264, MPEG-4, AAC+, MP3), ultra-fast web browsing, stereo loudspeaker with 3D audio and Java-based 3D gaming.
• Sony Movie Unit to Issue Films for PSP Game System - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment said it will release "XXX," "Hellboy," "Resident Evil 2" and "One Upon A Time in Mexico" on April 19 in the Universal Media Disc or UMD format, with additional monthly releases in the future. The unit did not set a price for the movie discs. The small UMD holds 1.8 gigabytes of data, three times the capacity of a CD-ROM. It was designed as a vehicle for games and other media on the PSP.
• Nokia 7710 communicator now shipping - Announced as recently as in November 2004, Nokia has now started shipping the Series 90-based 7710 communicator device in Europe and Africa. Featuring tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz connectivity, the 7710 is Nokia's first touch screen-enabled smart device, and features handwriting recognition software similar to that found in numerous Windows Mobile handhelds.

HARDWARE... 

• Toshiba's 17" Satellite P35-S611 gaming notebook - Adding to its existing line-up of P35 gaming notebooks, Toshiba has introduced the Satellite P35-S611, designed as a desktop replacement with a 17" screen and powerful specifications. Joining the existing P35-S6111 and P35-S629 models, the P35-S611 comes with Windows XP Home as opposed to Windows XP Professional, and includes an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics card less powerful than that of the top model.
• Intel Quietly Adds New Chipsets into Lineup - Intel's i915PL and i915GL chipsets support dual-channel PC3200 (400MHz) memory only, instead of supporting both DDR and DDR2 which is a standard for the i915P and i915G chipsets, but still boast with support for LGA775 processors and PCI Express interconnection. In contrast to usual i915-series chipsets, the i915PL and i915GL support only 2GB of memory, not 4GB of RAM.
• AMD Readies New Opteron Processor for 1000MHz HT Bus - The forthcoming AMD Opteron processor 252 will be clocked at 2.60GHz, will incorporate dual-channel PC3200 memory controller, 1MB of cache and SSE3 technology, something that only Intel Corp.'s chips have sported so far. The upcoming Opteron chip will also sport 1000MHz HyperTransport bus, a speed boost over contemporary AMD Opteron products with 800MHz HT bus, according to CNET News.com web-site.
• DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb - The LANParty UT nF3 250Gb comes with 2 IDE ports and allows a total of 4 devices to be installed. The devices can be hard drives or optical drives, whichever you choose. Since SATA hard drives are becoming the norm, the LANParty UT nF3 250Gb offers 4 SATA ports for up to 4 SATA hard drives. The two located right below the CPU socket are controlled by the nForce3 250Gb chipset. The nForce3 250Gb controlled SATA ports allows RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, and JBOD.
• Sapphire Toxic Radeon X700 Pro and Hybrid Radeon X800 - AMDZone has posted a review of Sapphire Toxic Radeon X700 Pro and Hybrid Radeon X800
• Gainward PowerPack! 6800 - For Gainward, we have mix feelings. The certainly won't impress gamers who are looking for free packaged games with their graphics cards and they certainly won't impress HTPC users with DVD software that many manufacturers include, but modders are a possibility for them. If someone is looking for a red theme, Gainward has the answer.
• Sapphire Hybrid Radeon X800 XL - The Sapphire Radeon X800 XL is a great card. It offers very similar (and sometimes slightly better) performance than a 6800 GT at a price that is very similar. The Sapphire X800 XL (OEM version) can be found for as low as $380 according to our price search engine. A simply packaged 6800 GT PCIe card can be found for about the same. This is going to be a very interesting $350-420 battle over the coming months as PCIe gets more and more popular.
• Chaintech GeForce 6600 GT AGP - The only real drawback with the card was the heatsink not having any contact with the memory chips. This was by design and not accident. The memory chips were declocked 10% with the Chaintech card and I can't help but speculate that the cooling, or lack there of is why.
• NEC ND-3520A DVD Writer - The ND-3520A will write to DVD+/-R media at 16x, DVD+R Dual Layer discs at 4x, DVD+RW media at 8x and DVD-RW discs at 6x. The big news here is, of course, the performance boost in the RW space.
• Samsung CLP-550N Colour Laser Printer - PC Stats has posted a review on the Samsung CLP-550N Colour Laser Printer.
• Divx/dvd portable player Gold G40 - Digital Gamers posted a review of the Divx/dvd portable player Gold G40.
• Kodak EasyShare DX7590 - The 5 megapixel DX7590 replaced the 4 megapixel DX6490 as Kodak's second 10x ultra-zoom digicam. The DX7590 features a Schneider-Kreuznach lens capable of a 38 - 380mm zoom (35mm equivalent). It offers a wide range of still recording modes from full auto to manual exposure in addition to 14 preset scene modes and a movie mode with a maximum resolution of 640x480. Like all of Kodak's EasyShare cameras, the DX7590 has an intuitive menu and controls that lead to a hassle-free shooting experience.
• Apple iPod Shuffle - First the top-end daddy iPod with its big scroll wheel. Then the mid-market girly iPod Mini, which puts the buttons into the scroll wheel. They can hold about 120 or 240 songs encoded at 128Kbps; I managed 220 on a 1GB stick with songs encoded at 160Kbps, still more than enough to get lost in music.
• New MSN Direct Services Found In A Fossil - It's been possible to read the time from your wrist for many decades. But the ability to get news and weather information off your wrist has only been around for a couple of years. We take a look at the latest Smartwatch from Fossil to see what it can do now, and learn what else may be possible in the future.

GUIDES... 

• Blu-ray Disc technology editorial - The fact is that blue-ray technologies and high def won't be meaningful until 2006 and won't be mainstream until 2007. But that timespan isn't deterring the two camps because there will be huge amounts of money involved in licensing fees from the people who decide to produce players, drives, recorders, content and recordable media.
• How Motherboards Are Made: A Gigabyte Factory Tour - As PCSTATS recent trip to Gigabyte's Nan-Ping factory in Taiwan showed us last summer during Computex 2004, there's a lot more to it
• 32 Cards in Doom 3 tested - Version 0.2 - The article is now updated to version 0.2 and it includes more pages and a final conclusion as requested. 19 cards are AGP based and 13 cards are PCI-Express
• Browser speed comparisons - There is a speed war on the web. Browsers compete on many fronts; security, standards support, features and speed. Most people are aware of which major browser fails on three of these, but one of them is still open for grabs.
• Windows XP Tweaking Companion - The Windows XP Tweaking Companion (XPTC) is the complete Windows XP and system optimization guide. No longer do you have to put up with so-called XP Tweak Guides which have a handful of Registry tweaks and some vague optimization advice - the XPTC brings an enormous range of detailed descriptions and resources together in one free 170 page downloadable PDF file.

SOFTWARE...

• Apache 2.0.53 -  Apache 2.0 (download / changelog) offers numerous enhancements, improvements and performance boosts over the 1.3 codebase.
• WinSCP 3.7.4 - WinSCP (download) is an open source freeware SFTP client for Windows using SSH. Legacy SCP protocol is also supported. Its main function is safe copying of files between a local and a remote computer.
• VNCScan 2005.2.10 - VNCScan allows you to remotely control and manage your workstations and servers. VNCScan is the legendary front end to VNC.
• SpoofStick for Firefox 1.05 - SpoofStick is a simple browser extension that helps users detect spoofed (fake) websites. A spoofed website is typically made to look like a well known, branded site (like ebay.com or citibank.com) with a slightly different or confusing URL.
• Winamp Cover Notifier Alpha 1 - Winamp Cover Notifier is an alert that will show a CDs cover and music name everytime Winamp starts a new song. If no picture is found, a default picture will be shown. The alert will be shown next to the Windows clock
• HyperSnap-DX 5.62.04 (shw) - HyperSnap-DX 5 is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games
• ZoneAlarm Free 5.5.062.011 - ZoneAlarm includes five interlocking security services that deliver easy-to-use, comprehensive protection.
• CPU-Z 1.27 - CPU-Z is a diagnostic tool that provides information on your CPU, including: processor name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, partial overclock detection, processor features, supported instructions sets, L1 and L2 cache information, location, size, speed, and technology.