• Microsoft security chief uses Firefox  - Microsoft's head of security, Stephen Toulouse, has accidentally revealed that he uses Firefox. In an interview with Wired here, Toulouse was chatting about how security was an industry wide problem and not Internet Explorer specific.
• Bruce Schneier Interview - Neowin has posted an interview with "security guru" Bruce Schneier, well known security analyst who has gained notoriety from his popular security mailing list, Cryptogram, and his 3 books on various security subjects, as he talks about himself, security, Microsoft, and much more. Bruce also talks about how to stay safe on the internet, program security, and gives some views on Microsoft's Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, making for interesting reading.
• Windows XP Service Pack 2: The 10% Problem - Upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 2 will cause problems with about one in every 10 PCs running the operating system, according to research published Tuesday by a Canadian asset-monitoring service provider. AssetMetrix probed more than 44,000 Windows XP systems housed in nearly 350 companies to come up with its numbers, matching what it found on the PCs against various lists that Microsoft has posted of programs that have, or may have, compatibility issues with the massive update.
• Film group turns to secure DVD players - Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, this week announced a deal with the academy to supply SV300 DVD players. The academy will distribute the players to its voting members for films competing in the Orange British Academy Film Awards, which takes place Feb. 12. The SV300 can play encrypted discs created using Cinea's security system called S-View, the company said. The security system is designed to allow movie and TV producers to secure their content against piracy at production and post-production stages. Only authorized persons can access the protected content and a large number of encrypted discs can be created. Each SV300 player is individually addressable so that pirated versions can be tracked.
• GmailFS - Gmail Filesystem - GmailFS provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. GmailFS is a Python application and uses the FUSE userland filesystem infrastructure to help provide the filesystem, and libgmail to communicate with Gmail. GmailFS supports most file operations such as read, write, open, close, stat, symlink, link, unlink, truncate and rename. This means that you can use all your favourite unix command line tools to operate on files stored on Gmail (e.g. cp, ls, mv, rm, ln, grep etc. etc.).
• Battery-free backup power system achieves 2 hour runtime - Active Power Inc. (Austin) said it has operated a prototype of its battery-free energy storage system at 10 kilowatts (kW) for over 2 hours, a feat the company expects to help position the product for the telecommunications segment.
• Sony licenses VIA tech for PSP - Sony has licensed VIA subsidiary S3 Graphics' S3TC texture compression algorithm for use in the PlayStation Portable (PSP), the two companies announced this week. Texture compression essentially allows a 3D graphics engine to display crisper, more detailed scenes and models without swamping the system's bandwidth.
• Apple launch iMac G5 - Apple have just sent word that the latest in the iMac line, the G5, is being launched today (specs). Apple claims the iMac will run very quietly (~25db), making it suitable for all locations in the home. Its I/O ports are neatly designed on the computer; it features 5 USB ports and 3 Firewire ports. Interestingly, Apple offers "internal support" for Airport Extreme cards, yet does not ship with them as standard - the same is true for its support on Bluetooth - you need to buy the extra card, but it integrates with the iMac G5. It also has built in Ethernet ports (10/100). The system packs a SuperDrive (DVD/CD writer combo), up to 2 gig of DDR 400mhz RAM and up to 250 gig of hard drive space (SATA). The new iMac also has an AGP 8X nVidia based (GeForce FX 5200 Ultra) graphics solution.
• AMD Shows First Dual-Core Processor - AMD has demonstrated the company's first dual-core microprocessors at its Austin, Texas, office, the company says. Dual-core processors, set to hit the market next year, offer improved performance over single-core chips, especially in multithreaded applications.
• Intel's 65nm chip will make laptops go further - Intel has built a fully functional 70Mb static random access memory (SRam) chip with more than half a billion transistors, using 65nanometer (nm) process technology. SRam chips are often used as test vehicles for new manufacturing processes because their design is relatively straightforward.
• Ericsson Pulls Bluetooth Division - According to this article, Ericsson has shut down its Bluetooth division. Ericsson has not made any formal announcement though.
• Defective Siemens phones will not affect OEM contracts - Taiwan-based handset makers Lite-On Technology and Quanta Computer will continue to fulfill OEM orders for Siemens Mobile despite the German handset vendor's announcement it will stop producing its 65-series handset models due to a software-related defect, according to sources at the makers.
• Intel preps 2MB L2 Pentium 4 6xx line? - Intel's plan to ship a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition with 2MB of in-core L2 cache - as opposed to 2MB of on-chip L3 cache - is to be followed up by a version pitched at mainstream desktops. The 3.73GHz P4EE is currently believed to be scheduled for late Q4 2004 availability. The chip will be the first 90nm P4EE, and the first to be based on Pentium 4 technology rather than Xeon chips.  According to the Japanese site's report, it will debut in Q1 2005, in four incarnations clocked to 3.2GHz, 3.4GHz, 3.6GHz and 3.8GHz, dubbed the 640, 650, 660 and 670, respectively.
• HDTV "Starter" Kit for PC Comes with Some Kinks - Instead of dropping more than $1,000 for a new TV, set-top box and antenna to bring in the signals that dramatically improve TV picture quality, look not in the living room, but in the home office.  A $200 upgrade can turn a personal computer into a "starter" high-definition television.
• Hitachi 57S700 HDTV review - If you want to experience true High Definition television and watch DVD movies featuring sharp and crisp color images, look no further than the Hitachi 57S700 (which will soon be replaced by their 57S715 – the only difference is that the S715 includes HDMI instead of DVI). Hitachi's HDTV sets offer the consumer “state-of-the-art” technology with a terrific feature package in a very stylish and handsome cabinetry. It's a set for today and tomorrow featuring an integrated HDTV tuner and QAM cable tuner. By including both DVI and 1394, this set won't become obsolete for many years to come.
• HP iPAQ rx3715 Pocket PC - HP is definitely serious about targeting the consumer PDA market, and there are a lot of good features on the rx3715 that could make it a winner on the high street. That said, the price is high for a consumer product, which could swing potential buyers towards a Palm OS device.
• Sempron 2600+ vs Mobile Barton 2600+ - Overal the performance of the Sempron CPUs is quite satisfying, especially when we consider the minor performance drop of the 2600+ model compared to the Mobile Barton with the same performance rating, that is around 15$ more expensive when purchased in 1K quantities than the Sempron.
• Asus' Socket 939 A8V Deluxe review -The A8V Deluxe's street price hovers around $140, which is a pretty incredible deal, all things considered. With 8-channel audio, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11g Wi-Fi, Firewire, support for four Serial ATA and six ATA devices, and plenty of RAID options, the A8V Deluxe is a steal. The board's fast, too, and it's built around the 939-pin socket that AMD says is the future of the Athlon 64.
• Mega 12-way Intel 925 and 915 motherboards roundup - TweakTown have a massive roundup of motherboards based on the I915(P/G) and I925X chipsets from various motherboard vendors with various degrees of support and platform adoption.
• Inno3D GeForce 6800 review - The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 is a unique GPU. On the negative side it has 12 rendering pipelines (four less than the GT and Ultra's 16 pipelines), has 128MB memory, and has a low core/memory clock. But on the positive side, the 6800 has all the same rendering features as its more powerful brothers, like Shader Model 3.0 support. The other two big plus points are that the 6800 is readily available in retail stores and online hardware vendors and is under $300.
• Sapphire Toxic X800 PRO VIVO review -  The board is distinctive and performs well in relation to the standard X800 PRO configuration. With stiff competition from NVIDIA at the moment, the main question for the X800 PRO series is the price of the boards relative to the overall performance. X800 PRO VIVO's are gaining a lot of interest with enthusiasts that the moment since there appears to be a startling number shipped with 1.6ns RAM, which is good for 600Mhz, and the capability of successfully re-enabling the extra four pipelines - however those pipelines have been disabled for a reason and you certainly shouldn't purchase a PRO VIVO expecting to get 16 pipelines operational.
• 3Ware, Highpoint and Raidcore/Broadcom Bring Multi-channel RAID to SATA - THG tests reveal what 3Ware, Highpoint and Raidcore/Broadcom have to offer and how they stack up performance and price wise.
• Western Digital's Caviar RAID Edition review - All-in-all, we see the Caviar RAID Edition as a higher performance solution compared to today's Caviar Special Edition drives. The Caviar RE drives also have better warranties, higher tolerances, and lower noise levels. For these attributes, Western Digital is charging about 10% more for the RE series compared to the SE series drives. We would say that the price difference is well worth it. Unfortunately though, Maxtor's new DiamondMax 10 drive with its 16MB of cache and NCQ support bests the Caviar RE in both single disk and RAID performance, making it hard to recommend the Caviar RE over this drive.
• EPower Lion 450 Watt Fanless Enhanced Cooling Power Supply - Is it worth 150 dollars? Well silence is certainly priceless as we all know, and that is one way to justify it. The fact that it has enough juice to carry you over for a few upgrades should help ease the pain as well. In the end, no matter what justification I have, I feel that a PSU should not cost more then my hard drive, or my ram or even a DVD burner. I'll let you decide on your own if it's worth 150 of your hard earned dollars.
• The Swiss Army Knife of USB Drives - The Swissmemory USB is definitely the coolest integration of a USB flash device to date. Putting a flash drive inside a Swiss Army Knife just make it that much more useful. Available from the Swiss Knife Shop for $80.95 for the 128MB unit and $63.95 for the 64MB unit, the Swissmemory USB is an impulse purchase. To make the impulse even more impulsive, Swiss Knife Shop will personalize your knife by engraving it with up to 10 characters. Now how can you resist that deal?
• Rio Nitrus 1.5 GB MP3 Jukebox review - The Nitrus is a "measly" 1.5GB's, which translates into about 25 hours of music (at 1 Meg. per minute, standard for an mp3 at 128kbps). If I listen to it an hour a day that's 25 days worth of music without repeating a song. Isn't that enough for everyone? I don't understand spending $300-$400 on 20 to 40GB MP3 players.
• Backdoor.Agent.B Removal Tool 1.0.1.2  - Here's a free removal tool for Backdoor.Agent.B.
• Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 - The primary focus of Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 (SP1) (here's a version for Windows 2003) is improved security. In addition, the service pack includes roll-ups of all reported customer issues found after the release of the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1. Of particular note, SP1 provides better support for consuming WSDL documents, Data Execution prevention and protection from security issues such as buffer overruns.
• XviD 1.0.2 - XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec.

• Microsoft Announces 2006 Target Date for Broad Availability Of Windows "Longhorn" -  Microsoft has announced it will target broad availability of the Windows client operating system code-named "Longhorn" in 2006, and make key elements of the Windows WinFX developer platform in "Longhorn" available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.  The announcement relate only to the "Longhorn" client operating system. Anticipated availability for the Windows "Longhorn" Server operating system continues to be 2007. Also the new database-drive WinFS file system will apparently be available in beta when Longhorn is released, but a finalized version isn't expected until 2007.
• Japanese banks deploy biometric palm scanners - Japanese banks are turning to a new biometric identification system, based on the unique nature of the patterns of veins in our palms. The system requires three snapshots of the palm, taken in near infrared light. In the image produced, the veins show up as dark patterns. This data forms the basis of the security system: it can be loaded onto a smart cash card and used at cash machines to identify the user of the card.
• Off-topic: The Internet at 35: Still evolving - Thirty-five years after computer scientists at UCLA linked two bulky computers using a 15-foot gray cable, testing a new way to exchange data over networks, what would ultimately become the Internet remains a work in progress.
• Off-topic: Open-destination Quantum Teleportation - An international team of physicists has entangled five photons for the first time in the world, reports Technology Research News in "Five photons linked." Why is this important? Because it's the minimum number of qubits needed for universal error correction in quantum computing. In other words, they found a way to check computational errors in future quantum computers. The physicists also demonstrated what they call 'open-destination teleportation,' a way to teleport quantum information within and between computers." "They teleported the unknown quantum state of a single photon onto a superposition of three photons. They were then able to read out this teleported state at any one of the three photons by performing a measurement on the other two photons," adds PhysicsWeb in "Entanglement breaks new record". This will be used in about ten to twenty years to move information among quantum networks.
• Off-topic: Computer hard drives perform better, last longer with novel polyester lubricant -  Much discussed among computer circles is the so-called end of Moore's Law and its predictions of ever-smaller circuits. Less known is a challenge facing the next generation of hard disk drives: lubricant coatings that can hold up to faster speeds and denser data. Perfluoropolyethers (PFPEs), the current industry standard, are running up against the polymer's limits in protecting hard drives against daily wear and tear. So University of Illinois Ph.D. candidate Wei Xiao developed an entirely new lubricant, based on inexpensive and abundant polyester. In short, the lubricant, called SHP — sterically hindered polyester — "acts like a solid when cast as very thin films," says Xiao. "And it has very good adhesion properties."
• Off-topic: Brain may produce its own antipsychotic drug - A cannabis-like substance produced by the brain may dampen delusional or psychotic experiences, rather than trigger them. Heavy cannabis use has been linked to psychosis in the past, leading researchers to look for a connection between the brain's natural cannabinoid system and schizophrenia.
• Off-topic: Gamers Gone Bad.com Web Comic - Each strip provides a relevant take on gaming news, from Bloodrayne's Playboy appearance, Nintendo's Online Console Gaming Patent, to DOOM 3.
• Holographic Versatile Disc - Optware Corp., the developer of Collinear Holographic Data Storage System, announced that it had achieved successfully world's first recording and play back of digital movies on a holographic recording disc with a reflective layer using Optware's revolutionary Collinear Holography. This is a major milestone for commercializing holographic data storage system.
• Intel to throttle power by enhancing silicon - The Santa Clara, Calif.-based PC maker will incorporate a number of changes in its 65-nanometer manufacturing process, which will begin in 2005, said Mark Bohr, an Intel senior fellow and director of processor architecture and integration. Experimental SRAM chips have already been produced on the process.
• First look at MSR's "touch light"  - Mike Hall took his video camera over to Microsoft Research's faculty summit recently and met up with Stewart Tansley. Stewart gets provided a demo of a new "touchlight" prototype. It's a new kind of touch screen and could lead to new kinds of user interaction experiences.
• Is It Time to Buy Double-Layer 8.5 GB DVDs? - The trademarks of new generation DVD burners are a 16x write speed for DVD+R and 8.5 GB of data storage capacity. We compare two 8X devices from Asus and LG and two new double-layer models from LaCie and Philips. Does it pay to wait or should you buy now?
• ViewSonic and BenQ: LCD monitors with 8ms response time to be mainstream in 1Q 05 - ViewSonic and BenQ will release 17-inch LCD monitors with an 8ms response time next month, and both companies expect 8ms models to become mainstream in the first quarter of 2005, according to the companies.
• Intel desktop EM64T goes on sale - Akiba PC Hotline said that Pentium 4s promising EM64T have started to appear in the shops of the Akihabara tech district of Tokyo. The wire said two models - a 3.60GHz and a 3.40GHz Pentium 4 have appeared for sale in boxed configurations, although availability for the 3.60GHz model is still constrained.
• HP To Start Selling Its iPod  - HP's white iPod will be sold in a 20-gigabyte and 40-gigabyte version for $299 and $399 respectively.
• Software Developer Says NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Specifications May Alter - A software developer who is behind the famous RivaTuner utility for graphics cards’ tweaking said specifications of graphics cards powered by NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics processing units may be slightly changed by makers of actual add-in cards which results in lower geometry performance and also affect actual speed delivered by the product.
• Non ultra 6800's - 1 or more disabled vertex processors? - With the help of the upcoming Rivatuner you'll be able to verify if you have them all active and thus have the best possible performing and healthy 6800.
• Evesham Axis 35/939 Gaming PC - TrustedReviews take a look at the Evesham Axis 35/939 Gaming PC which features a 3500+ AMD Athlon 64 processor and a GeForce 6800 graphics card for a very affordable price.
• Toshiba Portégé A100 review - The A100 carries full Centrino certification which means that there's an Intel Pentium M CPU inside, as well as an Intel wireless networking card. Looking at the Intel Pentium M CPU first, you'll find a 1.4GHz chip, which is more than powerful enough for a notebook like this. However, what is slightly disappointing is the poor complement of memory. With only 256MB on offer you're going to struggle to have a lot of applications open at once.
• Comparative Tests of the Four Mainboards based on Intel 915/925 - And there are only several obvious conclusions. 1) Other things being equal, i925X is a tad faster than i915. The difference is small but nothing like "i865+PAT" is to be seen yet. 2) DDR in i915 is more preferable in respect of speed, the difference disappears. We cannot recommend mainboards with dual memory type support – they sometimes feature strange performance drops. 3) Performance differences in all cases (in real tests) are not so great to condition univocal customers' choice. 4) Integrated video core negligibly hampers the operation, which is a wonderful result if you recall integrated chipsets three-four years ago.
• Three-way Cooling Showdown - LAN Addict tried out three different cooling solutions for your CPU.
• MSI Mega 865 review - Casual gamers will find the Mega 865 makes a great gaming system. It supports 8X AGP video cards, has 5.1 channel sound and has front headphones and USB ports on the system. If you can upgrade the power supply and watch the heat the system puts out, you should be able to roll with the best of them. MSI deserves credit for making a system like the Mega 865 because it opens the door to many ideas.
• PDP Patriot PC3200 Memory review - The Patriot PC3200 retails around ~$70 a 512MB stick, but is often on sale for ~$50, at which the memory is a steal. While not as solid a performer as the OCZ Premiere PC3200, for half the price, the Patriot PC3200 is a can't miss for builders on a budget. Not to mention a 165MHz over-clock isn't that bad for budget RAM.
• Kingston PC3200 Ultra Low Latency Memory - Bjorn3D's Adam looks at some new Kingston PC3200 Ultra Low Latency Memory.
• MSI GeForce 6800 review - MSI has included probably the best bundle in the graphics card industry with the MSI GeForce 6800. They have included three quality games as well as a handful of useful content creation utilities all free with the purchase of the MSI GeForce 6800. Overclocking yielded positive results, giving us increases of 5-7 FPS in our Splinter Cell tests while running at a core speed of 376MHz and memory speed of 798MHz.
• Sapphire X800 XT Plantinum Edition review - The design is much like ATI's reference board, except they went with a blue PCB and a cool little thumb rest at the top of the card to assist in card insertion. The good thing about this design is that the entire card only takes up 1 slot. A cool feature that this card has is the thermal sensing fan on its heatsink. When the card is not in use the fan will slow down and you will not hear it. When the GPU gets hot, you can hear the fan getting louder.
• PowerColor Radeon 9250 review - The 9250 sports a pricetag under $50, and gives you 128MB of video memory, TV out, DVI/CRT, and the image quality and drivers we've come to expect from ATI; not to mention the familiar AGP interface, so the user need not shell out the big bucks on a board for PCI-Express.
• Gigabyte Gv-nx59128d (FX5900) PCI Express card review - R&B Mods checked out the Gigabyte Gv-nx59128d (FX5900) PCI Express card
• Nu Tech DDW-081 8x DVD+RW Drive review - The DDW-081 DVD +RW is a great drive and is well within the price range of most consumers. Its operation is both quiet, reliable and the media required is also very affordable.
• Sandisk Cruzer Titanium Flash Drive review - Sandisk Cruzer Titanium really makes a great first impression. With its USB connector concealed, someone could have mistaken the titanium-coated device as a Sandisk-branded lighter. But it turns out to be a rugged 512MB Hi-Speed USB flash drive capable of withstanding up to 2000 lb. weight. Suffice to say, the Cruzer Titanium won’t fail on you in case a 250 lb. guy steps on it.
• 480W Power Supply review - This new PSU brings a lot of new features to the table as well as a unique spin on cable management. Let's take a look at the Antec Neopower 480.
• Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU review - MaDDN3ss has posted his review of the Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU.
• OCZ PowerStream 470W Adjustable Power Supply review - The OCZ PowerStream series power supply is aimed squarely at the power user or gamer. When you decide to spend several hundred dollars on individual components for your newest box, you want to make sure that you have a quality power supply, and OCZ has assembled this unit to ensure that it is not going to be the weak link.
• Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 review - Hardware Hounds posted a review of the Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000.
• Logitech MX1000 Laser Mouse first look - MX1000 is an official replacement of the MX700 from Logitech. This new mouse actually uses laser technology to scan (as the ad states) 20x more precisely than optical mice!
• Ideazon Zboard review - Using a normal keyboard and mouse to play computer games is no idea from the future. There are plenty of keys for setting up your own configuration but they are all stationary and cannot be moved around for comfort or usefulness. Ideazon has listened to the gamers of today and took their thoughts and comments to the drawing board. Their Zboard features a removable 'keyset' that allows you to customize your keyboard for many specific computer games, as well as some very popular application suites. The Zboard software automatically recognizes what keyset is installed and essentially 'reconfigures' itself, making the process seamless. Read on to see how beneficial this keyboard can be, and if it stands up to a hardcore gamers standards.
• Altec Lansing AHP-512 Headphones review - CoolTechZone has posted a review of Altec Lansing AHP-512 Headphones.
• Linksys WRT54GS Wireless Router + WMP56G PCI Wireless Card - From a general performance standpoint, the router and wireless adapter work great. When web browsing it is almost impossible to tell that it is not a hard wired network that I am on. Downloads are also great with no trouble obtaining 200+ KB/s transfers. Network gaming on the other hand, seems to suffer a bit but there are a few outstanding issues. When I play Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour on the LAN with my friend also on a wireless connection he is only using an 802.11b (11Mbps) card versus my 54G card. There is moderate lag in the game, but this becomes greatly reduced when he connects his computer via CAT 5 to the router.
• Panasonic Palmcorder PV-GS200 Mini-DV Camcorder - The GS200 is a digital camcorder with 2.3 megapixel Still Picture Recording. The camera has a 10x Hi-Definition zoom (as well as a 700x digital zoom), and comes ready with a Digital Electronic Image Stabilization (D-EIS).
• Overclock the Liteon 1213S Single Layer to 1633S for Dual Layer and 16x Writing - Check out CDRInfo on How to make your 1213s single layer DVD writer into a 1633s dual layer writer that works at 16x +R writing speed and 2.4X DL writing (thanks Warp2Search)
• A problem with ATI's drivers in DOOM 3? - TechReport has some information claiming ATI's drivers exhibited some odd behavior in DOOM 3 and that the company might be compromising image quality for performance. What's more, this problem seemed to be specific to DOOM 3, raising the possibility that ATI was guilty of engaging in an application-specific optimization - a practice the firm has forsworn.
• Source Engine Video Stress Test - As a way of saying "we're sorry about the delay" to all those Radeon 9800 buyers that have been holding a Half-Life 2 coupon for the last year, Valve and ATI have teamed up to let those people into the company's closed beta test of Counter-Strike: Source, an updated version of the most popular online shooter using the same engine as Half-Life 2. Included with this beta test is a Video Stress Test feature, which may offer us a peek at how well modern video cards will stack up against each other in Half-Life 2 and other Source engine based games. ExtremTech take an early look at the VST.
• Memtest86+ 1.25 - Based on the well-known original memtest86 written by Chris Brady, memtest86+ is a port by some members of the x86-secret team. Our goal is to provide an up-to-date and completely reliable version of this software tool aimed at memory failures detection.
• nLite 0.98.8 Beta - nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. So that means that with nLite you will be able to have Windows installation cd which on installation doesn't install, or even contain on CD, unwanted components.
• DVD Decrypter 3.5.0.0 - DVD Decrypter (download) 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.
• Codec Pack All in 1 6.0.1.8 -  The package contains DivX 5.2, Koepi's XviD Codec 1.0.1 Final, DivX, XviD - FFDShow 28.08.2004, MPEG2 3.0.0.0, Subtitles G400 2.83, Subtitles DVobSub (Win9x, Win2k a WinXP) 2.23, 2.33, OGG Vorbis 0.9.9.5, AC3 1.01a RC5, Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher 0.99ß.
• Daemon Tools 3.47 - DAEMON Tools (download) is an advanced application for multiprotection emulation. It is further development of Generic Safedisc emulator and incorporates all its features. This program allows running BACKUP copies of SafeDisc (C-Dilla), Securom or Laserlock protected games. It is a hotfix-version to adress the latest issues (especially the atapi.sys-lock with XP SP2).
• Zoom Player 4.03 - Zoom Player Standard (changelog ~ download), a flexible feature rich Media Player that for all its features and goodness remains bloat-free.
• WinAmp 5.05 (Security bug fix) - Nullsoft Winamp (download full ~ lite) is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity media player for Windows. Winamp supports playback of many audio (MP3, OGG, AAC, WAV, MOD, XM, S3M, IT, MIDI, etc) and video types (AVI,ASF,MPEG,NSV).
• ForceWare 65.73 WHQL 2000/XP - Fujitsu Siemens has released a new ForceWare driver. It is version 65.73 with WHQL (Microsoft Qualified driver) certification for Windows 2000/XP. The drivers in the archive are dated at August 2nd 2004. The drivers will work with the entire range of Nvidia graphics cards starting from GeForce 2 MX and upwards, so you have a pretty good chance of compatible drivers ;) These drivers originate 100% from NVIDIA and are not in any way altered, so this is an official NVIDIA WHQL set yet released by an OEM manufacturer.

• Valve take action against piracy - As reported in this thread on the Steampowered forums, Valve have started shutting down Steam accounts that have used a CD key exploit or an a fraudulent credit card number to illegally obtain Valve's games (thanks HalfLife2.net)
• US Agents raid p2p homes - US Attorney General John Ashcroft reported that US agents had raided the homes of 5 people suspected of illegally trading copyrighted material. Agents raided homes in Texas, Wisconsin and New York, and seized computers involved. The targets of the raids were users of popular file sharing program, Direct Connect. The 5 people were acting as hubs; hubs are the Kazaa equivalent of "super-nodes" - users sharing massive quantities of files. Another articles can be found at CNET and CNN.
• FBI raids Waukesha apartment -  A dozen law enforcement officers descended on a Waukesha apartment building early Wednesday, looking for evidence of a computer network in which people illegally shared movies, music and computer games. The raid was part of the first federal criminal investigation targeting an allegedly illegal peer-to-peer, or P2P, network, through which people can access files from each other's hard drives, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The warrants, one of which was served at an Internet service provider, targeted the operators of five of the network's hubs, rather than the individual users. The hubs act as a central point for people to exchange files, with some hubs containing data each day equivalent to 60,000 feature films, according to the FBI.
• Internet to see major strike today? - Yevgeny Kaspersky, chief of the Russian major anti-virus company, has warned about a large-scale virus attack on the Internet that might be delivered by the Islamic terrorists on August 26. "The hackers who have proclaimed 'electronic jihad' have enough experience and resources to paralyze the Internet for several hours at least," Mr. Kaspersky said at a press conference in RIA Novosti. In the expert's opinion, "the main strike will most probably be directed against political and financial sites of the United States, Israel and West-European countries. Most probably, various versions of harmful programs will be introduced into the computer network.
• Windows XP SP2 a tad borked on AMD64 chips - Microsoft has issued a Knowledge Base article which says that if you install Windows XP SP2 on a machine with an AMD 64-bit chip your computer may repeatedly re-start. The workaround, said Microsoft, is to remove Windows XP SP2 from your computer. The problem happens if you install hardware that uses the mpegport.sys, you've got an AMD 64 bit chip, and you've enforced the NX flag, also known as no execute protection, on a machine.
• IE Flaw Affects Windows XP SP2 Systems - Microsoft denied that Windows Security Center has a vulnerability. "In order for an attacker to spoof the Windows Security Center, he or she would have to have local administrator rights on the computer," Microsoft said in an e-mailed statement.  True, but that may not be much of a defense, since home users in particular often run Windows in Administrator Mode. Enterprises, wary of the total control that mode gives end users, typically sets up PCs to run in Limited Mode.
• Digital attacks on Winamp use "skins" for camouflage - The flaw is being used by some spyware makers to infect people's computers with their illicit programs, according to another group of researchers, at French company K-Otik Security. The attack had been used to spread spyware among Internet relay chat users, infecting a computer after the victim clicked on a Web address that appeared in the chat window.
• RealVNC 4.0 DoS - Allan Zhang is reporting that RealVNC server die if there are more than 60 connections.
• UK Civil Servants download 2 Million+ Porn Images - An internet porn storm engulfed a government department last night. A shock probe found staff called up TWO MILLION pages of filth on work PCs in just eight months. More than 18,000 of the images and sites involved CHILD ABUSE. The investigation at the Department for Work and Pensions has led to one conviction, 16 sackings and over 200 disciplinary cases. Two other penpushers are under police investigation. It is claimed that one official alone accessed 103,000 hardcore images.
• Google Launch AdSense for Bloggers - Google's popular AdSense advertising service is now being opened up to Bloggers, as well as main stream websites. Announced via Blogger (a Google subsidiary), Bloggers will now be able to gain revenue from their online web logs.
• Off-topic: Gamers prefer cyberbabes to real women - An exhibition company claims that after conducting a poll of 3450 gamers, 2109 would rather have a date with pixellated Lara Croft than Jordan. It's not clear how many of these 3450 people were male.
• Off-topic: A Flying Leap for Cars - Businessweek has a story about flying cars and how they could be an actual viable thing in less than 10 years.

• Off-topic: Biggest bets in the universe unveiled - Betting on the greatest unsolved problems in the universe is no longer the preserve of academic superstars such as Stephen Hawking. From Thursday anyone will be able to place bets on whether the biggest physics experiments in the world will come good before 2010

• Off-topic: Unused back muscles switch themselves off - Slumping in front of the television or computer could deactivate muscles that support and protect your spine, triggering many otherwise inexplicable cases of lower back pain.

• Casio Shows Off Slim, Trim Digicams - At the head of the new cameras announced this week is the latest version of Casio's credit-card size Exilim Zoom family of cameras. The EX-S100 camera retains the same height and width as other cameras in the Exilim range--similar to a credit card at 3.5 inches by 2.2 inches--but is thinner than previous models at .6 inches, Casio says in a statement.
• OEM prices for 16x DVD burners drop below US$80 for Taiwan makers - Taiwan OEM quotations for 16x DVD burners have slipped by over 10% to less than US$80 amid decreased component costs and competition from Japanese OEM makers, according to Taiwan producers of optical disc drives.
• ATI's "Fudo" to have Shader 3.0 - According to TheInquirer, the "Fudo" chip  (codename for the R520) will have Shader model 3.0. It's too early for Shader 4.0 as this nice shader model won't show up till 2006 or even later. (thanks nitrox)
• Dual-core chips bring dual caches - The dual-core chips that AMD and Intel plan to bring to market next year won't be sharing their memories. A version of Opteron coming in 2005 and Montecito, a future member of Intel's Itanium family also slated for next year, will both have two processor cores, the actual unit inside a processor that performs the calculations, and each core will have separate caches, pools of memory integrated into the chip for rapid data access, according to company presentations at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University. Each core of Montecito, for instance, will come with a 1MB level two cache and a 12MB level three cache, according to Cameron McNairy, a researcher at Intel. To date, Intel has mostly said that Montecito's level 3 cache will contain 24MB of memory.
• Via Tunes Open-Source Media Player - Via Technologies has released a version of the open-source Xine media player that is designed to take advantage of hardware digital video acceleration capabilities in two of the company's PC chipsets, the CN400 and CLE266.  The Via-enhanced Xine Player version 3.0 (VeXP 3.0) was developed for Linux-based personal electronics devices that rely on the MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 acceleration functions of the Via chipsets, company representatives say.
• Application Compatibility Testing and Mitigation Guide for WinXP SP2 (Updated) - This guidance discusses the security technologies, an application testing process, incompatibility symptoms, mitigation techniques, and deployment scenarios. It makes no assumption about the size or complexity of the network, and is as relevant to peer-to-peer environments as it is to Active Directory environments.
• DDR vs. DDR2 - What it means to you - When you get right down to it, for today's performance the differences between using DDR and DDR2 at 533MHz, there is little to no difference. Where DDR2 will shine, is in it's overclocking potential and the promise of future applications making use of it's enhanced speed and bandwidth. As when DDR was first introduced over SDRAM, it will be a while before these advantages are fully realized, but DDR2 will be sure to come into it's own sooner rather than later. Right now, there is no reason to upgrade your existing system based solely on DDR2.
• MSI MEGA 516BT - Bluetooth MP3 Player - MSI has recently launched a whole range of new MEGA products. The latest product to enter the MEGA family is the MEGA Player 516BT, yet another MP3 player from MSI. Compared to the MEGA Player 515, you’ll notice that the 516BT is quite a lot larger in size.
• iRiver's iFP 790 and 890 MP3 Players Are High On Sound, Low on Software  - iRiver's iFP-790 and iFP-890 MP3 players get the formula right for audio file play and storage. Software glitches unfortunately get in the way of the fun.
• The Desktop Graphics Card Comparison Guide Rev. 6.2 - Currently covering over 180 desktop graphics cards, this comprehensive comparison will allow you to easily compare 14 different specifications for each and every card.
• BFGTech GeForce 6800 OC review - BFGTech has stepped in with a very appealing product having the core clock speed clocked higher than a regular GeForce 6800 offering a greater performance advantage out of the box. Add to this the beefed up heatsink fan unit and the overclockability of this video card and the potential for further speed increases with Shader Model 3.0 and you have a very appealing bundle
• Volari V3 XT review - VolariGames has posted a review of the XGI Volari V3 XT, a mainstream graphics card
• Two Optical Writers With Serial ATA/150 - GamePC take a look at Plextor PX-712SA Serial ATA/150 DVD Rewritable drive and MSI's new X5AD2, a surprisingly low-priced but impressively feature packed CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive based on a Serial ATA/150 interface.
• Logitech launches MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse - Logitech has silently launched a new cordless MX-series mouse, the MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse. This will probably be the successor of the MX700 mouse. The main difference between the MX700 and the MX1000 is that newer one doesn't use an optical sensor, but a new laser which is according to Logitech 20 times more accurate than an optical sensor.  The Logitech MX1000 has a Tilt Wheel and it uses a lithium-ion battery. The status of this battery can be read out directly from the mouse. Just like the MX700 this one uses the FastRF technology to transfer data from the mouse to the cradle.
• Choosing the Best CPU for Doom 3 - Having tested the graphics cards in the new Doom III X-bit Labs thought it would also be interesting to measure the performance of the contemporary CPUs in this game. They used a preliminarily recorded demo as well as the actual gameplay. The results turned out very unexpected.  However, they recommend you to use Pentium 4 models with frequencies from 3GHz up and Athlon 64 models with ratings from 3200+ up, if you want to be absolutely warranted against any accidental slowdowns.
• Advanced Guide: Flashing a Video Card BIOS - PCStats has published a new advanced guide which is focused on flashing your video card BIOS.
• Windows XP Security Guide - This guide includes settings for Windows XP clients deployed in a Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 Active Directory domain. The document also includes guidance for an environment requiring an extremely high level of security in which application compatibility or usability may be constrained. Finally, this guide discusses procedures for implementing Windows XP security settings in stand-alone clients.
• BITS 2.0 and WinHTTP 5.1 (KB842773) Update - This software updates the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to v2.0 and updates WinHTTP. These updates help ensure an optimal download experience with future versions of Automatic Updates, Windows Update, and other programs that rely on BITS to transfer files using idle network bandwidth.
• Pagedefrag 2.3  - PageDefrag uses advanced techniques to provide you what commercial defragmenters cannot: the ability for you to see how fragmented your paging files and Registry hives are, and to defragment them.
• Gaim 0.82 - 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.
• Kazaa Lite Resurrection 0.0.7.6E - Kazaa Lite Resurrection is a P2P file sharing program based on the client that is developed by the Kazaa Corporation. Kazaa Lite Resurrection has been edited so that it does not include spyware, malware or ad-aware.
• Advanced X Video Converter 3.8.4 - Advanced X VideoConverter is a comprehensive Windows video tool that makes it easy to convert, join, and split movies among AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV, ASF, VCD (DAT), SVCD, DVD formats.
• CDBurnerXP Pro 3.0.113 Beta - CDBurnerXP Pro is an easy to use CD burning software, that can write CD-R and CD-RW discs. The program can also write disks directly from an ISO image file, and save image as an ISO image file (*.iso).
• DVDInfoPro 3.16 - DVDInfoPro (download) is a freeware DVD information program written in Visual C++. The program provides information & tools for DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW burners, DVD-ROM players. It also provides limited information on CD players & burners.
• DVD Region+CSS Free 5.16 - DVD Region+CSS Free enables you to watch and copy any region code CSS-encrypted DVD movies on any DVD drive.
• SeaTools Desktop Edition 3.00.07 - SeaTools Suite is Seagate's exclusive disc drive diagnostic software designed to troubleshoot most Seagate hard drive issues. It consists of 3 versions: Online, Desktop and Enterprise.

• Polish Cops Bust 100-Member Computer Piracy Gang - Polish police have broken up a gang of more than 100 hackers who sold pirated music and films, using academic computer systems around the world to store their wares, a police spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
• Microsoft offers SP2 compatibility guide - Microsoft has launched a do-it-yourself kit to help IT professionals assess their software's compatibility with Windows XP Service Pack 2.  It covers the changes that SP2 could wreak on machines running Windows XP, how to go about testing for incompatibility issues and how to fix the problems that come up. The guide also provides two possible deployment road maps for businesses unsure about how to roll out the service pack.
• Critical Netscape Flaw Found - The problem stems from a flaw in the way the NSS library handles requests for new SSLv2 sessions. Servers using the NSS library do not check the length of a record field in the first part of the negotiation between two systems attempting to establish an SSLv2 session. Malicious hackers could use the absence of that length check in the first record sent in the negotiation, known as the "hello message," to cause a heap overflow, allowing them to place and run malicious code on a vulnerable server, ISS says. The Mozilla Foundation issued a patch for the NSS library that fixes the SSLv2 hole. Alternatively, NetScape Enterprise users can disable the SSLv2 protocol, ISS says.
• Internet Explorer Local File/Directory Detection - When a file or directory is assigned iframe that does not exist, this navigator will generate an error. A remote user can create code HTML that loads iframe and changes to the URL from this resource to a file or local directory, and then detects if there is that error to determine if that element exists.
• Limited buffer overflow in Painkiller 1.31 - The problem is just in the password field (read by both protected and non-protected game servers), in fact it is encoded using a specific algorithm and the challenge string received from the server, but when the server tries to "unscramble" a too long password (over 256 chars) some important memory zones are overwritten.
• Off-topic: Polymer researchers probe self-healing fuel tanks - The same material that makes golf balls tough may soon make bullet holes vanish in "self-healing" aircraft fuel tanks, say US navy researchers. Recently, US scientists discovered that a commercially sold polymer - used to coat bowling pins, helmets, and golf balls - displays a curious property when shot at: it can immediately "pave over" the bullet holes.
• Off-topic: Jamaica: Free Internet For Poorer Communities - Jamaica's government has just announced a $5 million program to provide free Internet access in poor communities across the island. Phillip Paulwell, Jamaica's Commerce and Technology Minister, said, "The "e-Jamaica" initiative will establish 60 Internet centers across the country by 2010, mostly in post offices. The effort is directed at communities that continue to operate on the outskirts of the communications revolution."
• Off-topic: New technology tracks in-game ads - Nielsen Entertainment Media announced in April that it was working with Activision, Inc. to develop a tracking technology that would monitor how many in-game advertisements a user encounters and when. Michael Dowling, general manager at Nielsen, said the technology is far more advanced than the People Meter, the device used by Nielsen Media Research to monitor the nation’s television viewing habits.
• Another Format War: DVD -R9 v. +R9 - Because neither side has yet to blink, there will still be two different versions of DVD-R9 media (+/-). By the time you read this the DVD+R9 media spec will be a matter of record. The DVD-R9 specs will still be making their way through committee and DVD Forum approval. One format won’t be better than the other (unless you ask someone deeply committed to one camp or the other). However, it is a lot easier for two companies to work on a common goal and have six others agree than have multiple camps reach agreement and then get the coliseum of interested parties to agree.
• CD on one side, DVD on the other - The consortium, which includes major labels EMI Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, said the DualDisc product has a full album on a CD side of the disc and the album in enhanced sound--such as DVD-Audio--on the other side. The DVD side also includes a range of features, such as music videos, interviews, photo galleries, Web links, concert footage and lyrics, the DualDisc Consortium said. DualDiscs are compatible with nearly any device that can currently play a CD or a DVD, and will be available beginning in October, the consortium said.
• AMD Athlon lineup in shortage, surge in demand follows price cuts -  A surge in demand for AMD Athlon processors has caused a supply shortage in the channels in Taiwan, China and Europe, and this may undermine AMD's opportunity to boost its market share, according to sources in the Taiwan channel. Demand for AMD Athlon processors began to pick up after AMD cut its CPU prices by an average 30% in July, the source noted. The shortage involves the complete lineup of AMD's Athlon processors, including the Athlon 64 2800+, 3000+, 3200+ and the Athlon 64 FX53. In addition, the supply of AMD's recently launched Sempron processors is insufficient, the sources said.
• AMD desktop chips edge ahead of Intel - In a test, Intel's Pentium 4 560 running at 3.6GHz and the 3.4GHz Pentium 4 550 failed to outperform alternatives from AMD. The Pentiums, both with the new Prescott core and 1MB of onboard Level 2 cache, were pitted against the Athlon 64 3800+ running at 2.4GHz and the 2.2GHz 3500+.
• Inno3D 6800 CoolViva -  The "Chilled" Inno3D GeForce6800 CoolViva Premium Edition relies on a custom cooling solution provided by Cooler Master that delivers core speeds up to 350MHz and memory speeds up to 800MHz. The CoolViva comes with Heat Pipe Technology that allows liquid to vaporize while condensation occurs to penetrate the heat to keep temperatures low.
• Sony DVD burners hit sweet 16x - Sony Electronics has unveiled its latest generation of DVD+R Double Layer (DL) burners that support 16x DVD+R recording. Burning a full write-once single layer disc in approximately six minutes, the internal DRU-710A and external DRX-710UL drives will be targeted at consumers.
• LinuxCertified LC2430 Linux Laptop review - The laptop works exactly as promised, providing a fully functional Linux system that has all the power of a desktop system. It has a 3.06GHz processor (with Hyper Threading support), 1 Gigabyte of RAM, and an ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 with 64Mb VGA ram. The screen is a 15" SXGA+ TFT resolution, at 1400x1050 pixels. The hard drive is 40Gb. There is a combination DVD & CD-R/W drive, as well as a 3 in 1 card reader, supporting SD/MMC/MS cards. 10/100 networking is built in and there is a 56k modem.
• Hewlett Packard iPAQ H6315 - Phone Edition preview - The HP PAQ Pocket PC H6315 - Phone Edition is part of the new iPAQ Pocket PC h6300 series, the first handheld from HP with integrated three-way wireless capabilities (GSM/GPRS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology) to give mobile users access to high-speed wireless voice and data networks from a single device.
• SonyEricsson K700i Triband Camera Phone review - A few months ago, the successor to one of the most wildly successful mobile phones seemingly of all time was announced. The replacement to Sony Ericsson's T610 was on its way to the public after much rumor (originally thought to be called T650) and anticipation among the SE community, and this phone was called The K700.
• PDP PC3200 & PC4000 Dual Channel Kits - OverclockersOnline take a look at the Patriot Memory Dual Channel 1GB PC4000 eased latency and Patriot Memory Dual Channel 1GB PC3200 low latency memory kits.
• MSI GeForce 6800 review - In conclusion, the MSI GeForce 6800 is a quality graphics card. Right now it has no competition in the $300 price point, and if $300 is what you want to spend on a graphics card, the MSI GeForce 6800 is one you'll definitely want to take into consideration.
• Power Color Radeon 9250 GameFX Board - The main reason anyone would want to make a graphic card using old technology should be quite obvious- it's cheap. This graphic processor can be purchased online for just over $50 USD, making it perfect for anyone who has a really old card (GeForce 4 or earlier) and want to be able play some of the latest games.
• Sapphire Tech X600 Pro VIVO 256MB Video Card review - The package is as flashy and eye-catching as they come. I really liked the inclusion of the window on the back so you can take a peek at the card itself. If the extra 128MB over their competitors don't work then maybe the sexy, black PCB will.
• Prolink Pixelview PlayTV@P7000 Media Centre review - It combines the same Philips TV and FM tuner that ATI spec for their recent All-In-Wonder hardware, fed into a Conexant decoder, coupled with some Windows-friendly software for most of the features you'd expect from a 'Media Centre' product.
• Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU review - Overall, we were very impressed with this Ultra Products power supply, with the only downfall being the slight difference in voltages. Some of the highlights included customizable cabling technology, 500 watts of power, UV reactive 2 x 80mm fans, and an exceptional metallic blue finish. The Ultra X-Connect costs about $129 (EpowerHousePC.com is selling the X-Connect for only $99.99 currently), which is fairly expensive for a power supply but well worth it for the customizable cabling. The staff here at Phoronix would recommend the Ultra X-Connect 500Watt PSU from Ultra Products.
• Cooler Master Real Power 450W - The Real Power 450W was certainly designed with the future in mind. Seven four-pin molex connections should be sufficient for most users, and the two SATA power connections was a good idea on Cooler Master's part as SATA replaces IDE in the near future as a standard choice for enthusiasts. As faster Pentium 4 CPUs come to market, the extra four pins on the main ATX connection will definitely come in handy.
• KHypermedia 8x4x8 DVD+RW IDE Drive review - The KHypermedia 8X DVD+RW burner pleasantly surprised me. It performed exceptionally with everything I threw at it. So far I have backed up the majority of my data and not one coaster. What more can you ask from a very inexpensive DVD Burner? Computer Geeks sells this drive for an incredible $48.90. For less than $50.00 you get yourself a +RW burner capable of burning at 8X speeds, a nice deal all around.
• Zalman Poweroid TNN 500A PC / Poweroid Silent PC - Lowering noise volumes on powerful PCs requires excellent engineering. One could go down the watercooling route or choose a traditional air-cooling setup using high-quality fans that are controlled by a rheobus. Each method takes careful thought and implementation. Wouldn't it be nice, then, if someone could do the hard work for you and deliver a near-silent system that incorporated high-performance components?.  Zalman reckons it can. With the help of Poweroid to provide the innards and performance, Zalman's launching a range of fanless PCs that appear to break the unwritten rule that powerful PCs cannot be noiseless. It's a tall order, sure, but Zalman's got a few tricks up its sleeve to make believers of us. Let's take a closer look at this intriguing product.
• WaterChill CPU/VGA/Chipset Power kit - KT12A-L30 - Bjorn Endre looks at a way to keep his PC cool with the WaterChill CPU/VGA/Chipset Power kit - KT12A-L30.
• Netgear WGE101 Wireless Ethernet Bridge - The WGE101 is a fair bit larger than the ME101 with dimensions of 178 x 118 x 28mm (WxDxH), but it has to be said that it’s a much better looking unit. Netgear obviously felt the need to instil some coherence into its range, and WGE101 looks like a miniature version of the Netgear wireless routers.
• Niro 1.1 Pro Home Theater System review - Designtechnica take a look at the Niro 1.1 Pro Home Theater System.
• TrackIR3 Pro review - Flight sims have been around for a long time. Unfortunately, the learning curve required to truly master the controls can be quite steep. This is especially true when it comes to checking your six when dogfighting. Enter the TrackIR3 Pro cursor control system, which allows the PC-based pilot to scan the virtual skies without keyboarding or mousing. (thanks Robert Richelson)
• Sleeping Around Wirelessly - The Tech Zone has posted an editorial explaining why you should never leave your wireless network wide open.
• Opera Tips - Speeding up Opera - Here's some tips to speed up Opera.
• VSYNC, Frame Rates, Refresh Rates Guide - BigBadBob over at FutureMark's Forum has published his VSYNC, Frame Rates, Refresh Rates Info guide.
• cuetools 1.0 (unix) - cuetools is a set of utilities for working with cue files and TOC files. It includes programs for conversion between the formats, file renaming based on cue/TOC information, and track breakpoint printing.
• Domain Rename (Rendom.exe) tools released - Windows group released an updated set of Domain Rename tools. You'll still need to understand and follow the steps for the XDR-FIXUP utility.  The domain rename operation and the use of the domain rename tools is not supported in an Active Directory forest that has any version of Microsoft Exchange Server prior to Exchange Server 2003 SP1 deployed in it.
• Opera 7.60 Preview 1 - This "Preview 1" version (download) adds much better support for GMail.
• Flexbeta Firetweaker XP 1.0 Final - Flexbeta FireTweaker XP has reached Final Release and is ready for download. FireTweaker XP is a tweaking and optimizing software for Mozilla Firefox. FireTweaker XP bundles more than 20 different tweaks to optimize or customize Mozilla Firefox. FireTweaker XP does not contain any spyware or adware, it is 100% clean for your tweaking pleasures. FireTweaker XP currently supports Windows 98/Me, 2000, XP and 2003
• FirePanel XP v1.0.1695 - FirePanel XP is a tool that will configure & monitor your Windows Firewall activity, and keep tabs on what exactly you're being exposed to, in real-time. You can set custom IP range or specific port rules, limiting the surface of attack on your PC. If its not on your ruleset, it isnt getting through. Applications can be limited to a certain scope of IPs, or just your localsubnet if you like. Routing table, and also a packet content viewer
• BB FlashBack 1.3.13.66 - BB FlashBack (download) is a screen recorder. Press a record button on your PC, and carry on working. Press stop, and the software produces a movie of exactly what you saw on your screen.
• DU Meter 3.07 Build 192 - DU Meter (download) is an award winning utility from Hagel Technologies which provides an accurate account of the data which is flowing through your computer's network connection at any given moment. This readout is presented in both numerical and graphical format, in real time.
• Omega Catalyst Drivers 2.5.67 - Omega Catalyst Drivers will provide gamers with an alternate set of drivers, ones that have more options and features than the original sets. The drivers contain optimizations, extra features (like OC capabilities), more resolutions and internal tweaks that can give them the edge in a gaming enviroment over the normal drivers, which are often tailored for synthetic benchmarks.
• Official Realtek RTL8139(A/B/C/D/8130)/810X Series Drivers v6.16- Realtek have released a new drivers for the RTL8139 (A/B/C/D/8130)/810X series.

• 15 months' jail for computer games pirate - CHING Seen Ming didn't have a job but he earned $5,000 a month - as much as a middle-management executive. But he wasn't so much middle management as middleman. He was a crucial link in an international piracy syndicate, helping it to mass-produce pirated versions of video games. Ching, 40, was jailed for 15 months yesterday, after pleading guilty to copyright infringement. A district court heard how the syndicate, called Fairlight, operated. Ching was recruited by his brother, Seng Keng, who is in Malaysia, four years ago. Syndicate members would upload the latest computer software and video console games for Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox to the Internet, bypassing their copyright protection measures, to make them available for their customers to download. The syndicate would charge about $170 for each download of a particular program.
• [!] Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird: New releases fix vulnerabilities - New releases of Mozilla, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mozilla Firefox fix several vulnerabilities, including remote DoS and buffer overflows.
• Yahoo! E-mail Service Vulnerability - Finjan Software identified a new critical cross site scripting vulnerability in Yahoo's Web-based e-mail service. This vulnerability allowed hackers to develop an attack that could have caused significant computer damage during regular Internet use.
• Virus alert: Spies prize Webcams' eyes - The Rbot-GR virus follows a fairly traditional malware route of exploiting Microsoft security vulnerabilities and installing a Trojan horse on infected machines. However, the worm also spies on users by taking control of their Webcam and microphone, then sending images and soundtracks back to the hackers, according to antivirus firm Sophos. As well as getting an insight into homes and businesses across the world, the worm allows the malware writer to take a look at information on the infected machine's hard drive, steal passwords and launch denial-of-service attacks.
• Virus targets 64-bit Windows - Virus writers have unleashed the first program that infects 64-bit Windows files, antivirus firm Symantec said Monday. The virus, dubbed W64.Shruggle by Symantec, seems mainly to be an experiment to test the concept of a 64-bit infecter and is not actively spread, said Alfred Huger, senior director of security at Symantec.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer Drag and Drop Vulnerability - http-equiv has discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to insufficient validation of drag and drop events issued from the "Internet" zone to local resources. This can be exploited by a malicious website to e.g. plant an arbitrary executable file in a user's startup folder, which will get executed the next time Windows starts up.
• Internet Explorer Address Bar Spoofing Vulnerability - Liu Die Yu has discovered a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, which potentially can be exploited by malicious people to conduct phishing attacks against a user. The vulnerability is caused due to Internet Explorer failing to update the address bar after a sequence of actions has been performed on a named window. This can be exploited to display content from a malicious site while displaying the URL of a trusted site in the address bar. The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6 running on Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 / Microsoft Windows XP SP1.
• Microsoft Pushes XP SP2 - After a nine-day postponement, Microsoft this week plans to start pushing out Windows XP Service Pack 2 to PCs running Windows XP Professional Edition.
• How Google Could Overthrow AIM - There's an interesting article over at Apple-X.net that speculates on the possibility of an instant-messaging service offered by Google that would be based on the open Jabber protocol. (thanks Slashdot.org)
• Off-topic: Munch's famous "Scream," "Madonna" stolen - Police fielded a flood of tips but still had no motive Monday for the daring theft of "The Scream" and another Edvard Munch masterpiece by armed robbers who barged into a lightly guarded Oslo museum and ripped the paintings from the walls before the eyes of stunned visitors. Masked, armed thieves broke into the Oslo's Munch Museum on Sunday and, as visitors and staff watched in shock, tore "The Scream" and another famous Munch work, "Madonna," from the walls and loaded them into a car. The getaway car and the picture frames were found by police in Oslo hours later.
• Off-topic: HK firm develops cyber girlfriend - The Hong Kong company Artificial Life, which developed the new game, says the girl will appear as an animated figure on the video screen of a mobile phone. But there is a downside to the virtual girlfriend - she will require more flowers and gifts than many real women. Artificial Life is hoping to launch the new game later this year, on the latest 3-G mobile phones. All virtual girls will look the same - but each girl will behave differently - depending on how much money is spent on her. On top of a general subscription, men will be charged a fee to buy flowers and gifts for the virtual girlfriend. In return, she will introduce them to different aspects of her life, like letting them meet her female friends - also electronic images.
• Off-topic: Lucas to Make Sequels to Star Wars After All? - Star Wars creator George Lucas could be poised to make three sequels to the original space opera trilogy, according to insiders at Lucasfilm. According to fan site Theforce.net, employees at Lucas's company Industrial Light and Magic have all been made to sign non-disclosure agreements to promise not to talk about the possibility of episode's seven, eight and nine being made. Now industry insiders are predicting the director will make the follow-ups, which pick up where 1983's Return of the Jedi left off, despite insisting he would never be lured into filming them
• Off-topic: How 8 pixels cost Microsoft millions - Economic Times, one of India's biggest business daily's is carrying a story about how a small colouring mistake forced Microsoft to recall 200,000 copies of Windows 95. (thanks MadMan)
• Off-topic: Gene Tweaking Turns Couch Potato Mice Into Racers - Altering a single gene turned ordinary mice into marathon racers that could run for hours and eat huge amounts of food without getting fat, a team of researchers reported on Monday.
• Off-topic: Teleportation goes long distance - Physicists have carried out successful teleportation with particles of light over a distance of 600m across the River Danube in Austria.  Long distance teleportation is crucial if dreams of superfast quantum computing are to be realised. When physicists say "teleportation", they are describing the transfer of key properties from one particle to another without a physical link. Quantum teleportation relies on an aspect of physics known as "entanglement", whereby the properties of two particles can be tied together even when they are far apart. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance".
• Intel cuts Pentium 4 prices - As promised last week, Intel on Sunday dropped prices on a range of Pentium 4 processors, some by more than a third. The fastest version of the chip, the 3.6GHz Pentium 4 560, dropped by 35 percent from $637 to $417. The 3.4GHz Pentium 4 550 slipped by 33 percent from $417 to $278. The 3.2GHz Pentium 4 540 dipped 22 percent from $278 to $218. The 3GHz Pentium 4 530 is down 18 percent, from $218 to $178.
• Intel Seen Readying New Wi-Fi Chips - In a press briefing scheduled for Thursday, Intel is expected to announce the availability of a "tri-mode" Wi-Fi chip that supports the two most popular wireless data technology varieties -- 802.11b and its speedier cousin, 802.11g -- and the less-used 802.11a. Intel's current chips support only the "b" and "g" varieties. Intel would only say that Thursday's announcement is "to introduce its latest wireless technology for Intel Centrino notebooks."
• Kingston intros high-speed HyperX DDR2 memory - Kingston today announced the release of Hyper DDR2 533-MHz (PC2-4300) and 675-MHz (PC2-5400) memory modules. Shipping immediately in limited quantities, Kingston offers HyperX DDR2 modules tested to run at PC2-4300 and PC2-5400.
• AMD64 3700+ Mobile Processor Released - AMD Athlon 64 processor 3700+ for desktop-replacement notebooks is the most advanced PC processor designed for notebook computing, offering outstanding 32-bit power today plus compatibility with tomorrow's 64-bit software.
• Canon Develops New Digicams - Canon USA introduced five digital cameras and two new accessories. The cameras include the 7.1MP PowerShot S70, the 8.2MP EOS 20D SLR model, and the PowerShot A400, A85, and A95. The new accessories include the Speedlite 580EX flash and the Compact Battery Pack CP-E3. The EOS 20D, which will arrive in September, offers resolution up to 3504 x 2336 pixels, five frames per second burst shooting, a DIGIC II image processor, a nine-point auto-focus system, a shutter speed that tops out at 1/8000 of a second, six preset white balance settings with the option to create a custom one, and more.
• Nforce 4 details leak - Acccording to TheInquirer, the first, Nforce 4 will be an entry level chipset and it won't feature high end features but should be a good performer.. The Nforce 4 Ultra will add some additional functionality such as a S-ATA II and will add 3 Gbit/s transfer. Hard drives that support this option should be ready around them. Nforce 4 Ultra will have firewall options - something that Nvidia is pushing hard. The third chipset, Nforce 4 SLI, will, as the name suggests have SLI support and will finally offer a dual slot PCI Express motherboard where you can potentially use two graphic cards. Two Nvidia cards, as SLI is Nvidia only at this time, or should we say ex-3DFX. The last, the Nforce 4 Pro, will have support for two Opteron CPUs and will be used for workstation and server market and AMD is definitely picking up on this market segment.
• Socet 754 MB shootout - All three boards have design flaws with Albatron again scoring the best by a small margin. The K8X800 Pro II had the greatest amount of room for large heatsinks out of the three and while a small clearance between the AGP slot and the RAM is an inconvienience, it's definetely not enough to take much away from a great board.
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT PCI Express review - The NV45 chip that the PCI Express GeForce 6800 GT is based upon is also said to bring some enhancements over the NV40 chip, that the AGP GeForce 6800's used, however given the game and shaders tests here it would appear that none of these enhancements relate to the 3D core as there is no performance difference between the NV40 GeForce 6800 GT and the NV45 6800 GT.
• OCZ DDR Booster Diagnostic Device - The OCZ DDR Booster is definitely one amazing product. It does what it was made to do. It allows users to increase voltage to memory without the need to do any voltage modifications. It is easy and simple to use. The best part of the device is that it draws power from the 5v rail rather than the 3.3v rail.
• Samsung SyncMaster 213T 21.3" LCD Monitor review - The performance of the 213T is superb. There are zero dead pixels, the image quality is excellent, and there is an extremely small amount of ghosting when gaming. I had the pleasure of playing Doom 3 on this display and it was a truly beautiful experience. The colors displayed were vibrant and alive; never a point where the image seemed fuzzy or distorted. Due to the slow frame rate caused by the demanding visuals of Doom 3, there was no noticeable ghosting during game play.
• NVIDIA&ATI DOOM 3 Performance Test - By now it is clear that the move to make the Radeon X800 Pro a 12 pipeline product could have been a mistake given the competitions product. From a marketing stance, the Radeon X800 Pro makes sense. It's cheaper than the Radeon X800XT and the reasons for this are obvious. The GeForce 6800 GT on the other hand is a typical NVIDIA product. It is cheaper than the GeForce 6800 Ultra, yet there is really no difference in products here. Yes of course the GeForce 6800 Ultra carries higher clock speeds, but as we have seen in the past, GeForce 6800 GT cards are able to overclock to meet Ultra specifications. Therefore, NVIDIA's flagship product is not as easily justified and they are not really protecting their loyal high-end buyers.
• Aerocool VM-101 VGA Heatpipe Cooler review - 3DXtreme has posted a review of silent cooling system for VGA cards, the VM-101.
• LCD Screen Burn - A Warning - Ever hear of screen burn on a LCD monitor? Chances are that you haven't. Most people believe that LCD screens can't get screen burn. Do a search of the Internet and you'll see hundreds of articles comparing LCD to CRT (cathode ray tubes) monitors and you'll find that one of the advantages of LCD monitors is that they don't suffer from screen burn like CRT monitors do. Well, I also believed that LCD's couldn't get screen burn until about 2 months ago when I made a horrifying finding. There was a afterimage on my Dell 2001FP LCD monitor in the exact shape of my Windows wallpaper. Did my LCD just get screen burned? Noooo!!!!! It can't be!!!!
• CPU Cheatsheet - Seven Years of Covert CPU Operations - For this first installment, AnandTech have attempted to gather details on clock frequencies, bus speeds, cache sizes, transistor counts, and a few other items, as well as the code names for the processors..
• NV40 Technology explained - The folks at 3DCenter have posted the first installment of their look at the NV40 pipeline.
• Jarad's Guide to Overclocking - EB's Forum member uberl33tjarad (aka Jarad) has created a rather nifty beginners guide to overclocking. The guide is packed full of useful hints and tips, so is well worth a read for anyone wanting to take a plunge into the world of overclocking.
• A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.7.1  - 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.
• The Complete BIOS Optimization Guide Rev. 8.0 Final  - Adrian Rojak has updated his premier BIOS optimization guide to 8.0 Final.
• ATI Catalyst 4.8 and 4.9 BETA Doom 3 Performance Analysis - The only reason you would upgrade to the latest 4.8 drivers from ATI is if you are playing a lot of Doom 3 at the moment - at 1024 X 768 there is definitely a performance increase and while the 4 or 5 FPS might not seem like much, when working out the percentage it can be as high as a 10% performance increase in the new shooter.
• Matroska Pack Full, Lite and MPEG4 1.0.3 - The famous full pack, not only for playing matroska media files, but it will also allow playback of most modern video formats on any DirectShow player, even with WMP 6.4/7/8/9 ( Windows Mediaplayer.
• IrfanView 3.92 - IrfanView (download) is a very fast freeware (for non-commercial use) 32-Bit graphic viewer for Windoze 9x/ME, WinNT, Win2000 and Windows XP.
• KlipFolio 2.6 - Serence KlipFolio (download) is a free information delivery and notification application that lets you view and manage Klip information services right on your desktop.
• Hmonitor 4.1.4.4 - Hmonitor has much more functions than MotherBoard Monitor, for example, including thermocontrol features and COM/PerfMon API support.
• DU Meter 3.06 Build 186 - DU Meter (download) is an utility from Hagel Technologies which provides an accurate account of the data which is flowing through your computer's network connection at any given moment.
• XP-AntiSpy 3.83 - A new version of XP-AntiSpy is available for download.
• Forceware 66.00 WinXP/2000 (leaked drivers) - The files are dated on the 12 August 2004 and will work with the entire range of Nvidia graphics cards and hey .. check out these entries: NVIDIA_NV43.DEV_0140.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT", NVIDIA_NV43.DEV_0141.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6600", NVIDIA_NV43.DEV_0145.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6610 XL"

• New Download.Ject Attack Serves Up Porn - A new version of June's Download.Ject attack is hitting users through a pair of instant messaging services, planting backdoors on fully-patched Windows XP PCs, and serving victims with a diet of porn ads. According to Thor Larholm, a senior security researcher at Newport Beach, Calif.-based PivX Solutions, the new attack is probably the work of the same group of hackers who launched the original Download.Ject assault in June.
• Programs that connect to IP addresses that are in the loopback address range may not work as you expect in WinXP SP2 - This problem occurs if the program connects to a loopback address other than 127.0.0.1. Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) prevents connections to all IP addresses that are in the loopback address range except for 127.0.0.1.
• Vulnerability in the IDirectPlay4 API Could Allow Denial of Service - A denial of service vulnerability exists in the implementation of the IDirectPlay4 API of Microsoft DirectPlay due to a lack of robust packet validation. If a user is running a networked DirectPlay application, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could cause the DirectPlay application fail. The application would need to be restarted in order to resume functionality.
• Off-topic: Hummer PC - This project started with a 1/6th scale RC Hummer from NewBright Toys . The idea was to build a fully functioning gaming computer - but to also be able to unhook all the peripherals and drive the truck around, when I got bored and needed a break.
• Off-topic: Swedish "paper computer" maker attracts investors -Cypak AB, a company developing radio frequency identification, processing and communication technology applications, has received 30 million Swedish Krona (about $4 million) from the Swedish Industrial Development Fund and IT Provider, a venture capital group.  While other RFID companies have pursued RFID sensors working with fixed infrastructure, Cypak wants to embed RF powered microcontrollers in paper products to enable monitoring and control functions in a wide variety of paper-based applications.
• Off-topic: Olympians Banned From Blogging - The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, as well as coaches, support personnel and other officials, from writing firsthand accounts for news and other Web sites. An exception is if an athlete has a personal Web site that they did not set up specifically for the Games.
• Apple recalls 28,000 PowerBook G4 batteries - Apple has recalled 28,000 of the batteries used in its 15in aluminium PowerBook G4 laptop computers sold earlier this year in the US and via its online and retail stores, after receiving four reports of the batteries overheating. Apple has reported the fault to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The CPSC said yesterday that an internal short triggers the fault, causing the lithium ion rechargeable batteries to overheat.
• LCD price cuts on the rise due to oversupply - Prices are expected to fall for 17 and 19 inch Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) TV panels based on Thin Film Technology (TFT), according to a report by Electronic News. Low demand in the first half of 2004 has forced suppliers to reduce demand forecasts in the year. "Despite an increase in large sized LCD panel unit shipments of 17 percent in the second quarter compared to the first, demand fell short of expectations, spurring an oversupply in the market," stated the Global LCD Supply and Demand-Q204 report from iSuppli/Stanford Resources.
• Intel, AMD Prepare Chip Price Cuts - Intel's high-end Pentium 4 models clocked at 3.00GHz – 3.60GHz shipping in either LGA775 or mPGA478 packaging will decrease pricing by about 18% - 35%, sources claimed. The Pentium 4 560 (3.60GHz) will cost $417 starting from the 23rd of August, whereas lower-speed versions, such as 3.40GHz, 3.20GHz and 3.00GHz will be priced at $278, $218 and $178 respectively. Intel's Celeron and Celeron D chips will also become more affordable by about 6.7% - 13.5%.  AMD will also slash its prices by aggressive margin of up to about 30% - 35% to either match or beat the prices of competing Intel's products.
• OCZ Technology Overclocks DDR2 to 766MHz - OCZ Technology said Friday it had managed to overclock its DDR2 SDRAM memory modules to 766MHz, a speed-bin that has never been achieved so far.
• ATI RV410 to ship in October - ATI will launch its would-be GeForce 6600 GT beater late next month or early October, sources from among Taiwan's graphics card companies have claimed. Like other X800-derived chips, RV410 is expected to be PCI Express native, as are Nvidia's GeForce 6600 and 6600 GT. The ATI part will sport eight pixel pipelines and six vertex engines, reports suggest, and operate a 128-bit memory bus clocked to 500MHz for an effective 1GHz with DDR SDRAM. The core is also clocked to 500MHz. Like the 6600 it will be fabbed at 110nm by TSMC.
• Taiwanese Makers Open Up 16x DVD Burners - The latest DVD burner from ASUS, DRW-1604P, is capable of recording DVD±R discs at 16x, DVD±RW discs at 4x, DVD+R DL (Dual Layer) at 4x, CD-R discs at 32x, CD-RW discs at 24x and also read DVD-ROM and CD-ROM discs at 16x and 40x speeds respectively. The optical disc drive is equipped with technologies aimed to avoid buffer underrun and other errors while writing. Pioneer's DVR-A08XLA recorder boasts the same specification, as ASUSTeK is an OEM supplier for Pion
• Doom 3 vs. Half Life 2: Regardless of Which is Better, We All Lose. - We may be on the cusp of a new sea change in gaming, but unlike all the others I'm not sure this one is a positive change. With the launch of Doom 3 two weeks ago and Half Life 2 (supposedly) going gold in roughly a week it looks as though we're entering a new era of "Optimized" Gaming where hardware and software manufacturers work hand-in-glove to ensure titles are absolutely optimized for their own technology.
• Counter Strike: Source: Performance Preview  - Valve Software has just released its demo of Counter Strike: Source along with Half-Life 2 stress test for gamers around the globe to evaluate their six years work on the new incarnations of the world's most-popular game titles. Specially for gamers and hardware enthusiasts X-bit Labs decided to compare different graphics cards in a yet another "judgment test".
• NForce 3 Motherboard Roundup - After many months of waiting, NForce 3 has finally arrived for the desktop market. Three variations of the chipset are commonplace now, the 150, 250 and 250Gb. Aside from 250Gb supporting Socket 939, the only real difference between the vanilla 250 and the Gb variant is the addition of Gigabit LAN. 150 loses out on the NVidia SATA RAID, which is a shame; but in reality the price delta between 150 and 250 will probably make the 250 the no-brainer choice for enthusiasts.
• Athlon 64 Motherboard Round Up (Socket 754) - All of the motherboards in this round up are good boards and will suit anyone building a new machine, or upgrading an old one. The question, is finding the one that suits your needs and budget the best.
• Valve Stress Test - Radeon X800 Pro vs GeForce 6800GT - Elite Bastards benchmarked the Radeon X800 Pro and GeForce 6800GT - using this new test, as well as throwing some 6800 Ultra scores into the mix for good measure. They've tested using a host of different settings, as well as taken a look at the performance hit the two cards have with varying levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled.
• Hitachi's 7K400 Hard Drive Capacity Reaches 400-GB, Maxtor's MaXLine III Advances Serial ATA - Hard drive maker big guns are slowly but surely boosting capacity and adding new features. THG looks at Hitachi's latest drive, which now boasts 400-GB capacity, and Maxtor's newest, which offers native Serial ATA with command queuing features.
• SATA-roundup - 160 GB - Nordic Hardware has posted a 160GB SATA harddisk roundup.
• Belkin Hi-Speed USB2.0 8-in-1 Media Reader/Writer - TrustedReviews have posted a review of the Belkin Hi-Speed USB2.0 8-in-1 Media Reader/Writer.
• Sharp LL-171A-B 17in TFT monitor review - On the subject of ports, the LL-171A-B is an analogue only monitor. No DVI port is available here, just a D-SUB one to marry up with your graphics card. This has obviously kept the cost down and at under L260 pounds (at the time of writing) the price is not that bad.
• Eumax Titan Notebook Cooler review - For around $20 the Eumax Titan notebook fan pad is a cheap investment for those that worry about overheating their hardware or burning their lap.
• Microsoft's XP Professional X64 Edition Gaming Performance - Build 1218 is a major step forward for Microsoft's 64-bit Windows program, as we're finally starting to see performance increases over today's 32-bit Windows XP variants. This could be due to optimizations on the OS level, the addition of 64-bit DirectX 9.0 components, nVidia's 64-bit Forceware drivers, or a combination of all of the above. While performance varies from application to application, many applications and games are now seeing noticeable performance boosts under 64-bit Windows. While the performance boosts are not up to par with the 15-20% boost which AMD promised in the past, we're certainly seeing steps in the right direction. For comparison, all of the previous Windows XP 64-bit builds we've previewed at GamePC have more or less shown performance decreases compared to their 32-bit equivalents.
• NV40 Technology Explained - This article at 3DCenter.org explains how NV40's pipelines work – and why Nvidia designed them this way. Part two will explain how to take full advantage of the pipelines. Part three will discuss Shader Model 3.0 and other features.
• Guide to Vertical Synchronization, Triple Buffering, and Temporal Anti-Alias - Team Radeon has just published an in-depth guide to Vertical Synchronization, Triple Buffering, and Temporal Anti-Alias.
• Windows XP SP2 and Prescott CPU Compatibility Issues? - Warp2Search is reporting that there are possible issues with Windows XP builds after installing SP2. While using Prescott core CPUs, as soon as they install SP2 and reboot, the system hangs at the Windows splash screen. Changing the CPU to a non-Prescott version corrects the problem.
• Iometer 2004.07.30 - Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. This release adds ports to NetWare on i386, Linux on PowerPC, and Linux on XScale. It features enormous code changes due to code cleanup and portability enhancements and an optional Linux kernel module to reduce even more the system overhead to capture the performance statistics.
• BitComet 0.54 - BitComet (download) is a p2p file-sharing freeware fully compatible with Bittorrent, which is one of the most popular p2p protocol designed for high-speed distribution of 100MB or GB sized files.
• WinRAR 3.40 Beta 5 - WinRAR (changelog ~ Win32 ~ DOS ~ Linux) is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.
• Fresh UI 7.17 - Fresh UI (download) is the fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings, this software covers the customizing and optimizing technique that you'll be glad to know: Customizing Windows User Interface, Optimizing system settings, Optimizing hardware settings, Customizing Windows application settings, and Control user environment with policies.
• ATITool v0.0.21 - ATITool is an overclocking utility designed for ATI video cards. Design target is to write a light-weight application for the enthusiast - so no questionable registry tweaks.
• ATI Radeon DNA-drivers 2.8.4.8a  - 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.

• New Worm Travels by IM -  A new version of the worm that spread from infected Microsoft Web servers in June has been identified and is using instant messages and infected Web sites in Russia, Uruguay, and the United States to spread itself, according to one security company. Researchers at PivX Solutions of Newport Beach, California, have intercepted new malicious code closely resembling that from widespread attacks in June attributed to a worm named "Scob" or "Download.ject." The new attacks use mass-distributed instant messages to lure Internet users to Web sites that distribute malicious code similar to Download.ject, says Thor Larholm, senior security researcher at PivX.
• Yahoo fixes two flaws in mail system - Yahoo fixed two flaws in its free mail system that could have allowed a malicious user to read a victim's browser cookies and change the appearance of some pages, Yahoo said Thursday.
• Microsoft Patches the Patch - This first hotfix for Windows XP SP2 patches a problem that SP2 creates for some users of virtual private networks, telecommunications software that is generally used to let workers connect securely--usually to a corporate computer--from a remote location such as home or the road. The good news is that very few users actually need this patch, according to Ryan Burkhardt, lead program manager for Windows XP SP2 at Microsoft. Additionally, most, if not all, affected VPN users will get the hotfix through their employer's IT department.
• Microsoft downplays XP SP2 flaw claims - Microsoft has won the first round against security researchers digging for flaws in its Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), dismissing claims by German consultants to have identified vulnerabilities. Heise Security said that flaws in the configuration of XP after implementing SP2 could allow files to be downloaded onto a client PC without the user's consent by bypassing the new warning procedure for downloading files. But the researchers admitted these holes were mainly theoretical and that no code yet exists to exploit them anyway. Microsoft has said it does not consider the areas identified as issues that it would develop patches or workarounds to address.
• Windows XP SP2 Guides and Tools -  A few guides and tools some of you might be interested in checking out after you install Windows XP pro SP2: Group Policy Settings Reference, Group Policy Settings Reference for .adm files, Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install.
• Microsoft Exchange Information Store service crashes periodically after you install Exchange Server 2003 SP1 - This problem may occur when there is a malformed e-mail message or other malformed item in the information store. Additionally, the processing of parameters in a HTML close tag may cause the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service to crash. A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article.
• Judges rule file-sharing software legal - Following the lead of a lower-court decision last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles said on Thursday that peer-to-peer software developers were not liable for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products, as long as they had no direct ability to stop the acts. (Download the decision.)
• Microsoft, EA launch FIFA interactive soccer cup - Microsoft Corp. joined forces with computer games giant Electronic Arts Inc. and FIFA to launch an interactive soccer tournament on Thursday they hope will boost online gaming. Kicking off in October, the FIFA Interactive World Cup will be a series of tournaments played around the world both over the Internet and offline under the auspices of world soccer's governing body, with the final in December.
• Two of three new Motorola smartphones are Linux-based - Motorola introduced a lineup of smartphone models for the second half – the A768i and A780 with Motorola’s new Linux smartphone OS and the MPx220 – in Japan yesterday. The three models will be launched in the second half of this year.
• AMD sneaks strained silicon into chips - Advanced Micro Devices has begun to incorporate a form of strained silicon into its chips, a design twist that will let the company increase the performance of its processors. Strained silicon is a design technique in which silicon atoms are forcibly pulled apart from each other. With the atoms spaced out further from one other, electrons can move more rapidly, similar to how a hockey puck can zip faster across a rink than across a frozen lake. Faster electrons lead to better performance.
• OCZ 2GB PC3200 Performance Series Dual-Channel Kit review - If you can honestly find a meaningful use for 2GB of unbuffered memory, OCZ's L400 dual-channel pack is as good as any. We'd pair it with AMD's new S939 Athlon 64 FX-53 and ATI's Radeon X800 XT PE. That would lead to a multi-purpose system that's equally at home with the most demanding of games and adept at handling professional image and rendering applications. For most users, though, it's one of those options you select when deciding on your dream system. 2GB of system RAM has its uses, sure, but they are few and far between for most of us.
• HIS Excalibur X800 Pro - VIVO Edition with IceQ II review - HotHardware.com a posted a review of the HIS Excalibur X800 Pro - VIVO Edition with IceQ II video card. Another review can be found at ViperLair.
• TDK Indi DVD 1280B 12x DVD±RW review - CDRLabs have posted a review on the TDK Indi DVD 1280B 12x DVD±RW. The drive is based on Lite-On's new 12x DVD±RW, the TDK Indi DVD 1280B is capable of 12x DVD+R, 8x DVD-R and 4x DVD±RW writing speeds and can read DVD's at speeds as high as 12x.
• Plextor PX-712SA SATA DVD±RW Writer - Bjorn3D looks at one of the first SATA DVD drives when they look at the Plextor PX-712SA SATA DVD±RW Writer.
• Zalman "Totally No Noise" enclosure review - Xbit labs has posted a detailed review of Zalman's "Totally No Noise" TNN500A enclosure. The TNN500A has a passively-cooled power supply and enough cooling fins, heat pipes, and slugs to cool a system's hard drives, processor, and even graphics chip in silence.
• SanDisk 256MB + Wi-Fi SD Card review - This SD card combines flash memory and wireless communications into a single card giving a PDA the freedom to quickly transmit and receive data, images and music over Wi-Fi. The SanDisk 256MB + Wi-Fi SD has to be the smallest Wi-Fi card in the world. The unit measures just 57mm long x 24mm wide x 2.1mm deep and weighs next to nothing. I'm still in awe that SanDisk was able to combine both Wi-Fi and 256MB of flash memory into a package so small.
• Half-Life 2 Stress Test Benchmarked - Zone Hardware has posted benchmarks using Valve's Half-Life 2 Stress Test.
• EventID 4226 patcher - After almost everybody knows the [EventID 4226: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts]. A couple weeks ago, LvlLord has created a fix for this argumentative feature. (thanks Warp2search)
• KDE 3.3 Officially Released - KDE 3.3 has been released (changelog)
• Yahoo! Messenger 6.0.0.1750 - Yahoo!'s Instant Messenger service has been updated again.
• SecureCRT 4.1.8 (shw) - SecureCRT (download) gives you an encrypted SSH session with both SSH1 and SSH2™ servers. SSH security goes far beyond the basic secure logon, rerouting data or local applications using TCP/IP ports through an encrypted channel. The VCP utility secures file transfers using SFTP.
• SecureFX 2.2.7 (shw) - The SecureFX client (download) application lets you choose between SFTP or FTP over an encrypted SSH2 connection for secure transfers, or standard FTP for non-secure transfers. It has a simple Explorer-like interface, so it's easy to learn and use.
• SpeedFan 4.15 - SpeedFan (download) 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 for those hard disks that support this feature (almost all :-)) and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some motherboards.
• Nero Recode 2.1 - Nero Recode 2.1, available now via a free download to Nero 6 Ultra Edition users, literally leaves the competition in the dust, with unmatchable video recoding speeds (DVD-9 to DVD-5 and MPEG-4 recoding).
• NvFlash Tool 5.06 - Station-Drivers have posted a new Nvidia Nvflash utility version 5.06 to flash your video card BIOS.
• RadLinker 1012 - RadLinker is new tweaker/linker for ATI Radeon based graphics cards

Shocked is one word that comes to mind looking at these results. Where Nvidia has beaten ATI by a reasonable margin in Doom3 the results completely reverse and then some on the Source engine, a 30% performance difference ( 74fps to 52fps ) is, to be honest, a massive dissapointment if your a Geforce 6800 Ultra user. We had fully expected to have a very close contest when running the benchmarks however that has not proven to be the case, hopefully Nvidia have a new driver in the works that will bump up performance enough to make things competitive.

• Unprotected PCs hit by viruses in minutes - Network worms can get onto a PC within minutes of connecting to the internet, according to security researchers at the Sans Institute. The "survival time" for an unpatched PC connected to the internet averaged 20 minutes in 2004, compared to 40 minutes the year before. Users of broadband, or poorly secured public networks, would be infected much more quickly, in under 10 minutes after connecting in some cases.
• Two flaws in Windows XP SP2 - With Service Pack 2, Microsoft introduces a new security feature which warns users before executing files that originate from an untrusted location (zone) such as the Internet. There are two flaws in the implementation of this feature: a cmd issue and the caching of ZoneIDs in Windows Explorer. The Windows command shell cmd ignores zone information and starts executables without warnings. Virus authors could use this to spread viruses despite the new security features of SP2. Windows Explorer does not update zone information properly when files are overwritten. So it can be tricked to execute files from the internet without warning.
• Off-topic: Star Wars on DVD - Fox plans to ship millions of the four-disc collection ($70) to retailers, many of which have special promotions rewarding those who preorder the DVDs before the release Sept. 21. Despite high interest, Star Wars is a dark horse to be the year's top seller. This summer's box office smashes Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2 are due on DVD by year's end. Another possible top seller, The Passion of the Christ, is due Aug. 31. In addition to the three films in George Lucas' original trilogy, the box set has a documentary about the films.
• Off-topic: World's Lightest Micro-Flying Robot - Seiko Epson Corporation today announced that it has successfully developed a lighter and more advanced successor to the FR, the world's smallest and lightest micro-flying robot.
• European Xbox Price Cut less than L100 - Microsoft today announced new European pricing at a press conference from the Leipzig Games Convention. As of Friday 27th August the Xbox will retail at an estimated street price of L99.99 (149.99 Euro) With this new pricing, even more European gamers, casual and otherwise, will be able to enjoy Xbox this Christmas, said Eduardo Rosini, regional vice president for Xbox EMEA.
• Intel plans to slash CPU prices - According to a report at TheInquirer, Intel is prepping a big price cut on its processors for next week, on August 22. The range of Pentium 4s will then stretch over 600MHz, from 3.0 to 3.6GHz. The higher echelons of P4 chips will see massive price slashes, as the Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz drops from $637 to "only" $417. The P4 550 3.4GHz will approach the sweet spot as it drops from $417 to $278, and the P4 540 3.2GHz will drop to $218.
• ATI preparing RV410 mainstream GPU? - Rather unexpectedly, ATI’s code-named RV410 graphics processor is said to resemble NVIDIA’s higher-end flavour of the GeForce 6600 family in terms of specifications. The new mainstream chip from ATI will have 8 pixel pipelines, 6 vertex pipelines and native support for PCI Express x16 bus. The technology will inherit feature-set of the RADEON X800-series products and will sport such technologies as Shader Model 2.0b, 3Dc and other, according to a report from HKEPC.com web-site.
• AMD unveils Athlon 64 3700+ DTR - AMD has released its latest Athlon 64 processor, a second 3700+ part, this time aimed at desktop-replacement notebooks rather than desktop PCs. Available now, the DTR 3700+ costs $500 per processor when sold in batches of 1000 chips. The 3700+ is clocked to 2.4GHz and contains 1MB of L2 cache, according to an HP spec sheet for its Compaq Presario R3000Z, one of the first machines to contain the new CPU. HP is also building the part into its Pavilion zv5000z, and VoodooPC has confirmed it will offer the 3700+ too
• Acer Ferrari 3200 Athlon 64 notebook review - Acer has backed this with 512MB of RAM, though this is supplied on two sticks so there's no further room for expansion in the current configuration. It's also only DDR 333 which makes it an odd match for the Via K8T800 chipset and CPU, which runs at 400MHz. In terms of graphics horsepower, the Acer is equipped with Mobility Radeon 9700 GPU with a full 128MB of dedicated memory. This can't quite claim to the be latest thing in mobile graphics since the announcement of the Mobility Radeon 9800, but in terms of what you can buy right now that 9700 is still hot stuff.
• AJP D500E Gaming Notebook - Driving the D500E is a P4 3.4GHz chip, not an Extreme Edition like the one found in the XTR-3.4EE, though it does pretty much match the M:860 and has with a full megabyte of Level 2 cache. It also comes with 512MB RAM as opposed to the 1GB that ships with each of its rivals and the capacious 80GB hard drive spins at 4,200rpm instead of 7,200rpm.
• Doom III: Performance and Image Quality in Different Gaming Modes - X-bit Labs decided to compare a plethora of graphics cards using five demos and different quality settings of the Doom III title. The article brings you performance numbers and image quality analysis that should help you to decide which are the best settings of Doom III game for your graphics card in terms of quality and speed.
• Connect3D Radeon X800XT PE review - The X800 is a rare bird by today's standard's. It's elegantly engineered to do what it has to do with minimal extra power requirements, with minimal extra space requirements and with minimal cooling onboard.
• MSI RX600XT-TD128 PCI Express review  -The MSI RX600XT-TD128 flew through all the benchmarks we ran, and performed quite well at 1024x768. Higher resolutions might be out of the question depending on the application, but if you find the card a bit slow, simply overclock it. Our particular card was able to hit a very respectable 610 MHz core, and 438 MHz memory. Despite the added stress, the MSI RX600XT-TD128 is completely silent during operation, and you will not hear it when it's installed into a case.
• Pioneer's DVR-A08XLA Jumps to 4x Dual Layer Speeds - The arrival of a new generation of DVD burners from Pioneer usually heralds new upgrades across the feature spectrum, and the vendor's DVR-A08XLA DVR-108 is no different. With speeds of 16x for writing and 4x for re-writing, dual-layer 4x speeds for 2.4 media also represent a pleasant surprise.
• LiteON SOHW-1213S review - The SOHW-1213S drive bundles an impressive assortment of DVD authoring software and recording applets for creation of data, music, and video discs. This includes Ahead’s Nero Express 6, Nero Vision Express, and PowerDVD from Cyberlink. For sheer simplicity and power, these applications are ideally suited to meet a wide range of consumer requirements for the creation and playback of DVDs, VCDs, and SVCDs.
• Double-Stuff DVDs roundup - PCMag take a look at 9 dual-layer DVD recorders that let you cram 8.5 billion bytes onto a single disc
• Samsung Yepp-55i Audio Player review - Accelenation has posted a review of the Samsung Yepp-55i audio player.
• Catalyst 4.8 Driver Comparison - In this comparison we don't want to test the improvements in games or bug fixes, but the increase in speed with the newer versions. Beyond that we also tested the modded drivers Omega, DNA, Forsage, NGO and Unian, but not the beta-versions.
• Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer V1.2.1 - There's a new MBSA 1.2.1 (download) which is needed for Windows XP SP2 compatibility.
• PowerArchiver 2004 9.01 - PowerArchiver (download) is an award-winning archive utility for the Windows family of products that provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools though an easy to use interface that seamlessly integrates with Windows Explorer.
• Netscape 7.2 - A new version of the popular browser Netscape v7.2 (download win32 ~ linux) has been released.
• NetAdjust Anonymous Proxy 5.1 - NetAdjust Anonymous Proxy (download trial) is an Internet utility to let you browse the Web anonymously by hiding your IP number.
  When you surf the Internet your unique identification number (IP number) can be detected by any Website you visit
• AeroBrowser Beta 1 Refresh 2 - AeroBrowser is a free, streamlined web browser designed to simplify your web browsing experience. It's spyware free, fast, and skinnable.
• SiSoft Sandra Standard 2004.SP2b (2004.7.9.133) - SiSoftware Sandra (download) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software, and other devices whether hardware or software.
• Spirit Driver V1.5 drivers - Spirit Driver V1.5 are based on Official Catalyst 4.8. This new version features "Best quality in 2D,3D; D3D/OGL Optimizations (Far Cry , DOOM3,BF Vietman,BF 1942,Sacred,Lock On,IL2,Splinter cell 1 et 2,UT2004,Rainbow Six 3,etc..); Bug fix Radeon 9600; 9800XT softmod is back; DivX/DVD/SVCD... optimizations; X800 Softmod has been turn off and Bugs Fixed (Halo,Deus EX 2).

• Windows XP SP2 via Auto Update postponed - According to Bink.nu, the machines in your organization using Automatic Update will not receive Windows XP SP2 until Wednesday, August 25 – at the earliest – as long as those machines are running Windows XP Professional Edition.
• Complete List of Bugs Fixed in SP2 - Microsoft has published the complete list of bugs fixed in Service Pack 2.  
• Does That Web Site Look Phishy? - A new software tool from WholeSecurity can spot fraudulent Web sites used in online cons known as "phishing" scams, according to a statement from the company. The new product, called Web Caller-ID, can detect Web pages dressed up to look like legitimate e-commerce sites. WholeSecurity is marketing the technology to banks, credit card companies, and online retailers as a way to prevent unwitting customers from accessing false sites, to reduce fraud, and increase confidence in online commerce, the company says.
• Off-topic: A little porn is "good for you" - Pornography is good for people, the academic leading a taxpayer-funded study of the subject said yesterday, as the Coalition and Labor traded jibes about an Opposition push to stop online porn reaching home computers. Dr McKee said porn users reported it had taught them "to be more relaxed about their sexuality" and marriages were healthier, while porn made people think about another person's pleasure and made them less judgmental about body shapes.
• Works 8 First Look - The new version gives the word processor a new dictionary, and it integrates Microsoft's free PowerPoint Viewer (which previously had to be downloaded separately). But more important than any new features in the package are the functions and tools it does very well without. The word processor supports both .doc and .rtf files, as well as other standard formats. Likewise, the suite's spreadsheet lets you save worksheets in Excel's .xls format.
• Activator will grant your phone eternal life - The Activator works by preventing the generation of the waste that builds up in batteries as they are used. The waste reduces the lifespan and the efficiency of the battery, but the Activator works against that. Apparently, it's easy to use – all you need do is slap it onto your mobile battery, and it goes to work. batterylife AG also says this particular battery solution works well every time you stick it on, unlike other so-called "magic patches."
• Taiwan to produce a new type of memory storage device - The cards will be able to transfer 120MB of data per second, 10 times faster than Secure Digital (SD) memory cards, sources said. Additional features for the new card include USB 2.0 compatibility, low power, fast I/O and a compatible interface with existing memory cards, the sources added.  The card will target applications including PCs, handsets, digital still cameras, digital video recorders and MP3 players. Mass production for the new card will begin in early 2005.
• AMD extends Opteron warranty to three years - The Opterons are three year warranty components and packed for retail purposes, but don't come with a heatsink nor with a fan. But they do replace both the boxed and tray components of yore. Oddly, this only apples to Opterons, and not to Athlon 64s, nor to Sempr0ns.
• AMD ships 90-nanometer Mobile Athlon 64 - AMD announced today that it is achieving a smooth transition to 90 nanometer (nm) manufacturing and has shipped low-power 90nm Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processors for thin and light notebooks (previously codenamed "Oakville") for revenue. Manufacturers are expected to launch systems based on the new 90nm Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processors in the coming months.
• Intel delays first TV chip - The Santa Clara, Calif., chipmaker said Monday it will not come out with a chip for making inexpensive large televisions this year and that it will rework the chip that has been in development for a later commercial release.
• Nvidia partners bundle Doom 3 - You can get a PNY Verto GeForce 6800 GT Video Card with 256MB DDR3 for recommended $399 with a copy of Doom 3. This is definitely a nice bargain, if you're on the market for an expensive graphics card
• Acer Ferrari 3200 Athlon 64 Notebook review - Acer has backed this with 512MB of RAM, though this is supplied on two sticks so there's no further room for expansion in the current configuration, which is a bit of a shame. It's also only DDR333 which makes it an odd match for the Via K8T800 chipset and CPU, which runs at 400MHz. In terms of graphics horsepower, the Acer is well equipped thanks to a Mobility Radeon 9700 GPU with a full 128MB of dedicated memory.
• Doom 3 Guide @NVNews - NVNews has completed their first installment of their Doom 3 Guide. This version covers the command line, the console, screenshots, frame rate, custom configurations, game settings,  benchmarking, and more.
• Doom 3: Dedicated Server Performance  - My intention in this article is to find out what kind of system resources we should expect to see used with dedicated servers. To retrieve the system usage of a Doom 3 server, I will take a log once ever 60 seconds for 20 minutes. The log file will show Network In/Out, Memory used, and CPU usage. We will be using this info to help us run dedicated servers this winter in at TXGF in dallas.
• Wireless Security - How To Lock Down Your WLAN - How tightly you want to lock down your wireless network depends on your level of paranoia. To help you out The TechZone have prepared a step by step how to on locking down your network from unwanted attacks.
• Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools - The following Support Tools have been updated in Service Pack 2: bitsadmin.exe, extract.exe, httpcfg.exe, iadstools.dll, ipseccmd.exe, netdom.exe, replmon.exe.
• Dark-Tweaker ForceWare 65.62 Performance Comparsion - Dark-Tweaker have posted their benchmarks (->BabelFish translation) for Nvidia's latest Leaked ForceWare 65.62 Drivers plus a performance comparison against ForceWare 56.72 , 61.32 , 61.40 , 61.72 , 61.80, 62.01 and ForceWare 62.11
• Zoom Player 4.02 Final - Zoom Player Standard (download), a flexible feature rich Media Player that for all its features and goodness remains bloat-free. And Zoom Player Professional, which on top of being a great Media Player, incorporates the most powerful DVD Front-End you could imagine (and is even a few features you didn't think of imagining).
• RealPlayer 10.5 Final (Build 6.0.12.1040) - Helix Powered RealPlayer (download) is the all-in-one digital media player that lets you find anything and play everything.
• DVDFab 2.10 (shw) copy DVD-9 in 1:1 mode burn to double layer disc - DVDFab now can copy DVD-9 in 1:1 mode, and remove all the protections (CSS, Region Code, RCE, Macrovision, UOPs), then burn to double layer disc. So you will get a perfect copy without any restriction. /ed.note: DVDShrink can do the job for free :)/
• BitSpirit 2.6.3 - BitSpirit (download) is an easy-to-use BitTorrent client which provides not only full BitTorrent protocol implementation but also many personalization functions.
• ATi MultiMedia Center 9.02 - There's a new version v9.02 of MultiMedia Center (release notes) that was released with Catalyst drivers 4.8 yesterday.

• TransGaming Tagging Downloads to Combat Piracy - It seems that TransGaming is implementing a new watermarking system to combat piracy. For now it seems that every tgz of Cedega 4.0.1 is individually tagged, and this has been frustrating Gentoo users who (like many others) like to be sure their archives are unmodified. Is this the future of software downloads? (thanks Slashdot.org)
• Police warn on key-logging spam Trojan - Police are warning about fake email invoices being used by cyber-criminals to steal online banking details and other information from unsuspecting internet users. Cyber-criminals are attempting to trick users by sending spam emails that look like invoices, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) has warned.
• Maxtor introduces 300GB Diamond Max 10 drives - HardDrive maker MAXTOR said it has started shipping Diamond Max 10 hard drives - the drives use single chip Serial ATA technology. The drives also include native command queuing for dual processors and also come with a 16MB buffer.  The 16MB buffer memory units are only supplied with drives of 250GB and over. A parallel ATA 133 version will be released at the end of this quarter.
• AMD could ship a quad-core Opteron on 2007 - AMD may "potentially" ship its first four-core Opteron processor in 2007, bullish Goldman Sachs analyst Andrew Root has claimed. The chipmaker has to get its dual-core parts out of the door first, of course, and that's not scheduled to take place until H2 2005, once it's ramped up its 90nm yields sufficiently to support the larger die size required of such a processor.
• Problems hit MSI Geforce 6800 Ultra - A lenghthy thread on a forum devoted to MSI products indicates that its NX6800 graphics card is causing freeze ups. The forum, here, details a number of experiences with the card with garbage being displayed on screens. But the problem might be to do with a faulty BIOS. One forum member said that he'd had endless problems with the NX6800 ultra, but eventually took a risk and flashed the BIOS on the card with Nvidia's own reference rev two BIOS.
• New Sound Blaster: EAX 5.0 - Creative labs will hold an in-depth preview of Creative's newest hardware, including an overview of EAX 5.0 and future EAX developments at Creativity 2004: North America in October. (thanks Warp2Search)
• NVIDIA, ATi Bring Five OpenGL Workstation Graphics for PCI Express to Market - The wraps are hardly off PCI Express, and the first OpenGL workstation graphics cards with the interface are ready for purchase. ATi and NVIDIA have released three and two PCI Express cards, respectively, which THG runs through the benchmark mill.
• Radeon X800 Pro - Doom 3 Catalyst performance - To begin, lets see exactly what kind of benefits are seen on the Radeon X800 Pro by using the Catalyst 4.9 betas against the latest official Catalyst 4.7 set. To do this, EliteBastards have used Doom 3's built-in timedemo, run at 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 in high quality mode. This mode automatically sets 8x anisotropic filtering in-game, and testing was also run in each resolution both with and without 4x anti-aliasing enabled.
• OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 (2-2-2-5) Memory review - CoolTechZone has posted an OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 (2-2-2-5) Memory review.
• GeForce 6800 Series Comparison - Beyond3D has posted a GeForce 6800 Series Comparison.
• HIS Radeon 9550 VIVO 128MB review - The 9550 is not the purchase that hardcore gamers will consider. Casual gamers will enjoy the fact that at the "low" stock speeds, games such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Unreal Tournament should play very well in moderate resolutions. Where this card excels is in the Home Theatre PC niche. The output to TV, especially HDTV, provides a crystal-clear picture that must be seen to be believed.
• AOpen DRW8800 8X DVD Burner review - Viper Lair has posted a review on an AOpen DVD burner that burns up to 8x for DVDs.  AOpen has delivered an adequate drive for those of us who require +/- support, and at a very nice price point of $75 USD. Although the drive is not as fast as the ASUS, it is a suitable drive for those of us who don't burn DVDs 24x7 as the MIAA thinks we all do.
• Crucial Gizmo USB 2 Flash Drive review - The new Crucial Gizmo! Hi-Speed version is faster than ever and can move data at speeds up to 480 megabits per second. All that power in a sleek device that you can handily attach to your key ring!
• Enermax Noisetaker EG475AX 475 Watt PSU review - It is safe to say that the EG475AX is one of those enthusiast items: Sleek Metallic Blue color, Gold-plated fan grilles, Silver mesh cable sleeving, Gold-Plated Power connections, Dual cooling Fans with user-adjustable speed, special 4 Pin Molex for high-end GPUs, copper-plated case to reduce EMI, to name a few. Other features include automatic input voltage and frequency sensing, Full ATX 1.3 Compliance including dual 12V rails, SATA-Compliant 3.3V/5V/12V Power Connections, Fan Monitoring Header, Thermally Controlled Fan speed, as well as Overvoltage and Overcurrent protection are built into the unit as well.
• Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU - Innovation is the key to Ultra's success with the X-Connect. From the larger power switch on the back to the Ultra emblem on each cable, every piece was designed with quality and ingenuity. Overall, both the performance and looks of the X-Connect impressed me. Not only does it meet performance expectations of today's enthusiasts, it exceeds them and the visual display is nothing less than amazing. One thing that did disappoint me was the lack of SATA power cables included in the kit itself. I've never much been a fan of having to purchase add-ons. Currently the X-Connect is available for around $125.00 USD (at press time) from Tiger Direct, FrozenCPU and TCWO, which is quite comparable to other 500W power supplies on the market that don't have the "bling" appeal.
• Antec's FanPal review - Like similar geek gifts of this genre, the FanPal is essentially an 80mm fan with a fancy desktop mount used to complement your already rainbowed PC. It comes in a shelf-like package though copper inserts prevent resealing after it's been opened. There's only one flavor to choose from: this silver/aluminum red-green-blue lit doohickey with a grill Spiderman fans are sure to appreciate. It also has an adjustable stand.
• Logitech IO Personal Digital Pen review - The IO has the ability to record whatever you write when writing on the included special digital pen paper. The IO can store up to 40 pages of writing and has enough battery to last for around 25 pages of writing. Just what you need for your next semester of school. Read the full review here.
• Sharkoon 6-in-1 memory reader USB 2.0 - If you want to transfer data from memory sticks in a flash, then the new Sharkoon memory reader might be for you. Sporting a leather carrying bag and small USB cable it looks promising in the feature department, but how does it perform?
• FujiFilm FinePix S7000 camera review - This camera has a 6.3 megapixel effective / 12.3 megapixel recordable CCD; equipped with 6x optical / 3.2x digital zoom, a great menu system, and great image results. Let's see how FujiFilm holds out against the other brands
• Yamada DVX-6600 DivX DVD Player review - The DVX-6600 is the latest multi-format DVD player from Yamada. Unlike most conventional DVD players, this player is capable of playing DVDs, VCDs, DivX, XviD, MPG, MP3, WMA and JPG, which is quite an impressive list.
• Radeon 9800 Pro To Radeon 9800XT Mod Guide Rev. 5.0 - Adrian's Rojak Pot has published rev. 5.0 of the Radeon 9800 Pro To Radeon 9800XT Mod Guide.
• New, redesigned Catalyst to come early September - According to TheInquirer, the next generation Catalyst, possibly based on the 4.9 Catalyst Doom 3 booster, will come on September the second, unless ATI changes its mind after reading this article. The driver will have a whole new interface, very aesthetically designed with a side menu that awfully reminds us of Nvidia's. (thanks blooduk)
• A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.7.1 - This guide will help you improve your overall system performance. I avoid using or recommending "all-in-one" Windows XP Tweak programs since many blindly adjust settings that have no affect on performance and can cause future problems.
• Linux Kernel 2.6.8 - Linux Kernel 2.6.8 has been released.
• PHP 5.0.1 -  This is a maintenance release (changelog) that in addition to many non-critical bug fixes also includes new UNIX and Windows installation docs which are now auto-generated from the PHP Manual.
• [!] VIAHyperion 4-in-1 v4.53 - VIA Hyperion drivers (download ~ installation guide) are suitable for any VIA chipset and all Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. If you are looking for VIA 4in1 drivers, these are the drivers you are looking for. The drivers are compatible with WinME, Win2K, WinXP, Win Server 2003.  This new version includes an update of the inf file from 2.00a to 2.20a. 2.20a adds ids for upcoming chipsets PT890 and K8T890. The new Hyperions also include an updated AGP driver to version 4.43ap1. Mirror: Guru3D.
• DivX Total Pack 1.8 - DivX Total Pack is an essential and useful package that allow you plays every DivX/Xvid and all relative audio streams on every Windows platforms. The package includes Divx 5.2, Xvid 1.01, VP6 6.2.0.10, Divx(Wma), Ac3Filters 0.70b, OggSplitter 0.9.9.6 + CoreVorbis 1.0b6, CoreAAC 1.0b9, Matroska splitter 1.0.2.3, Morgan Stream Switcher 0.97, DirectVobSub 2.33 (only in 2K/Xp unicode system).
• nLite 0.98.7 Beta 2 - nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. So that means that with nLite you will be able to have Windows installation cd which on installation doesn't install, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.
• CPUCooL 7.3.0 - CPUCooL is a program that monitors temperature, fan speed and voltages for many motherboards.
• CPUFSB 2.2.14 - CPUFSB is a small version of CPUCooL. It is for changing the FrontSideBus only. So you have a small tool only one of the the most important freatures of CPUCooL.
• Maxthon (MyIE2) v1.0.0220 Beta - Maxthon (MyIE2) (download beta combo ~ standard) 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.
• A-Ray Scanner v2.0.0.1 - A new version of A-Ray is available (download). This new version adds a few new protections (Added Starforce KeyLess detection, TwinCreator, 3PLock Scan) and bug fixes as always.
PowerStrip 3.53 (shw) - PowerStrip 3.53 (download) provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 9800.
• Adobe Reader SpeedUp v1.28 - For a simpel viewer, Acorbat takes a long time to load and consumes a lot of resources, just to view a PDF. This tool speeds it up. Also handy for Terminal Servers.

• Nero Suite Update 2004-08-13 - The Nero Suite contains: Nero Burning Rom 6.3.1.20 (changelog), Nero Burning Rom 5.5.10.56 (lang),  Nero Burning Rom WMA9 Plug-In 2.0.9.3, Nero Burning Rom WMP Plug-In 1.0.1.5,  Nero Media Player 1.4.0.22b,  NeroMIX 1.4.0.22b,  NeroVision Express 2.1.2.18,  Nero InCD 4.3.0.0 and more.

• Mosquito Trojan set to infect mobiles - Mobile phone users should beware of being bitten by Mosquito, a Trojan masquerading as a game but designed to send out premium-rate SMS messages without the user's consent. One of the first examples of malicious software aimed at mobile phone users, the Trojan has been hidden in a pirated game that describes itself as Mosquito v2.0.
• Top 10 Security Modifications in Windows XP Service Pack 2 - There are plenty of security updates with Service Pack 2, with some more important than others. Here are the top 10 security features and modifications that you can expect.
• The problem with Windows XP SP2 - The DivX problem is going to be repeated on quite a few applications. Anything that generates machine code into a memory buffer and then calls it will be hit, until the authors modify their software to tell Windows what they're doing. The calls for this have existed since the introduction of the Win32 API - it's just that until now, nothing went wrong if you didn't use them.
• Security Update for Exchange 5.5 (KB842436) - A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to run programs and access data on a computer running Microsoft® Exchange Server 5.5. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft.
• Data Execution Prevention (DEP) Test - Starting with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows supports a new security enhancement called Data Execution Prevention (DEP). NXTEST is an application which allows you to check if Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is active on your computer by attempting to execute program code from a data segment, the process heap and the program stack, and reports whether all attempts were prevented by the operating system or not. 
• DVD X Copy Sales Will Fund Piracy Foes - 321 Studios will make a "substantial" financial payment to the motion picture studios it had been battling in court, according to the MPAA. Those funds will be donated to the motion picture industry's antipiracy campaign.
• Korea has over 30 million Internet users - Over 30 million Koreans are now regularly using the internet, according to a survey by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication and the National Internet Development Agency. The country has a population of 45 million. Korea is the fifth country in the world to have topped the 30 million mark, following after the United States, Japan, China and Germany. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Information and Communication announced that there were 30.67 million internet users at the end of June - up from 29.22 million six months ago.
• Portable Internet to Be 10 Times Faster - South Koreans will be able to access the Internet on the go at 10 times faster than they are currently, starting next year thanks to the homegrown WiBro service. The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) on Wednesday said it would issue 2-3 WiBro licenses next February and spectrum usage fees would be set at 3 percent of service providers' annual sales. With the announcement, the outline of the WiBro services was fixed and the mobility-specific Internet will be launched in a full-fledged manner in 2006. WiBro, formerly known as 2.3GHz Internet, promises a downstream speed of around 1 Mbps and seamless mobile connectivity at up to 60 kilometers per hour.
• AMD64 was "The Force" behind Star Wars 3 -  AMD announced that AMD Opteron processor-based servers and workstations are providing the digital backbone for the final Star Wars prequel, Episode III: "Revenge of the Sith." The AMD64 digital processing pipeline at JAK Films, the production company for Star Wars: Episode III, includes pre-visualization and pre-postproduction, which involves 3-D match moving, 3-D modeling, lighting, shading, texturing, compositing and rendering techniques.
• Inkjet Printers Offer Biology Breakthrough - If you think injecting ink into a printer cartridge might damage your printer, try filling it with animal cells. That's what they're doing at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, these days. In the name of science, researchers have developed a way to print sheets of solid animal tissue by filling Hewlett-Packard and Canon inkjet cartridges with animal cells, or "bio-ink."
• Sony to use PlayStation 2 chip in flat-panel TVs - Sony Corp plans to install its high-performance Playstation 2 game console chips in flat-panel TVs due for release this fall, in an apparent effort to catch up with Sharp Corp and other firms in the flat-panel TV market, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported, citing unidentified company sources. The new TVs will be equipped with the same chips used in PlayStation 2 home-use game consoles and PSX DVD recorder/game consoles. Sony fabricates these chips at a group plant in Nagasaki Prefecture.
• Kingston Hyper-X KHX3200ULK2/1G Ultra Low Latency Memory Kit review - MODTHEBOX.COM has posted a review of the Kingston Hyper-X KHX3200ULK2/1G Ultra Low Latency Memory Kit
• Ultra Products Dual Channel 1GB PC4000 Kit review - PimpRig has posted a new review up on a budget friendly pair of PC4000 RAM that performs good to boot.
• AOpen Aeolus GeForce 6800 GT 256MB - There's no doubt in this reviewer's mind that a GeForce 6800 GT represents a better price-to-performance ratio than the Ultra model. To AOpen's credit, we've seen its GT and Ultra cards available at the lower end of the pricing scale, with the reviewed GT version available, albeit in limited quantities, at just under L300 mark. That represents good value when most respected partners' GTs cost up to L30 more.
• GeForce 6800 GT BFGTech vs Leadtek - LeadTeks' approach is a bit more straight-forward with regards to clock rate, however, their massive cooler does scream "overclock me! - it does make the card use up two available slots in the PC and prevents it from fitting into Small Form Factor PCs. It's largely a reference design with regards to the PCB and layout, but LeadTek put its midas touch on it by implanting a huge copper heatsink that wraps around the card cooing both sides.
• GeCube Radeon X800 Pro review - ATIs vertex shaders have always been a cut above the rest, and the X800 Pro is no exception. Despite losing out in the legacy fixed function processing stakes, it shows better performance at all the other shader levels of which it is capable. Despite the addition of Pixel Shader 2.0b for the X800 series, the vertex shaders have remained untouched when it comes to their ability to handle certain VS 2.0a and 3.0 features such as dynamic branching, and thus these tests cannot be run. However, ATIs vertex shader performance is powerful enough to eclipse even the use of dynamic branching under Vertex Shader 3.0 as a performance enhancing feature.
• Connect3D Radeon X800 XT - The clock speeds are pretty standard with the core running at 520MHz and the memory ticking along at 560MHz (1.12GHz effective). Although there's 256MB of memory on board, ATI has foreseen that even this amount of memory may not be enough for future games. As such 3Dc was developed which can compress normal map textures to a ratio of 4:1. This means that larger and more complex normal maps can be used, without running out of texture memory.
• Sapphire Radeon Toxic X800 Pro VIVO - The MSRP for the Toxic X800 Pro VIVO is $469, and that was the price listed at Newegg at the time of this writing. If you aren't interested in VIVO or the other Toxic features, then you might as well save $30-50 and get the regular X800 Pro. Otherwise, if you value all the extra features and nice bundle, then the Toxic X800 Pro VIVO might just be the card for you.
• ABIT RX600XT-PCIE review - Daily-Digital has posted a review of the ABIT RX600XT-PCIE video card.
• Zalman Reserator 1 Fanless Water Cooler review - hardCOREware.net has posted a review on the Zalman Reserator 1 Fanless Water Cooler
• AOpen COM5232 Combo CD-RW/DVD review -  CDRLabs have posted a review on the AOpen COM5232/AAH 52/32/52/16 CD-RW/DVD-ROM.
• Selecting a TFT LCD Monitor for Gaming - D-Silence has posted a new article about selecting a TFT LCD Monitor for Gaming.
• Logitech Pocket Digital 130 Camera review - TechIMO has posted a review of Logitech Pocket Digital 130 Camera.
• OpenGL 2.0 launched with built-in shader language - OpenGL 2.0 was formally launched yesterday and with it the completion of the graphics API's Shading Language specification for vertex- and pixel-shader programming.
• lftp 3.0.7 (linux) - lftp (download) is a sophisticated command line based file transfer program. Supported protocols include FTP, HTTP, SFTP, and FISH. It has a multithreaded design allowing you to issue and execute multiple commands simultaneously or in the background. It also features mirroring capabilities and will reconnect and continue transfers in the event of a disconnection. Also, if you quit the program while transfers are still in progress, it will switch to nohup mode and finish the transfers in the background.
• Style XP 2.12 - Style XP (male ~ female ~ update) 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, Wallpaper, Logons, BootScreens, Icons, and Explorer Bar. This new version add support for WinXP SP2.
• Complete Process Manager 1.0 - Complete Process Manager (download trial) helps you detect the invisible applications which are running in the background and identify them. Furthermore Complete Process Manager helps you detect the startup programs which start automatically whenever you turn on your computer.

• [!] Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Microsoft now has "Windows XP Service Pack 2 Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and Developers" in the Microsoft Download Center. Start updating your desktops now! (Windows XP SP2 English ~ Windows XP SP2 German ~ Windows XP SP2 Network Install ~ 272MB). A minireview of SP2 can be found here. In addition, Microsoft has updated the "Changes to Functionality in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2" guide again.
• AMD says its chips can boost PC security - AMD says it has one-upped rival Intel in computer security by moving more quickly to embrace new features provided by an update to Microsoft's Windows PC operating system.  AMD on Monday trumpeted a chip feature called Enhanced Virus Protection, which works with an update of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system to thwart some viruses and worms--malicious software that devours data or clogs up e-mail servers.
• IBM Just Says No to XP Update - IBM, for one, is holding off on installing the security focused update for Windows XP. In a note headlined "To patch -- or not to patch" posted Friday on its corporate intranet, IBM tells its employees not to download SP2 when it becomes available because of compatibility issues. A copy of the note was obtained by IDG News Service.
• AOL Messenger has highly critical hole - The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error within the handling of "Away" messages and can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by supplying an overly long "Away" message (about 1024 bytes). A malicious website can exploit this via the "aim:" URI handler by passing an overly long argument to the "goaway?message" parameter. Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code on a user's system when e.g. a malicious website is visited with certain browsers.
• Bagle Variant Exacts a 'Price' with Infected Zip Files - Another variant of the ubiquitous Bagle worm is now making its way across the Internet, flooding in-boxes with infected Zip files. The newest member of the Bagle family, named Bagle.AQ, arrives via an e-mail message with a spoofed sending address and no subject line. The only text in the message body is typically one or two words, either "price" or "new price."  The name of the infected Zip file that accompanies the message is some variation on that theme as well. The files often are named Price.zip or New_price.zip, and may have a number appended to the end of the file name.
• New Jersey man investigated in terror probe - The FBI is investigating a man accused of running Web sites that are exact replicas of those used to solicit funds for the Taliban and Chechen mujahedeen, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday by the U.S. attorney's office in New Haven, Connecticut. Law enforcement sources identified the man as Mazen Mokhtar, 36, of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Those sources said Mokhtar is the "specific individual who resides in the United States" referred to in the affidavit as working with Babar Ahmad to solicit funds for the "blocked organizations ... in an effort to support their goals."
• Off-topic: Four dead in Japanese nuclear plant accident - A steam leak at a nuclear power plant northwest of Tokyo has killed four workers and injured at least 10 others, several critically, Japanese media and officials have reported. Those who died were exposed to steam as hot as 200 Celsius (392 Fahrenheit), officials said. The accident was described as the worst ever in terms of deaths at a nuclear facility in Japan.
• Off-topic: Smart glass blocks infrared when heat is on - Glass that blocks out heat but not light when a room starts getting excessively warm has been developed by UK scientists. At most room temperatures the glass lets both visible and infrared light pass through. But above 29°C, a substance coating the glass undergoes a chemical change causing it to block infrared light. This will prevent room from overheating in bright sunshine or if temperatures outside start to soar.
• Sharp Introduces 3-D Computer Display - The Sharp LL-151-3D display, which costs $1,499, allows users to easily switch between 2-D and 3-D modes. The display has a special layer, which, when turned onto 3-D mode, helps to create the illusion of 3-D vision, adding depth to images regardless of whether they were created in 3-D. The special effect is similar to the technology Sharp uses in one of its laptops introduced last year. 
• Fuel Cell Compatibility Considered - The International Electrotechnical Commission has formed a working group to draw up standards that will ensure compatibility between micro fuel-cells, Toshiba says. The company is among several that are developing such devices as alternative power sources for handheld electronic devices. Development of a standard could mean the micro fuel cell could be launched in music players, digital cameras, and other devices as early as next year.
• China DVD player industry suffering from oversupply - The oversupply of DVD players in China has forced over 30 small makers to shut down in the first half of this year and pushed retail prices down to 500-600 yuan per unit. Unwilling to pay royalties on DVD players, the Chinese makers are unable to export their products and face increasing competition in the domestic market. There are more than 200 DVD player producers in China.
• Intel readies 3.73GHz P4 Extreme Edition for Q4 - Intel has upped the clock speed of the upcoming Pentium 4 Extreme Edition which is expected to support a 1066MHz frontside bus speed. That chipset will be the i925XE and, like the faster P4EE, is scheduled to appear in Q4 - probably mid-October. Now, more recent Intel roadmaps show not only the 3.46GHz P4EE but a 3.73GHz model appearing mid-Q4 - in the middle of November, in other words. Unlike the 3.46GHz model, the 3.73GHz is a 90nm 'Prescott'-derived part. The 3.46GHz chip is based on the 130nm 'Northwood' core in its 'Gallatin' form, which supports 2MB of L3 cache. The Prescott version simply ups the L2 cache to 2MB. Both 1066GHz FSB chips will use the 775-pin Socket T connector.
• Nvidia unveils Quadro FX 4400 - The 4400 will be made available in two forms, the 4400 and the 4400G, the latter adding genlock and framelock facilities for broadcast-level and other pro video editing work. Both boards will provide 512MB of GDDR 3 memory across a 256-bit bus running, we calculate, at 550MHz (1.1GHz DDR), for 35.2GBps of memory bandwidth.
• Matching Doom III With The Best Graphics Card - Which graphics cards offer maximum-quality Doom III play? THG benchmarked a selection of newer and older models from ATI and NVIDIA to find out.
• Gigabyte Radeon X800PRO and X800XT PE Compared - The X800XT PE would have to be the absolute best package we have seen so far from a graphics card. The X800PRO is also an excellent card but it really doesn't change all that much from the other packages we have seen except for the inclusion of maybe the extra game (2 instead of the 1 we get with others).
• WD 'Light up' 250Gb External HD - For L154 plus VAT this drive is priced out of a lot of many people's budgets, factor in the dual inputs and this drive becomes more appealing than most but I don't think this justifies the extra cost. The performance is nowhere near what you'd get from an internal drive this drive is designed for semi-permanent, large capacity and removable storage - a task it does well.
• Mitsubishi Diamond PRO 2070SB review - The price of the Mitsubishi Diamond PRO 2070SB has dropped considerly since it was released a few years ago. At around $600, it still isn't cheap, and you can pick up cheaper 22" monitors from other brands, but the quality of the monitor when playing games, watching videos and using it in everyday use is so good that I have no problems recommending it to anyone who needs a top notch monitor.
• Razer eXactMat Limited Edition Gaming Pad review - Razer has recently released the eXactMat…is it as good as the Viper? Let's take a test drive
• HP Photosmart Mobile 1.3MP Camera - As it stands, the Photosmart Mobile Camera is a well constructed unit with an articulated lens able to swivel a touch over 180 degrees. If we disregard the actual SD slot interface, the camera section measures a mere 50mm wide by 27mm high and 20mm deep (12mm if we ignore the lens). Although made from plastic it feels reassuringly rugged for such a small device that weighs just over 31.1g.
• bluetake i-phono bt420 bluetooth hi-fi sports headphone - BlueTake have produced the i-PHONO series of products which are both simple and convenient to use. With its Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP), the i-PHONO BT430 Bluetooth Hi-Fi Audio Dongle enables your audio device to transfer the stereo audio signal cordlessly to the BlueTake i-PHONO BT420 Bluetooth Hi-Fi Sports Headphone. Besides the wireless stereo audio application, the i-PHONO BT420 Bluetooth Hi-Fi Sports Headphone can be used for mobile hands-free communication with any mobile phone which supports either the Bluetooth Headset or Hands-free profiles.
• The Great DOOM3 and ATI OpenGl Drivers Controversy - There has been quite a controversy about DOOM3 and ATI OpenGl drivers. We know already that the ATI driver is not up to par with NVIDIA's best, kind of like the other side of the coin. The driver is functional, and lately it has become quite stable, but the performance has always been questioned
• Bilinear, Trilinear, and MIP Mapping Technologies Explained  - Brilinear Filtering is basically a compromise between bilinear and trilinear. Bilinear, Briliniear, and Trilinear Filtering help make various distance textures even. However, it is not just the filtering effects that help retain image quality; a texturing technique called MIP [Multim Im Parvo] Mapping is used to create a smooth transition in depths as well. Moire, the “jagged-edge interference” created when objects too far away cannot be resolved adequately, is a problem in which MIP Mapping addresses.
• Making a Bootable Windows CD with Service Pack Integrated - Now that Windows XP Service Pack 2 is available to some people, let me take the opportunity to remind all of our readers about Bink's excellent BootCD guide for slipstreaming a service pack into a Windows installation disk! The instructions, written for Windows 2000, work perfectly for Windows XP and Service Pack 2.
• Official Unattended XP CD Guide XP SP2 - Have you ever wanted a Windows XP CD that would install Windows XP by automatically putting in your name, product key, timezone and regional settings? Followed by silently installing all your favourite applications along with DirectX 9, .Net Framework and then all the Pre-SP2 hotfixes, updated drivers, registry tweaks, and a readily patched UXTheme.dll without any user interaction whatsoever? Then this guide will show you how you can do just that.
• Windows XP Professional with SP2 Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install - The Windows XP startup disk allows computers without a bootable CD-ROM to perform a new installation of the operating system
• Windows XP Home Edition with SP2 Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install - The Windows XP startup disk allows computers without a bootable CD-ROM to perform a new installation of the operating system. The Windows XP startup disk will automatically load the correct drivers to gain access to the CD-ROM drive and start a new installation of Setup
• NV40 Tweak Guide - 3DGPU has published a comprehensive GeForce 6800 series tweak guide for all you NV40 series card owners.
• AutoStreamer, XP Slipstreamer - AutoPatcher's little brother, AutoStreamer, has gone final Although still unknown whether it will carry any neowin.net badges, at its current state, AutoStreamer works as a slipstreamer-only. Basically, all it really needs is a source (that being an original Windows CD or a local share) and a Service Pack file.
• Ad-Aware SE Personal 1.01 - Ad-aware is the award winning, free (for private use), multicomponent detection and removal utility that consistently leads the industry in safety, user satisfaction, support and reliability.
• CDBurnerXP 3.0.109 - CDBurnerXP Pro is a freeware CD/DVD-Writer program. The program can write CD-R, CD-RW DVD+R/RW DVD-R/RW discs.
• Windows Memory Diagnostic - The diagnostic includes a comprehensive set of memory tests. If you are experiencing problems while running Windows, you can use the diagnostic to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard.
• ATI Radeon DNA-drivers 2.8.4.8 - 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.