• [!] 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.

• PDAs under attack - Backdoor.Brador.A virus - Kaspersky Labs has detected Backdoor.WinCE.Brador.a, the first backdoor for PDAs running under PocketPC (based on Windows CE). Brador is a classic Trojan backdoor program: it opens the infected machine for remote administration. Brador is 5632 bytes in size and it infects handhelds running Pocket PC. After the backdoor is launched, it creates an svchost.exe file in the Windows autorun folder, thus maintaining full control over the system every time the handheld is turned on. Brador then identifies the machine's IP address and sends it to the author, informing him that the handheld is in the Internet and the backdoor is active. Finally, Brador opens port 2989 and awaits further commands.
• Image flaw pierces PC security - Six vulnerabilities in an open-source image format could allow intruders to compromise computers running Linux and may allow attacks against Windows PCs as well as Macs running OS X. The security issues appear in a library supporting the portable network graphics (PNG) format, used widely by programs such as the Mozilla and Opera browsers and various e-mail clients. The most critical issue, a memory problem known as a buffer overflow, could allow specially created PNG graphics to execute a malicious program when the application loads the image.
• US prosecutors challenge P2P companies - P2P software companies have been told to clean up their act and do more to protect their users from the seedier side of the file-sharing scene - or risk facing legal action. The huddle of lawyers essentially wants P2Pers to block porn, unauthorised MP3 files, viruses, spyware and the like. At the very least, they say, P2P companies should do more to warn users of the dangers of mis-using their software - including the risk of prosecution from the states the legal eagles represent.
• Net attacks make SP2 key for Windows XP - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the upgrade, dubbed Service Pack 2 or SP2, revises less than 5 percent of the millions of lines of code that make up Windows XP -- but adds more value than any update the company has ever done. Some of the nearly $1 billion that's gone into Service Pack 2 also will be used on future versions of Windows. But Gates said it was absolutely necessary to give away the security advances now because of the barrage of attacks plaguing Windows-based computers. The long-awaited update is due to be completed very soon, Microsoft senior product manager Matt Pilla said. He said the company could not be more specific on the time. In order to easily obtain Windows XP Service Pack 2 Microsoft will ship at no cost SP2 CDs. This is great news for those of us who don't have broadband, but most importantly this will help to secure a large amount of consumer desktops
• Nvidia's NV43 is Geforce 6600 - The NV43 will be known as the Geforce 6600 from now on. There will be two versions - a 6600 standard and a 6600GT with a huge difference in clock speed. <> 6600 standard will be clocked at 300MHz+ and will use DDR/DDR2 memory while the 6600GT will be clocked close to 500MHz core and will use almost that fast memory, GDDR3. It's an eight pipeline part like we suggested before and will be available in volume production in late September.
• First Details About ATI R520 Emerged - ATI Technologies' upcoming visual processing unit does not only have its code-number R520 (not R500, as initially thought), but also has its code-name, the web-site claims. Apparently, the chip is called Fudo, probably after the Japanese god of fire and wisdom, as Babynamenetwork web-site describes the name. ATI's current-generation graphics chips – the RADEON X800 – were initially named Loki after a god in Norse mythology. The R520 is reported to emerge in Q1 or Q2 2005 and feature brand-new architecture that sports Shader Model 3.0 or even higher level of programmability. Before the R520 makes it to the market ATI is expected to release a speed-bump of the current architecture – a chip called R480  (thanks SiReK)
• Dell Dimension XPS review - TrustedReviews have posted a review of the brand new Dell Dimension XPS, which is Dell's answer to Alienware and Voodoo PC. With a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 processor, 2x 400GB hard drives in a RAID 0 and a Radeon X800 XT PCI-Express graphics card this is one mutta of a computer.
• DVD Burner round-up - TechSpot has posted a DVD Burner round-up.
• Plextor PX-712SA review - Essentially, this drive is the exact same as the PX-712A; just has a different interface. It supports 12X DVD+R and 8X DVD-R Writing; 4X DVD+RW and 4X DVD-RW Rewriting; and 16X max DVD-Reading. While this new interface doesn’t necessarily translate into huge performance gains over the older interface, it does help keep cabling cleaner, allowing better internal airflow within your PC and keeps the CPU overhead lower.
• DOOM 3 high-end graphics comparo - If DOOM 3 performance figures heavily into your next video card purchase, you'll want to think seriously about getting one of NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 cards. The $299 vanilla GeForce 6800, with 12 pixel pipes, delivers playable frame rates in HQ mode at 1600x1200 in the single-player game, or at 1280x1024 with 4X antialiasing. In deathmatch, you may want to knock the resolution down a notch, but the GeForce 6800 is still a very good performer for the money. Another comparison can be found at FiringSquad.
• Doom 3: Why is Radeon X800 Series behind GeForce6? - All this is burdened on the performance of the Radeon-cards. Doom 3 uses "only" bumpmapping, but this excessively. Each quad which can be excluded from working out, delivers a precious performance. The quicker quads are dropped the earlier pipelines will be able to dedicate to the working out of visible pixels. Contrary, more recent GeForce-cards are designed in such a way that can manage this even under Doom 3 conditions without decrease in performance. The older GeForce4 Ti may use Early-Z even with activated Antialiasing (contrary to the even older GeForce3). That is why we assume that you can still dive into the Doom 3 world with a GeForce4 Ti and have still a good graphics quality.
• Multilingual User Interface Packs for Windows Media Player 9 Series - The Multilingual User Interface Packs for Windows Media Player 9 Series enable customers using the Windows XP or Windows 2000 Multilingual User Interface versions of the operating system to switch the user interface (menus, dialogs and help files) for the WMP 9 Series from one language to another.
• W32.Evaman.C Free Removal Tool 1.0.0 -  Symantec Security Response has developed a removal tool to clean the following infections: W32.Evaman.C@mm. Important: If you are on a network or have a full-time connection to the Internet, such as a DSL or cable modem, disconnect the computer from the network and Internet.
• KaZaA Media Desktop 2.7 - The KaZaa Media Desktop (download) is a second-generation peer-to-peer file-sharing service with which you can search and download media files from other KaZaa users
• BWMeter 2.00 - BWMeter (download) is a powerful bandwidth meter and monitor, which measures and displays all traffic on your network. Unlike other products, it can analyze the data packets (where they come from, where they go, which port and protocol they use).
• VIA Hyperion Pro 64-bit 0.99 Beta Drivers - VIA has released the first Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers for 64-bit machines (readme) running Win XP 64bit and Windows Server 2003 64bit.
• TCP Optimizer 1.01 - TCP Optimizer is a program for tweaking broadband-related Registry settings. Optimize Dialup, DSL and Cable all from one simple to use interface. (It has the option to return your Registry to its default untweaked state as well) It also includes built in MaxMTU and Latency(Ping) detection utilities.
• Fresh UI 7.16 - 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.
• NVIDIA Linux drivers -  NVIDIA has released a new NVIDIA Linux drivers 1.0-6111 IA32 | IA64.
• Plextor PX-712A DVD recorder firmware - Today Plextor Europe has released firmware 1.04 for this dual format burner which improves the write quality for DVDR media.
• Pioneer DVR-A08XLA(B,C) and DVR-108, DVR-108BK firmware - The firmware at the moment is located on the Pioneer Japan site.

• Windows XP update delayed again - The company had planned to wrap up development this week on Windows XP Service Pack 2, but a Microsoft representative said late Wednesday that the software giant had decided that more work was needed on the update before if could be released to manufacturing. On the contrary, Microsoft Watch claimed that the long-awaited XP Service Pack 2 going gold in the next 24 hours. Todays' article on Canada.com says that the company is expected to release the Windows XP Service Pack 2, in the coming days. Service Pack 2 for Windows XP Home Edition will be about 70 megabytes and the update for Windows XP Professional will be about 92 megabytes.
• P2P content crack down ordered - According to the Washington Post, the state law enforcement authorities are worried about the trading of child pornography and the trading of ripped off movies and music. The group of state attorneys have written to Kazaa, Grokster, BearShare, Blubster, eDonkey2000, LimeWire and Streamcast Networks to complain that their networks have been too many times been hijacked by those who use them for illegal purposes.
• 57 cuffed in UK anti-piracy crackdown - UK anti-piracy investigators arrested 57 people last weekend in a nationwide crackdown targeting music, film and computer game piracy. Many of those arrested as part of Operation Zouk could face benefit fraud charges along with copyright offences - 45 of those collared were on benefits.
• T-Mobile Sidekick II - The Sidekick II's most unique feature is its huge, 3.3-inch, color flip-up screen. If you flick the closed screen with your thumb, it swivels out of the way to reveal a very usable QWERTY keyboard. Buttons let you power the device on and off as well as adjust the volume with the screen closed, so you don't have to fiddle with settings.
• Low-cost Mobile Sempron notebooks to hit market in mid-August - Notebook vendors, including Hewlett Packard (HP), Acer, Asustek Computer and eMachines, are expected to start marketing low-cost, entry-level notebooks, running AMD's K8-core Mobile Sempron processors in the middle of the third quarter, according to sources at the makers.
• Asus explains BIOS-level graphics overclocking - Asus has responded to charges that its 925X- and 915P-based motherboards are surreptitiously overclocking PCI Express graphics cards to achieve better performance. According to Asus, there's nothing sneaky about its PCI Express Graphics link BIOS option.
• Shader model 2.0b improves ATI performance - Computerbase.de pointed that if you use Far Cry 1.2, the patch that has been withdrawn, you will notice a significant speed up. This patch has Shader Model 2.0b.
• Sapphire Toxic X800 Pro review - This oversized video card sports some major cooling, ships with a utility to dynamically overclock the on-board RAM, and has one of the best bundles we've seen in quite a while.
• Wacom Graphire3 Classic Pen Tablet review - Once you've been re-educated, the Wacom Graphire3 Classic pen tablet can certainly prove to be a fabulous tool for the graphic artist and photo editor, and for those where mouse related RSI might be an issue, it could well be a valid alternative.
• Logitech Z-5300 Speakers review - Sudhian Media take a look at the Logitech Z-5300 Speakers.
• Sony Clie PEG-UX50 review - DesignTechnica has posted a review of Sony Clie PEG-UX50.
• Power Supply Unit: Architecture Explained - CoolTechZone explains the architecture of the Power Supply Unit.
• AMD frags Intel in Doom 3  - The chaps at Anadtech proved that the Athlon 64 marchitecture beats the hell out of Intel's Pentium 4. It was shocking to see that 3000+ 512 KB cache AMD chip is actually just one frame slower then 3.4 Exscream Edition CPU. The price difference is $830 as EE costs $988 while a 3000+ costs $158, according to Pricewatch. All other Athlon socket 754 3400+, socket 939 3500+, 3800+, FX51 and FX53 all 939 are faster than EE 3.4.
• Doom 3 benchmarking - After installing the game you have one demo for benchmarking, it takes around one minute and 30 seconds to run on A64 3000+, 1GB RAM with 5900U. The demo contains some action where you are just killing few monsters. And if you have already played the game for a while you probably noticed that its has more than just what you see in this demo.
• 3DMark04 preview - The Chinese site D-Cross.com has published the first full preview of 3DMark04 (translation through Babelfish ~ WorldLingo) Another article can be found on Xtremesystems.org.
• Photoshop SpeedUp 1.00 - Adobe Photoshop SpeedUp significantly decreases the time it takes to load Adobe Photoshop by disabling the plug-ins that you may not need. There are several options such as whether to load the Adobe fonts, load the presets, and set the memory usage. You may restore to the original settings at any time. Adobe Photoshop SpeedUp is freeware, works with Adobe Photoshop versions 4 through 8.
• Opera 7.54 - The Opera browser (download version w/o Java ~ with Java) has received international recognition from end-users and the industry press for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers, and it has gathered a cult following on the net.
• Mozilla 1.7.2, Firefox 0.9.3 and Thunderbird 0.7.3 - Mozilla has officially released Mozilla 1.7.2, Firefox 0.9.3 and Thunderbird 0.7.3.
• YMPEG 1.4 - YMPEG offers you the most simplest way to encode or convert your favorite videos. YMPEG is a first Freeware MPEG Codec which can integrate itself with Windows and offers seamless encoding from your favorite application (VFW).
• PuTTY 0.55 Beta - PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.

• FIX for "Windows Remote Desktop May Let Remote Users Crash the System" - A denial of service vulnerability was reported in the Windows Remote Desktop service in Windows XP and Windows 2003. A remote user can cause the target system to crash in some cases. Nick Lowe reported that on systems with Remote Desktop enabled, a remote user can hold down the Windows Key and the "U" key simultaneously and continuously at the login prompt to cause the target system to crash. The key sequence reportedly causes the target system to continually load the Windows utility manager, which will terminate if another instance is detected. However, it is reported that on some systems, instances of Windows utility manager can be loaded more quickly than they are terminated, causing all available memory to be consumed. Solution: Unmap Windows-Key. (thanks Shaitan's Blog)
• Google queries provide stolen credit cards - Simple queries using the Google search engine can turn up a handful of sites that have posted credit card information to the Web, CNET News.com learned on Tuesday.  The lists of financial information include hundreds of card holders' names, addresses and phone numbers as well as their credit-card data. Much of the credit-card data that appears in the lists found by Google may no longer be valid, but CNET called several people listed and verified that the credit cards numbers were authentic.
• New MyDoom Variant Uses Yahoo People Search - Another new version of MyDoom is worming its way through the Internet, and this variant—like the last one—uses Yahoo as part of its infection routine. MyDoom.P is similar to most of the other MyDoom variants in that it arrives via e-mail, with a spoofed sending address and a subject line designed to make it look like the message is related to one that the recipient sent. Among the subject lines in the e-mails are "SN: New secure mail," "Secure delivery," "Re: Extended mail," "Delivery Status (Secure)," "Re: Server Reply" and "SN: Server Status."
• Net virus posing as Berg video - A virus purporting to show video of Nick Berg alive has been released on the internet, warn security experts.
  The virus is in a message post to tens of thousands of newsgroups, said anti-virus firm Sophos. It is the same one that posed as a suicide note from Arnold Schwarzenegger and as images claiming to show that Osama Bin Laden had killed himself.  Computer owners are advised to ensure their anti-virus software is up-to-date and avoid opening unknown messages.
• Off-topic: NTSB Recommends Black Boxes For All Cars - Officials at the National Transportation Safety Board are recommending the government require data recorders in all passenger vehicles (thanks Slasdhdot.org)
• Off-topic: Web Addiction Gets Conscripts Out of Army - A number of Finnish conscripts have been excused their full term of military service because they are addicted to the Internet, the Finnish Defense Forces said Tuesday. Doctors have found the young men miss their computers too much to cope with their compulsory six months in the forces.
• Off-topic: War games reveal hormone to combat stress - Levels of a particular hormone may influence a person's ability to cope with stress, suggests a study of soldiers put through a prisoner of war camp simulation. Soldiers enduring punishing stints in military survival school performed better and felt more attuned to their environments when they had higher levels of a hormone called dehydroepiandrosterone-S (DHEA-S), report US scientists. The ratio of DHEA-S against levels of another stress hormone, called cortisol, was important in coping with stress, they suggest. The researchers say DHEA-S could one day be given to people before stressful experiences to help them cope better during traumatic events.
• Off-topic: US Army orders weapons supercomputer - The US army has commissioned a new supercomputer to simulate complex weapons systems. Once built, it will rank as one of the top 20 most powerful computers on the planet. The computer, named Stryker, will be capable of a peak performance of 10 trillion mathematical calculations per second - 10 teraflops. It will also be the most powerful computer in the world use the Linux operating system, a free alternative to Microsoft and Unix software.
• CeBit America 2005 cancelled due to poor attendance - CeBit America, an American edition of the popular IT show CeBit, which takes place in Hannover, Germany every year, is now being cancelled due to the lack of attendees and exhibitor interest in the New York based IT fair.
• Single-chip wireless transceiver possible - A research team says it has succeeded in integrating the last two components needed to create a one-chip wireless transceiver. The researchers expect the technology to be applied in remote wireless environmental sensors, cell phones, laptops and two-way radio watches.
• IBM Contributes 500,000 Lines Of Code To Apache - IBM announced that it is contributing more than half a million lines of relational database code to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), reportedly valued at approximately $85 million. 
• Intel dual-core desktop chip "to ship mid-2005" - Intel will release its first dual-core desktop Pentium 4 processor in a year's time, the chip giant's latest roadmaps reportedly reveal. The part, codenamed "Smithfield", will be pitched at high-end and mainstream PCs, themselves aimed at creative, corporate, lifestyle and business buyer categories, according to a presentation slide posted at AnandTech. The slide, done up in the usual Intel colours, reveals the chip maker will "likely" offer three versions of the part, one at the high end and two mid-range products. All three Smithfields will use Socket T connectors, but there's no indication as to how high their frontside bus will be clocked - 1066MHz seems likely - or the CPUs themselves, for that matter. Intel has yet to decide their processor numbers.
• ATI's R520 is codenamed Fudo - R520 is the next chip that will come after R480 Q4 speed update of R420/423 marchitecture and it will represent the chip with new features with at least Shader model 3.0 support if not even more advanced.
• Intel Quietly Starts to Offer 64-bit Pentium 4 Processors - As expected, the new 64-bit capable product line contains Pentium 4 at 3.20GHz, 3.40GHz and 3.60GHz priced at $278, $417 and $637 respectively. The costs of the Pentium 4 chips with Extended Memory 64 Technology will equals to processors with no such capability at the same core-clock. To distinguish between chips with and without EM64T, Intel names the 64-bit capable chips as 3.20F, 3.40F and 3.60F. Sources close to the company said that that the company would slash the pricing of its 3.40GHz and 3.60GHz chips to $278 and $417 on August 22, 2004.
• Western Digital releases huge Caviar drives - Western Digital said it has released WD Caviar RAID Edition hard drives, aimed at the server market. The drives come with either Serial ATA (S-ATA) or EIDE interfaces and spin around at 7,200 revs per minute. WD said the drives have a mean time before failure rate of one million hours, include a time limited error recovery (TLER) feature. are warrantied for three years and come in 120GB, 160GB and 250GB capacities.
• HP to ship notebook with preloaded Linux - Hewlett Packard has become the first major PC manufacturer to launch a notebook running the Linux operating system in the US. The machine is offered with Novell's Suse Linux 9.1 and is bundled with OpenOffice, The HP Compaq nx5000 business notebook will be equipped with either an Intel Celeron or Pentium processor, a 15-inch TFT screen, and hard disk options between 30Gb and 60Gb. The nx500 will also support CD-R/RW, DVD and media player, wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. Although less than the average business notebook, the difference in price is not as much as you might expect. Hewlett Packard says that the nx5000 will retail at around $1,140.
• Toshiba intros 60GB 1.8-inch hard drive - TOSHIBA said that it has launched 60GB and 30GB 1.8-inch hard drives for the PDA, MP3 and tiny notebook markets.But the drives aren't likely to be available in volume until the fourth quarter of this year.
• ATI unveils top-end AGP FireGL card - ATI will ship its latest workstation-class graphics card, the FireGL X3-256, later this month, the company said today. The successor to the X2-256T, the X3-256 provides the same 256-bit memory bus, connected to 256MB of GDDR 3 memory. The new GPU provides 12 pixel pipelines fed by six geometry engines, up from its predecessor's eight pixel and four vertex pipelines.
• The Fastest Graphics Cards of Summer 2004 - X-Bit labs have taken 13 high-end and mainstream graphics cards and benchmarked them in 35 gaming benchmarks to find out which are worth their money.
• AMD's Athlon 64 3500+ processor review - Comparing the 3500+ to an equivalent Pentium 4 from Intel is a little more difficult. The 3500+'s $345 street price is sandwiched between the Pentium 4 3.2GHz at $251 and the 3.4GHz at $397. That doesn't take into account Intel's latest LGA775 chips, but those require virtually a system-wide upgrade. However, LGA775 or not, it's tough to recommend a Pentium 4 of any speed unless you spend the majority of your time encoding video or using multi-threaded apps that take advantage of Hyper-Threading's second virtual processor.
• 512MB OCZ Premiere PC3200 Memory review - At $94 a stick from NewEgg, I was able to get an easy 300MHz overclock resulting in a noticeable performance gain. For those who don't OC, I had no problems running the RAM at more aggressive timings.
• nVidia GeForce 6800 GT (PCI Express) review - Bytesector has posted a review on the nVidia GeForce 6800 GT (PCI Express) video card.
• Gigabyte GV-NX57128D PCI-E Videocard review - The Gigabyte GV-NX57128D video card is a PCI Express x16 solution that is based on the GeForcePCX 5750 GPU. The blue-PCB card is backed up by 128MB of TSOP-II 3.6ns Samsung DRAM, and it supports S-Video out, DVI and analog connections. The card doesn't require any extra power connectors incidently.
• HIS Excalibur X800 XT IceQ II VIVO LE review - Bjorn Endre let us know he done some testing of the HIS Excalibur X800 XT IceQ II VIVO LIMITED EDITION.
• Apacer Photo Steno Pro II 1GB CompactFlash Card review - Rated at an impressive 100X (where 1X equals 150KB/sec), Apacer’s latest Type I CF card is, in theory, more than twice as fast as the current crop of high-speed 40X memory cards, and has been specially designed with rapid-fire shooting in mind. Of course, it’s not just digital photographers who demand top-notch performance these days. CompactFlash cards also have their uses in numerous other devices such as MP3 players, PDAs and notebook computers.
• Scythe Samurai Heatsink SCSM-1000 review - SCSM-1000 and it can fit onto Socket 370, Socket 478 (P4) and Athlon Socket 462, 754, 939 and 940 boards. It has a dimension of 80x80x25mm (fan) and combined dimensions of 98x84x33mm. It weighs 605g. It has a variable fan speed of 1300-3400rpm (with rheostat). Airflow is 13.6CFM (1300rpm) ~ 34CFM (3400rpm). The Fan noise level is 16dBA @ 1300rpm and 37dBA @3400rpm.
• Hitachi Travelstar 5K80 review  - Envy News has posted a review of Hitachi's 5200RPM small form hard drive.
• 13 Barebones Reviewed Are Anything But Square - THG reviews a baker's dozen for home entertainment capabilities versus noise levels.
• Lite-On LVW-5005 All-Write DVD Recorder review - Bjorn3D has posted a review on the Lite-On LVW-5005 All-Write DVD Recorder.
• Plextor ConvertX M402U review - Plextors ConvertX eliminates the extra step in the conversion process and captures audio and video in Real Time. The WinDVD creator software included in the bundle effectively captured and organized my video files.
• LG Flatron L1810B LCD Monitor - The resolution is a fine fit for the overall screen size, 19" CRT owners will tell you that, and its even brightness and pin sharp display with the DVI connector are a pleasure. Colour reproduction, something that's hard to objectively test without expensive hardware or software, seems excellent.
• Bluetooth BT200 printer adapter review - Using a Bluetooth enabled printers or using a Bluetooth dongle along with an ordinary printer could be pretty useful. This will make it easy to place your printer, wherever you want within 10 meters from the device that will use it.
• Basics to System Cooling Explained - Around eight percent of computer problems are caused by insufficient cooling. The fact is that more computers suffer heat-related problems than users realize. Your computer's stability and speed can both be affected when heat builds up inside the case, which, in return, can cause crashes at odd times and reduce performance significantly. Even if your computer seems to be running fine, it will probably fail prematurely if it's running hot.
• Native Command Queuing [NCQ] Technology Explained - CoolTechZone explains Native Command Queuing [NCQ] Technology. Hard drives are the most mechanically-driven data-devices in a computer system. Due to this, hard drives are quite inefficient and are the usually culprits for keeping your system from its true potential. Obviously, mechanical devices are significantly slower than their electronic counterparts, and thus, one can only wait for the first fully electronic hard drive.
• Avant Browser 9.02 Build 101 - Avant Browser (download) is an upgrade to Internet Explorer. Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser.
• Dr. Hardware 2004 5.5.0 - Dr.Hardware 2004 5.5.0e is out. What's new: partition information for physical drives, detection of Pentium 4E (Prescott), Athlon 64 FX-53, NSC Geode and SiS processors, improved detection of AMD 64 bit processors, extended CPUID information, detection of PCI Express devices (incl. detailed PCI Express device description), support for Intel chipsets 915P, 915GE, 925X, E7525, E7210 and a number of newer SiS and VIA chipsets, etc.
• nLite 0.98.5 Beta - nLite (changelog ~ download) 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
• WinRAR 3.40 Beta 4 - WinRAR (download) 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.
• Ultimate Boot CD 2.34 - You need the Ultimate Boot CD if you want to: Run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives. More and more PCs are shipped without floppy drives these days, and it is such a royal pain when you need to run diagnostic tools on them.
• Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition 4.5.0.6515 - The Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition (release notes ~ download) software package provides support for high-performance Serial ATA RAID 0 arrays and redundant RAID 1 arrays on select Intel 865 and 875 chipset-based platforms using Windows XP or Windows 2000.

The answer is pretty simple: at this stage with current drivers and version of the game NVIDIA's GeForce 6800-series is the best thing you can buy for Doom III. ATI's RADEON X800-series also delivers nice performance and astonishing gameplay, but based on the benchmark numbers we have to say that it is much behind the rival. Older-generation hardware will hardly be a good choice for Doom III, however, keep in mind that we tested with "high quality" settings set, while "medium quality" may offer higher performance, but with a bit compromised image quality.

To tell you the truth, even on a rather mainstream machine you are going to experience the game in all its glory. For instance, we tried to run the Doom III on a machine powered by Intel Pentium 2 .40GHz processor, i875P-based mainboard, 1GB of dual-channel PC3200 memory, ATI RADEON X800 PRO graphics card and SB Live! audio card and the game performed astonishingly well with quality settings set to "high" and anisotropic filtering 16x activated from the drivers.

It is interesting to note that some of the graphics cards working at high (but still stock!) frequencies produced artifacts and even BSODs in Doom III. So far we have experienced only one such issue with a top-of-of-the-range contemporary graphics card from a manufacturer that we do not name at this time.

• Microsoft Security Bulletin Re-release, August 2004 - Subsequent to the release of this security bulletin, Microsoft was made aware that the update provided for Windows XP customers running the new version of Windows Update, Windows Update Version 5, did not contain the final release code for the vulnerabilities addressed in the security bulletin. Microsoft has corrected the update and is re-releasing this bulletin to advise of the availability of a revised update available to Windows Update Version 5 customers. Customers who are utilizing Windows Update Version 4, the vast majority of customers, are not affected by this revision.
• Two Americans arrested for DVD piracy in China - Two Americans, including a member of a wealthy New York City family, have been arrested in China, where the authorities said an investigation into their business activities had led to the seizure of more than 210,000 counterfeit motion picture DVDs and nearly $100,000 in cash. Randolph Hobson Guthrie III, 37, and Cody Abram Thrush, 34, were among six people taken into custody on July 1 through a collaborative effort of Chinese and US investigators.
• RFID Hack Could Allow Retail Fraud - A German consultant has released a tool that its creator says will allow modifications of the code stored within RFID tags, theoretically allowing consumers to wreak havoc in future retail deployments. The RFDump software allows a user equipped with an RFID reader, a laptop or PDA, and a power supply to rewrite the data stored in ISO 15693 tags, the most common tags used to host the EPC (Electronic Product Code) information traditionally stored in bar codes
• Federal courts cause 321 Studios to shut down - The maker of several CD and DVD copy programs announced that the legal system has made it impossible to continue.
• Mozilla puts bounty on bugs - A string of high-profile flaws in browser software prompted the Mozilla Foundation to announce on Monday that it would offer $500 for every serious bug found by security researchers.
• School for Hackers - A presentation on how to be the first to exploit new flaws in Web server software was deemed "just as cool for white hats as for black hats" attending the Defcon 12 conference here over the weekend. The session offered new tools, as well as insight into the mindset of the so-called black hat, or malicious hacker, community, said one enthusiastic attendee, who works for a security consulting company that secures Web servers for the financial sector. The two presenters, German security consultants "FX" and Halvar Flake, spoke about taking advantage of new-found holes, known as zero-day Web-based vulnerability exploitation.
  Linux potentially infringes 283 patents - According to this article over at ZDNet, Linux potentially infringes 283 patents, including 27 held by Microsoft but none that have been validated by court judgments, according to a group that sells insurance to protect those using or selling Linux against intellectual-property litigation.
• Windows Server 2003 "R2" release delayed until q1 2006 - According to Bink.nu, the current release Windows 2003 "R2" is set to end of 2005 but more likely be Q1 2006. Why? well same as the Longhorn delay: the developers are occupied with Windows XP sp2 and Windows 2003 sp1.
• Intel develops agile radio chip - Intel has unveiled a chip designed to meet the demands of future radio sets by switching between different networks and frequencies based on availability or local government regulations. The chip maker showed off the 90nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) silicon transceiver with an integrated frequency synthesizer last week
• Hard Drives Get Faster, Smarter (NCQ technology) - Part of the latest Serial ATA specification, NCQ requires an NCQ-capable hard drive and either a motherboard or a PCI adapter card with NCQ support. PCWorld tested a preproduction version of Maxtor's NCQ-ready 300GB DiamondMax 10 hard drive with a 16MB cache ($259), using an NCQ-capable reference PCI card from Silicon Image.
• Get Aboard the PCI Express - The most significant new feature in the 915 and 925 chip sets is the PCI Express bus. The old bus worked at 133MB per second, and read and write tasks had to share that bandwidth. In contrast, PCI Express X1 provides dedicated bandwidth for read and write tasks, at 250 MBps each. And the PCI X16 slot, a longer slot for add-in graphics cards, performs at up to 4 GBps--or nearly twice the 8X AGP's 2.1 GBps. This should spur development of more-powerful cards that handle more data and deliver smoother, more-realistic effects for gamers and graphics pros. The new and old buses should coexist for a while, so users won't have to throw out all of their old cards.
• AMD Athlon 64 3000+, Budget Gamer's Perspective - ViperLair take a Athlon 64 3000+, and see how it compares against the A64 3200+ for gamers on a budget.
• Mushkin PC3200 Special Edition Memory review - The Mushkin "Special" series is based on the now extinct Winbond BH-6 memory chip, they offer extremely low timings, when booting up with SPD set they'll select CL2 2-2-5 by default!
• Leadtek NV40 cards, the A400 GT TDH and A400 TDH review - Starting off, the noise levels produced by a card should be low and Leadtek does well in this department claiming under 30dB... With that said, we had excellent luck overclocking the GT to past Ultra speeds- the core went up to 410MHz while the memory overclocked to 1.15GHz. The standard 6800 also did well, but not as well as the GT. We managed to overclock it to 400MHz core and 840MHz memory.
• Sapphire Radeon Toxic X800 Pro VIVO review - GotApex has posted a review of Sapphire Radeon Toxic X800 Pro VIVO.
• X600 XT vs. 5900 PCX : Mid-Range PCI Express Cards Compared - Despite all this, the GeForce PCX 5900 card performs quite well for a mid-range product, thanks to the fairly high-end NV35 graphics architecture which this card is based off of. This card bested the X600 XT PCIe in the majority of our benchmarks, and should be a much better performer in newer titles such as Doom3 compared to ATI's chips. In addition, the card was very overclockable, as we were able to squeeze 15-20% higher performance levels with simple GPU and DDR clock speed boosts through Windows
• Cooling / PSU reviews  - AeroCool Jetmaster Jr Gaming Case | Recycle Your old thru board heatsink | Asetek WaterChill Antarctica KT03A-L30 | Gigabyte 3D Rocket-Pro Cooler PCU22-VG HSF | Silverstone SST-ST30NF PSU | Zalman Reserator 1 | 3R Systems - Poseidon WCL-02 120Cu Liquid Cooler
• Lite-On's new DVD Burners - Burning at 12x and with Dual Layers - The 1213S is a great burner but as you can see when compared to the 8X burn time on the 832S there really isn’t too much of a difference. If you’re looking for a burner now we would recommend looking at the 12X but if you are thinking about upgrading from your current 8X we wouldn’t recommend it as the speed difference really doesn’t warrant the purchase.
• Lian Li CR-03 6-in-1 Card Reader review - The unit itself is very simple yet elegant. It's encased on all sides by brushed aluminum so it looks good even if you choose to leave it out in the open. The front has four slots for the respective cards along with a green LED indicator for each slot. And of course there's the printed Lian Li logo. You can remove the top panel via a pair of screws around back. The internal view is pretty simple: a couple processor chips, card slots, a 5-pin connector and a red LED. I'm guessing the latter is for diagnostics (in case something isn't working), though fortunately I haven't seen it in action.
• AOpen MVP Player review - TrustedReviews have posted a review of the AOpen MVP Player which is a new type of digital video player based around a 2.5in hard drive.
• Lite-On LVW-5005 All-Write DVD Recorder review - DVD recorders continue to gain popularity but not just for computers. DVD recorders are becoming major components in consumers' home theater setups. It's no surprise that many of the big names in consumer electronics, like Panasonic, Pioneer and Toshiba, have released DVD recorders, but some of you might be surprised to see Lite-On enter this fray for your hard-earned cash. Lite-On is a name most of you probably know from inexpensive yet good-performing optical drives, such as CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives.
• VirtualPC 2004 vs VMWare 4.5 - Ars Technica has posted an interesting comparison shootout between Microsoft's VirtualPC 2004 and VMWare Workstation 4.5.
• Windows XP Security Guide 1.3 - The Microsoft Windows XP Security Guide provides several levels of security guidance for customers interested in hardening deployments of Windows XP for desktop and laptop clients in their environment.
• Troubleshooting File and Printer Sharing in Microsoft Windows XP 1.1 - This article describes how to enable file sharing, share folders and printers, connect to shared folders and printers, and troubleshoot common problems with folder and printer sharing.
• A quick tweak guide for DOOM 3 - TechReport has posted a few helpful tweaks for the game: 1) To turn on vsync, hit ctrl-alt-~ to bring down a game console. At the console, type "r_swapinterval 1". Then hit ~ to close the console 2) Disable AA 3) Choose the best settings for your system.
• Doom3 seems to be protected by Macrovision SafeDisc 3.20.022 - Before, people discussed that the game would be SecuROM or even StarForce protected but it seems that Macrovision has won the deal as the pictures show that SafeDisc 3.20.022 is on the disc. Screenshots of two different people can be found here and here.
• How To Run Doom 3 on Windows Server 2003 - Though this tweak has been confirmed for Windows Server 2003, it should work for Windows 98 and Me.
• Catalyst 4.9 brings support for Doom 3 - Computer Base are reporting that ATI will add suport for Doom3 in Catalyst 4.9, which are in an alpha stage and should be out in the middle of September (thanks Warp2Search)
• Copy URL+ 1.1 - The Copy URL+ extension for Firefox and Mozilla makes it possible to copy the current document's address to the clipboard along with additional information such as the document's title, the current selection, or both.
• PlexTools Professional 2.16 -  Plextor has released version 2.16 of Plextools Professional.
• Intel Pro1000 MT 9.0 Final - Intel Network driver v9.0 Final is available.

What we learned today was that NVIDIA's backing of Doom 3 is definitely not unfounded. At press time we weren't able to get a working GeForce 6800 GT or Ultra graphics card running on the AGP bus, but we'll be getting those in later this week. Still, the standard GeForce 6800 was able to run Doom 3 almost as fast as the Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition, a card almost double its price.

• Is Real's 'hacking' of iPod legal? - Code-crackers risk fines and prison time when they defeat copy-protection technology, but such draconian rules likely don't apply in the case of RealNetworks and its iPod "hack," legal experts said. Efforts by both code-crackers and Real could undermine Apple Computer's plans for its popular digital music player and its iTunes Music Store, which together have put Apple so far ahead of the competition that companies such as Real appear ready to do virtually anything to catch up.
• Hackers plan global game of "capture the flag" - If everything goes as planned, for 72 hours next February hackers from all over the United States will hit targets across the Internet in the largest mass attack to date. But the affected systems won't be corporate Web servers or networks, they'll be computers set up and maintained by other hackers as part of a capture-the-flag game. When the digital dust clears, the team from either the East Coast or the West Coast will be named winner.
• DNS opens networks to data attacks - The security hack essentially uses data transferred by domain name service (DNS) servers to hide additional information in the network communications. DNS servers act as the white pages of the Internet, invisibly transforming easy-to-remember domain names--such as www.cnet.com--into the numerical network addresses used by computers. Moreover, corporate security measures, such as firewalls, tend to ignore DNS data because they assume it's harmless, said Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher for telecommunications firm Avaya and a speaker at the Defcon hacking conference
• Mozilla User Interface Spoofing Vulnerability - A vulnerability has been reported in Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox, allowing malicious websites to spoof the user interface. The problem is that Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox don't restrict websites from including arbitrary, remote XUL (XML User Interface Language) files. This can be exploited to "hijack" most of the user interface (including tool bars, SSL certificate dialogs, address bar and more), thereby controlling almost anything the user sees.
• The File Sharing Experiment - The file sharing experiment is an attempt to catalog some financial figures about how much revenue the industries backing organizations such as the RIAA, MPAA, and SPA have gained by file sharing. The file sharing database consists of a list of items and prices which contributing users have both purchased, and would not have purchased if they hadn't first downloaded/shared identical or related files. The ultimate goal is to show what (if any) significant revenue the RIAA, MPAA, and SPA have to credit to the file sharing community, and hopefully convince some of the organizations supporting them that their money would be better spent taking advantage of this market rather than trying to exterminate it.
• IBM's eFuse technology portends adaptable chips -  IBM Corp. unveiled new chip technology on Friday (July 30) that it said is able to adjust its own functionality and perform trade-offs between performance and power consumption without human intervention. The technology, called "eFuse," is said to combine software algorithms and microscopic electrical fuses to produce chips able to regulate and adapt to their own actions in response to changing conditions and system demands.
• DiVX to move 20 million CE devices by Christmas - If anyone out there thinks that there is room and enthusiasm for film download services like Movielink and CinemaNow, but ones which are properly run and which actually want to grow, they could do worse than take a long hard look at what DiVX is up to. The 100 man start up is on its third round of funding and has already passed into profit and is getting ready for a massive Christmas that could quadruple its revenues overnight. The company has been working for three years towards a scenario when CE manufacturers bundle the DiVX MPEG 4 based-codecs into equipment that is sold in retail. So far it has sold 2 million such devices, but reckons it will sell another 18 million by Christmas. Big jump.
• Intel Preps New “Extreme Edition” Chips for Socket 478, Socket 775 - Apparently, Intel's slightly outdated Socket 478 infrastructure will see a number of fresh high-end processors, something that Intel did not want to introduce initially, such as, Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.60GHz, Intel Pentium 4 "Prescott" 3.60GHz and even Intel Pentium 4 "Prescott" 3.80GHz processors. Furthermore, the company will also introduce Celeron D in mPGA478 packaging at up to 3.46GHz speeds in addition to a yet another entry-level Pentium 4 chip with 2.26GHz clock-speed, 533MHz processor system bus and 512KB of cache.
• Suunto's n3 Adds Web Access to Watch Wear - THG takes a look at the Suunto n3 watch, which besides telling time, uses Microsoft's DirectBand technology to wirelessly download news, weather and other information in real time for $9.95 a month. But is the whole package really ready for prime time?
• SimpleTech PC3700 Nitro Dual-Channel Kit review - Adrian's Rojak Pot has just posted a review of the 1GB SimpleTech PC3700 Nitro Dual-Channel Kit.
• Gigabyte CPU coolers review - TrustedReviews have tested a couple of Gigabyte CPU coolers, namely the GH-PCU31-VH 3D Cooler Ultra GT & GH PCU31-SD Cooler Ultra.
• Zalman ZM80D-HP GPU Cooler - The ZM80D-HP expands on Zalman's already excellent design by adding a second heat pipe that connects the front and back plates. The second heat pipe is especially nice, in theory, for cooling newer GPUs that give off more and more heat. The ZM80D-HP also includes heat sinks for the memory on your graphics card. The heat sinks for the memory are built to size so they will definitely fit with the heat pipe installed.
• Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse review - This mouse is very comfortable and does its job well. For $35 it is a good deal as wireless technology is not that cheap to produce. Personally, I like the feel of the mouse and I dig the smooth-action scroll wheel, though it does take some time to get broken in.
• New Gaming Keyboards: Which Is The Best For You? - Finding the right keyboard is crucial, and THG takes a look at some for you.
• Guite to Upgrading Your PC - PC Review has published a guide with tips on the best value upgrades for your PC, along with suitable recommendations based on current technology and prices.
• Mydoom, Zindos, and Doomjuice Worm Removal Tool (KB836528)  - This tool (download) helps to remove the Mydoom.A, Mydoom.B, Mydoom.E, Mydoom.F, Mydoom.G, Mydoom.J, Mydoom.L, Mydoom.O, Zindos.A, Doomjuice.A, and Doomjuice.B worms from infected systems
• PDF Tweak Utility - This tool Enable/Disable the plug-ins as needed, Turn off all Updates features, Disable the splash screen during program startup, Remove the My eBooks folder created in My Documents, Turn off the advertisements for Adobe products in the upper-right corner of the toolbar, Remove PrintMe and Adobe Reader icons, Disable Browser Integration, Disable confirmation dialog when closing Adobe Reader, Better speed for LAN and Cable connection, Clear Adobe Reader Recent Files History, Restore to original settings at any time.
• AeroBrowser Beta One - AeroBrowser is a free next-generation web browser based on the look of Longhorn. It is small in filesize, completely spyware free, and doesn't track your history. It is based on the IE engine, but future releases will include dual-engine switching capability with both IE and Gecko.
• Google Toolbar 2.0.113 - The Google Toolbar (download winxp/2k ~ win9x/me) increases your ability to find information from anywhere on the web and takes only seconds to install. When the Google Toolbar is installed, it automatically appears along with the Internet Explorer toolbar.
• CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) 1.12.063 - CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimisation tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space.
• Fresh Diagnose 6.70 - Fresh Diagnose (download) is an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, hard disk performance, video system information, mainboard information and more.
• Hmonitor 4.1.4.3 - Hmonitor has much more functions than MotherBoard Monitor, for example, including thermocontrol features and COM/PerfMon API support.
• CS Fire Monitor 1.4.4 (free) - CS Fire Monitor (download) is a complete professional monitoring system which reports on a computer's bandwidth, CPU, drives, hardware, IP, memory, netsats, processes, services, software & tasks.
• PowerStrip 3.52 - PowerStrip (download) provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest video cards. It supports multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors, simultaneously, under every Windows operating system.
• Systernals PendMoves tool - There are several applications, such as service packs and hotfixes, that must replace a file that's in use and is unable to. Windows therefore provides the MoveFileEx API to rename or delete a file and allows the caller to specify that they want the operation to take place the next time the system boots, before the files are referenced. Session Manager performs this task by reading the registered rename and delete commands from the HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerPendingFileRenameOperations value. Pendmoves.exe is able to view these pending operations, Movefile.exe is to use this mechanism yourself.
• A-Tuner 1.9.5.6177 - A-Tuner is a small tool for changing Anti-Aliasing (including all unofficial modes), Anisotropic Filtering, Vsync, MipMap LOD (Level Of Detail) Bias settings on your ATI and Nvidia cards and should work with Nvidia Detonators 23.11 - 61.77 and ATI Catalyst 3.0 - 4.8 for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.This applet dumps the contents of the pending rename/delete value and also reports an error when the source file is not accessible.
• ATI Tray Tools v1.0.1.358 - ATI Tray Tools is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which then allows instant access to options and settings. Quite handy and quite a small download.
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2/ZS Drivers 5.12.01.444 - Creative has released an updated Sound Blaster Audigy 2/ZS drivers (EU mirror) for WinXP. (Note: unzip it into a folder and run ctzapxx and it will also work with the Audigy 1)
   

• E-voting critic calls on hackers to expose flaws - Speaking at the Black Hat Security Briefings here, Rebecca Mercuri, a fellow at a Harvard-affiliated research center and a noted e-voting critic, called the current voting process a statistical game of shells, one that e-voting machine makers are playing for profits. To hold voting machine makers to their promises of security, hackers should try to circumvent the systems and reveal their problems, she said. She pointed to a $10,000 reward promised by e-voting proponent Michael Shamos, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, as additional incentive.
• Deutsche Telekom Passport hole exposes 120,000 - Deutsche Telekom this week was forced to suspend all activities of its Online Business Service Operation Centre (OBSOC), a German version of the Microsoft's Passport system, which enables customers to order and pay for online services and products.
• Off-topic: Countdown to X Prize flights begins - Paul Allen and Burt Rutan hope to see their history-making spacecraft claim the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight on the anniversary of the Soviet Union's launching of Sputnik nearly half a century ago. SpaceShipOne, the rocket-plane built by Rutan and funded by Allen, plans to make its first attempt on Sept. 29 and complete a required second trip into space in less than half the two-week minimum. Rutan said they want to make their second attempt on Oct. 4 -- the same date that, in 1957, marked the beginning of the first space race.
• Off-topic: Acne bug's nasty secrets spotted -  The newly completed genome sequence of the acne bacterium Propionibacterium acnes has revealed thousands of genes that give the organism the potential to cause skin disease.
• Off-topic: ATI may sponsor F1 Jordan team - TheInquirer has learned that ATI is talking sponsorship with the famous Jordan team. Interesting industry isn’t it. Ferrari has AMD on its helmets and cars and HP is all over BMW cars while Intel sponsors Toyota.
• Apple blasts RealNetworks' iPod "hacker tactics" - Apple has claimed that RealNetworks has adopted the "tactics and ethics of a hacker" by developing software allowing iPod owners to download music from RealNetwork's RealPlayer Music Store. RealNetwork's Harmony software tool allows music from the RealPlayer Music Store to be transferred to any music player, including Apple iPods.
• Intel delays 4GHz chip until next year - Product plans that the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company released to PC makers on Thursday stated that the 4GHz chip, originally slated for the fourth quarter, won't appear until the first quarter of next year. Company spokesman Howard High said the delay will help ensure that the company can deliver an adequate number of chips when the product is launched.
• Intel short on 3.6GHz chips - Intel's flagship desktop processor, the 3.6GHz Pentium 4 560, is in very short supply, an Intel spokesman confirmed. The chip came out in June, along with the company's latest desktop chipsets, the 915 Express and 925 Express.
• AMD Substitutes Athlon 64 FX-51 with Athlon 64 3600+? - AMD may be preparing a new microprocessor in PGA939 packaging to broaden the lineup of offerings for the emerging infrastructure. The new chip will have 1MB of cache and 1000MHz HyperTransport bus, representing a lower-speed bin of the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 microprocessor. Mainboard maker ECS has updated the list of supporting chips for latest mainboard based on VIA K8T800 Pro chipset for Socket 939 processors with AMD Athlon 64 3600+ product name. The SKU with 1MB of cache and 1000MHz HT bus has not been announced yet, but a mentioning by a mainboard maker may indicate a short release of the processor.
• Microsoft Demonstrates New Hard Drive Search Tool - Microsoft demonstrated for the first time on Thursday a search engine that looks for information on computer hard drives as well as information on the Web.
• ATI on Shader Model 2.0b  - As Crytek developed the now historical 1.2 patch for the game and included Shader model 3.0 ATI had to do something and get some money into game to convince Crytek to make new patch and include Shader model 2.0b for ATI cards. According to TheInquirer, some things could be made much faster in Shader model 2.0b once it's done and that some effects can be rendered with fewer passes. You can, for example, process four lights with Nvidia Shader model 3.0 while with 2.0b you can do three and with the current Shader model 2.0 just two.
• AMD Sempron review - The Sempron is a completely different animal to the Duron as the Socket-A variety runs at 333MHz bus speed and features 256KB Level 2 cache memory - the same amount as the previous generations of Athlon XP processors. As with all Athlon processors the Level 1 cache is a generous 128KB. The Barton core was given a boost to 512KB to improve the performance when Intel upped the cache memory in the Pentium 4 processors.
• Corsair XMS3200XL Pro Twin-X - Go Corsair go! Corsair makes some of the best memory around, and of course we all know that, but why is it so good?
• XGI Volari V8 Ultra review - 59Hardware.net has posted a review of the XGI Volari V8. This entry-to-mid-level videocard is intended to compete with the likes of ATI's 9600SE.
• SMC Barricade g High-Powered 2.4GHz 54Mbps Wireless Broadband Router with USB Print Server review - The SMC Barricade g SMC2804WBRP-G is reasonably priced and has a good feature mix. Wireless throughput vs. range was very good, with speedy performance even at my worst-case test location.My main concern is with my failure to complete any WAN-LAN router performance tests. This problem could just be due to Qcheck's incompatibility with SPI + NAT firewalls, or it could foretell problems with getting Virtual Servers to work.
• XConnect Power Supply review - According to Ultra, the X-Connect uses the X-Cable technology, and that incorporates 4 points. First the molded cable core and connectors will eliminate loose wires. Second, the technology uses premium tinned-copper braiding sleeve, not just your ordinary tinned-copper braining sleeve! Third, and the most interesting one, the X-Connect power supply has a UV translucent effect, not only will your watercooling fluid, IDE cables and fans glow, so will your cables! Lastly, the technology must have superior strength and flexibility for the life of your system. Ain't that great, it almost sounds like lifetime warranty!
• Razer Viper Optical Mouse review - It will give you the same handling, but with a huge dose of speed and precision. In all types of games and even your every day tasks the Viper performs well above par. Yes, the lack of extra buttons is a stinker, but this mouse for most users may only be used for gaming where extra buttons are not needed as much. The mouse is a little pricey and runs right around the $50 range.
• BTC M993 4D Wireless Ergo Office Mouse review - The BTC M993 is a magnificent mouse that any user would desire. The BTC M993 features an Office button, the ability to recharge and a 800 DPI optical engine. The mouse features everything that any person requires. The mouse is exceptionally great and is recommended to anyone who desires a comfortable mouse and develops computer graphics.
• Logitech diNovo Media Desktop review - Perhaps the biggest draw for the diNovo will be the appeal to the Home Theater PC crowd, where the elegant design and great range make it a perfect match for most users. Whether you are an executive who wants a classy piece of hardware, a home theater fanatic, or an average user that demands quality, you will love the Logitech diNovo.
• Altec Lansing VS3151 Speakers - The VS3151 speakers feature a unique design; a complete overhaul from the rest of the product line by Altec Lansing.
• Batman Begins Trailer - The trailer for the Batman Begins is available on the Warner Brothers website.
• Spybot-S&D v1.3 detections update - This updates the detection rules. Only needed if you do not want to use the update function integrated into Spybot-S&D. (thanks NeoNSX)
• DirectX 9.0c Redistributable for Software Developers - Multilingual - Here's a link to the Redistributable for Software Developers version of direct 9.0c for download instead of the websetup as people will want to keep a full download of it handy (thanks ally russell)
• SlySoft releases CloneCD v5.0, adds DVD read/write functions - SlySoft has released CloneCD 5.0 (download beta) which seems to have been updated with some of the CloneDVD features as the software now fully supports the reading and writing of most DVD formats. (thanks CDFreaks)
• FlashFXP 3.0.0.1015 Final (SHW) - FlashFXP (download) is the most powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market today
• Fraps 2.2.5 - Fraps is a tool that lets you monitor current framerates in a corner of the screen for programs using DirectX or OpenGL technology. It also allows you to easily take screenshots of games, make movies of gameplay, and manually determine the average framerate between two points. This new version adds support for final DirectX 9.0c and fixes slow DX9 video capture with anti-aliased games and nvidia 61.76/61.77 drivers.
• Lame 3.96.1 Stable - LAME is an educational tool (download ~ changelog) to be used for learning about MP3 encoding. The goal of the LAME project is to use the open source model to improve the psycho acoustics, noise shaping and speed of MP3.
• KeyTweak 2.01 - KeyTweak makes use of Microsoft's Scancode Map registry key to remap your keyboard.
• Intel Desktop Control Center 1.2.0060 - Intel Desktop Control Center (download) enables you to perform stress tests to verify system stability and to conduct performance testing to measure the impact of system configuration changes. The easy-to-read system gauges provide feedback so you can observe the effects of various system modifications in real-time.
• ATI Catalyst 4.7 Win98/ME - This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability.

• 4,677 Viruses In First Six Months of 2004 - A firm specializing in the development of anti-virus and anti-spam software said Wednesday that 4,677 new viruses were written in the first six months of 2004 -- an increase of 21 percent over the same period last year. The major viruses were Sasser, which had a 26.1 percent share of viruses, and variations of the Netsky virus, said Sophos analyst Graham Cluley.
• Zindows Worm Follows MyDoom's Path - Antivirus companies have issued warnings and software updates for a new Internet worm, dubbed Zindos, that infects machines already compromised by the MyDoom.O worm and attacks Microsoft's Web site. Zindos.A takes advantage of an open back door in Windows machines that contracted the MyDoom.O worm that appeared Monday.
• See What You Share on P2P - A Showcase of Material Found on Peer-to-Peer Networks throughout the World. Here you will find Everything from Raunchy Personal Photos to Confidential Police Reports.
• Green card scam couple jailed - A Florida husband and wife team who made millions from victims through a long-running Green card visa lottery scam have been sent to prison and ordered to pay massive fines. John Romano, 30, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was sent to jail for 37 months by US District Judge James Cohn last Friday after pleading guilty to mail fraud offences in connection with the scam. Romano's wife, Hoda M. Nofal, 29, began a six-month sentence in April after pleading guilty to obstruction of mail offences related to the same racket.
• Details of Microsoft antivirus software leak out - Microsoft representatives in the United States refused to comment on functional elements or a potential production time frame for the antivirus package. However, Mirail said the Microsoft antivirus software will utilize two different means of detecting destructive files, the first of which will reference a regularly updated list of known viruses to check for potential infections. The second antivirus tool will analyze computer systems to assess whether they have been hit by a virus in the past and attempt to give end users an idea of how at risk their computers might be for future problems.
• Chinese authorities shut down 700 porn sites - Apparently, 224 "suspects" have been detained since July 16, which was when the porn shutdowns began. However, no further details have been revealed.
• Off-topic: FCC Looks Into Regulating Violence on TV - The FCC is considering getting into the business of regulating violence on television (broadcast and cable/satellite).
• Off-topic: Mystery of solar jets solved - Analysis of high-resolution movies of the Sun has cracked a 125-year-old mystery - what produces jets of matter that spurt upwards from the solar surface at 20 kilometres per second. The jets, called solar spicules, are about 500 kilometres across and reach several thousand kilometres high. They rise from the photosphere, the visible surface of the Sun, into the solar atmosphere. They are also ubiquitous, with some 100,000 active at any one time. Yet, until now, no theory has explained their behavior.
• Nintendo DS Gets Sleeker Final Design - The final design of the system is viewable on Nintendo official site (screenshot) - looks sleeker and far less chunky, but still a bit awkward (thanks Justin Hancock).
• Unholy row erupts over Creative Doom 3 patent - A deal Creative announced with id Software the other day appears to have more to it than meets the eye of the storm that's forming round it. That's according to web site Beyond 3D, Creative already owns the rights to a software patent on the face of it similar to Doom 3 shadowing. That site claims that Creative's behaviour is inexcusable, and it emailed id Software's John Carmack to see what he had to say.
• Glitch hits DirecTV TiVo boxes - The glitch apparently is caused by a software upgrade, version 3.1.0c, that was first downloaded by DirecTV TiVo set top boxes earlier this month, according to postings to a number of TiVo community sites.
• ATI promises Doom 3 performance boost - According to TheInquirer, ATI is doing something about performance on Doom 3 but that it hasn't done anything to its Open GL driver for almost a year now since there were no really significant games last year which used Open GL. The ATI lad confirmed these claims. It's certainly time to do something about it as Doom 3 is close to materialisation and released in just a week. The ATI claims that we could expect some performance boost with a new driver release.
• IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Security with Microsoft WinXP 1.1 - Microsoft has posted revision 1.1 of the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Security with Microsoft Windows XP guide.
• ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide - This guide is more than just about how to perform a few advanced tweaks with the Catalysts. Whether you use the official Catalysts or the Omega drivers, this 10-page guide has something for you. It covers the entire driver installation, setup, troubleshooting and tweaking process from start to finish.
• DirectX 9.0c Control Panel - 3Dcenter.de have posted the DirectX 9.0c control panel for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003.
• PHPMaker 2.1 - PHPMaker (download) is an automation tool (for Windows) that can generate a full set of PHP scripts quickly from MySQL database. Using the generated PHP, users can view, edit, search, add and delete records in the database easily on the Web.

• MyDoom opens door for attack on Microsoft - MyDoom.M, a new variant of the prolific worm, came to life Monday and quickly wreaked havoc on Google and other search sites, thanks to a novel method the worm's creator devised to propagate the pest. But security experts said Tuesday that the worm was quickly dying out, with infections peaking a mere 12 hours after the worm was released. MyDoom.M leaves behind significant potential for collateral damage from infected and unrepaired PCs, however. Besides propagating itself, the worm's main purpose apparently was to open a "back door" so that infected PCs could be used to host other malicious programs, according to researchers at security giant Symantec. The first of those parasites, dubbed the Zindos.A worm, was released Tuesday with the intent of crippling Microsoft's main Web site.
• US Navy preps "Gestapo" server removal - The US Navy has a real battle on its hands in the form of a proxy server named Gestapo. Last month, one Edward Campbell - an independent reporter - discovered a proxy server of dubious distinction lurking in the Commander Naval Reserve Recruiting Command (CNRRC) in New Orleans. It seems that the server named "gestapo.cnrrc.nola.navy.mil” has been pinging various websites, including one of a fellow reporter who had been looking into "cyber-stalking of Muslim journalists". And, in fact, there is evidence of the Gestapo server popping up in a number of places.
• Are P2P networks leaking military secrets? - The "See What You Share" site has been online for a week and has published photos ranging from a crashed military jet to a screenshot of a spreadsheet file that appears to include names, addresses and telephone numbers of marines. The site's operator, a 30-year-old named Rick Wallace, wrote in a blog posting that he is trying to help the military understand how serious a security risk unmonitored peer-to-peer file sharing can be. (CNET News.com)
• Hackers attack advertisers - According to the Washington Post, DoubleClick's Internet servers began to receive a flood of bogus Web page requests, creating a bottleneck that blocked many major sites from displaying ad images. This meant that it became harder for users to reach certain pages, such as the Internet's 40 most-visited Web sites.
• Fake e-mails fool users 28 percent of the time, study finds  -Anti-spam firm MailFrontier Inc. showed 1,000 consumers examples of so-called "phishing" e-mail as well as legitimate e-mail from companies such as eBay and PayPal. About 28 percent of the time, the consumers incorrectly identified the phishing messages as legitimate. One very well-distributed PayPal look-alike e-mail, which claimed credit card information needed to be updated, fooled 31 percent of users surveyed, she said.
• Judge blocks sales of unlicensed DVD chips -  California judge has ordered a multimedia chipmaker to stop selling versions of its products that were used in DVD-copying devices. The Motion Picture Association of America said Monday that it had found chips from ESS Technology, based in Fremont, Calif., inside a device that allowed DVDs to be copied. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis issued an order Friday that blocked the manufacturer from selling its chips to any other device maker producing similar products.
• Off-topic: Researchers seek simpler software debugging - Funded by $1.2 million from the National Science Foundation, Whyline -- short for Workspace for Helping You Link Instructions to Numbers and Events -- is designed for programmers of all kinds, from hard-core professionals to weekend Web designers. Their work is part of a larger, nationwide project -- called End Users Shaping Effective Software, or EUSES -- to make computers friendlier for everyday users by changing everything from how they look to how they act. Ultimately, perhaps, error messages will be easier to understand than "general protection fault" or "fatal exceptions."
• Off-topic: Hitchhiker's Guide Trailer Online - The 2005 Hitchhiker's movie trailer is available in AVI or RealMedia formats. The movie trailer doesn't reveal anything, but looks cool. (thanks Slashdot.org)
• Off-topic: Space images show relentless Bangladeshi floods - Satellite images have revealed the devastating impact of recent flooding in Bangladesh, with two thirds of country submerged in water. Pictures taken by the NASA satellite Aqua on 22 July show water covering areas of Bangladesh and eastern India. Three weeks worth of torrential rain have resulted in the worst flooding that the impoverished nation has seen for 15 years. So far, 400 people have been killed by drowning, collapsing buildings and disease resulting from the floods.
• New S.Korean Cell Phone Lets Parents Track Kids - Parents in South Korea will now be able to track their children by using a device in a new mobile phone that has been designed for kids. SK Telecom Co. began selling Wednesday colorful cell phones with antennas that look like human ears and a built in tracker using the global positioning satellite (GPS) network. The firm, the top mobile operator in a country where three-quarters of the people carry at least one mobile phone, put a price of around $86 on the handset. The phone has four buttons to save phone numbers of key contacts, such as Mom and Dad.
• SlySoft Acquires Licence on CloneDVD - The software producer SlySoft announced that it acquired the licence of CloneDVD 2 which is restricted to distribution via the Internet only. The version sold by SlySoft, is totally identical to the original by Elby and will complete the range of products by SlySoft.
• Motorola-led team unveils technology to link GSM, Wi-Fi - Motorola, Avaya and Proxim have announced network equipment and software they said will allow users to roam seamlessly between GSM and Wi-Fi networks without dropping voice calls.
• Microsoft Delays 64-Bit Windows - Windows XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended Systems and Windows Server 2003 for 64-bit Extended Systems now will not be available until the first half of 2005, a Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed. The 64-bit Windows XP client was originally due in early 2004 but had already been delayed; the server software was scheduled for late 2004.
• Microsoft prepares SQL Server 2005 for AMD64 - Microsoft has unveiled a beta version of its forthcoming SQL Server 2005 database featuring support for AMD's 64-bit Opteron with Direct Connect Architecture. The company said that running its database on AMD's 64-bit platform would offer customers a cost-effective alternative to enterprise Unix-based systems.
• Does Intel Lindenhurst chipset have DDR-2, PCI Express problems? - According to various sources, Intel's "Lindenhurst" chipset, scheduled for introduction next week, is proving problematical.Lindenhurst, which comes in several varieties and is formally named the E7520, supports the EM64T "Nocona" microprocessor. System integrators and vendors claim that there are problems getting both DDR-2 memory and PCI Express to work with the 800MHz chipset, scheduled for launch on the 1st of August.
• AMD Unveils Low-Cost Processors - AMD based six of the new Sempron desktop chips on the seventh-generation Athlon XP core and one on its eighth-generation technology. The six chips using the seventh-generation core support a 333-MHz frontside bus and include 256KB of Level 2 cache, half the amount of Level 2 cache found on the Athlon XP chips. They range in clock speed from 1.5 GHz to 2 GHz and will carry model number ratings of 2200+ to 2800+. The 2200+ and 2300+ target only emerging markets and will sell for $39 and $45 in quantities of 1000; the remaining chips will ship globally and will sell at prices from $61 to $85 in quantities.
• Motorola E398 GSM900/1800/1900 Triband Phone review - OCWorkbench has posted a review of the Motorola E398 GSM900/1800/1900 Triband phone.
• Sony U-70 review- is that a PC in your pocket? - The Sony comes in two flavors, the U-50 & U-70. There are three differences between the two models which are otherwise identical. The U-50 comes with a Celeron 900 MHZ processor, 256 MB of RAM, and Windows XP Home Edition. The more powerful U-70 comes with a Pentium M processor running at 1 GHZ, 512 MB of RAM, and Windows XP Pro Edition
• HP Compaq nc4010 review - The model on review is the DY883AA but HP offers a wide range of different models with various processors speeds, hard drive sizes and connectivity packages to suit any and all needs. The nc4010 DY883AA is placed towards the top end of the range - with a 1.6GHz Pentium M processor, 512MB of DDR SDRAM and a 40GB hard drive this is a pretty reasonable configuration. There is also a spare memory slot for future upgrades and you can add up to 1GB of additional memory.
• AMD's Socket A Sempron 2800+ and the Socket 754 Sempron 3100+ review - AMD has just released its latest processor line, the AMD Sempron. The Sempron is designed to replace the Duron line of lower-performance, inexpensive processors aimed at home and business desktop users. Available in both Socket A and Socket 754, the Sempron offers good performance for its price, and has good potential for overclocking. Another review can be found at TechReport, HotHardware
• AOpen Aeolus 6800 Ultra DVD256(E) review - To be quite honest, the noise of the Aeolus 6800 Ultra was absolutely dreadful. Sounding like a quartet of Rolls Royce RB211 turbo-fan engines producing the full 60,000lbs of thrust - and that's just in 2D mode - the Aeolus was in real danger of turning my entire street deaf.
• MSI PCX5750-TD128 PCI-E videocard review  - The MSI PCX5750-TD128 is a PCI-Express x16 solution based on the venerable nVidia GeForcePCX 5750 core, and comes with 128MB of standard DDR memory running at 500MHz.
• HIS Excalibur 9550 VIVO review - Even though you may be able to buy that new 6800 or X800 video card, not everyone can afford it or even needs that kind of power. That's why, the ASE Labs has checked out the HIS Excalibur 9550 VIVO video card.
• ATi's Mobile Radeon 9800 review - Admittedly, with its new mobile flagship, which has eight pixel pipelines, four vertex shaders and a 256-bit memory interface, ATI manages to make technology history and once again claim the performance crown. It's also true that with this high-end graphics chip, the 3D performance gap between a desktop PC and a similarly equipped notebook narrows even more than with its predecessor, the MR9700. And yes, when compared to a notebook with the Mobility Radeon 9800, a desktop PC equipped with a mainstream graphics card less than a year old, such as the ATI Radeon 9600XT, clearly ends up with the shorter end of the stick.
• OCZ PowerStream 470W Power Supply - Chad looks at the OCZ PowerStream 470W Power Supply to see if it is worth your hard earned money.
• HD Guard Pro review - HD Guard Pro creates a small “snapshot” of the hard drive, BIOS and your CMOS. The size of that file is just 1.4 MB on a 12 GB hard drive. Your computer works as normal, and you won’t notice anything unusual. However in the background HD Guard works to protect your computer from accidental destruction, abnormal shutdown, Windows blue screen conditions, registry errors, etc.
• RedOctane Ignition DDR Platform review -  This pad is well designed and provides a balance for DDR players. The hard foam insert isn't going to wear-out any time soon and the surface underneath the pad is non-skid so it won't be scrunching up or sliding. And the feel of the pad is unbelievable; it's probably the most conformable pad yet.
• Logitech Quick Cam for Notebooks Pro review  - The Logitech Quick Cam for Notebooks is a good value Camera suitable for the traveller who wants to communicate and have a cam on his/her notebook.
• Build Silent PC Guide (updated) - The "Build a Silent PC" guide has been updated.
• Office System 2003 Service Pack - Microsoft this week made available for download its first Service Pack for Office System 2003 (standalone installer ~ admin installer), which features fresh capabilities to its OneNote and InfoPath applications, along with improvements to overall speed and performance and a collection of previously announced security fixes
• Junk E-mail Filter for Outlook 2003 - This optional update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk. By installing it, you help the Junk E-mail Filter provide you with a higher level of protection against junk e-mail. This update was released in July 2004.
• McAfee Stinger 2.3.5 - Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system.
• W32.Mydoom@mm Removal Tool 1.0.9.1 - This tool will Terminate the viral processes; Terminate the viral thread running under Explorer.exe; Delete the files; and Delete the registry values added by the worm.
• BayesIt! 0.5.8 - BayesIt! (download) is the official anti-spam filter for The Bat! email client.
• WinRAR 3.40 Beta 3 - WinRAR (download) 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
• ICQ Lite 4.1 Build #1801 - A new version of ICQ Lite is available for download.
• 1by1 1.45 - 1by1 (including mpglib.dll 0.92 ) is a very small sized player which is not only small: It plays whole directories without any playlist.
• WinAmp 5.04 - Nullsoft Winamp (download full ~ lite ~ pro) 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), custom appearances called skins (supporting both classic Winamp 1.x/2.x skins and Winamp 3 freeform skins), audio visualization and audio effect plug-ins (including two industry dominating visualization plug-ins), an advanced media library, Internet radio and TV support, CD ripping, and CD burning.
• Macromedia Flash MX 2004 update v7.2 - An update (download) for Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 is available.
• ATi Radeon Beta Catalyst 4.8 - We really shouldn't call these Catalyst 4.8, it's just a newer build released after the 4.7 release from ATI, station-drivers.com leaked them onto the web. There is no word on performance just yet, however rumors promise nice performance bumps.
• LiteOn SOHR-5238S firmware update - A new firmware for the LiteOn SOHR-5238S ( 52x 32x 52x ) CD-RW is available for download.

• MyDoom variant slams mailboxes, search engines - The new version, variously dubbed MyDoom.M or MyDoom.O, was first detected early Monday morning and quickly went on a tear, flooding many mailboxes with hundreds of messages. It has also slowed Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and Lycos to a crawl, because once it infects a PC, the virus automatically performs Web searches on those search engines. Among other antivirus firms, McAfee explains (more details) one way to remove the virus from an infected computer. You also check this article called "How to Avoid the Latest 'MyDoom' Worm".
• McAfee Names Worst Viruses - Here are McAfee's top ten threats of the year so far: Exploit-MhtRedir.gen (also known as Download.Ject or Scob), VBS/Psyme, Adware-Gator, Adware-180Solutions, Adware-Cydoor, Adware-BetterInet, W32/Netsky.d@MM, W32/Netsky.p@MM, W32/Netsky.q@MM, W32/Mydoom.a@MM
• Junkware 101 - Overclocking HQ have published their latest article which looks at removing spyware, ad-ware, Trojans and hijackers from your PC.
• Newest "Suicide Trojan" Is Arnold's - Sophos reports that the same folks who brought you the Osama Bin Laden "suicide photos" have replaced that hoax with one that supposedly brings you suicide pictures of California Governor and movie strongman Arnold Schwartzenegger. The messages deliver the same Hackarmy Trojan as the Bin Laden messages did.
• Biz: Microsoft's MSN May Not Beat Google - But even with this new focus on searches, Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Watch, said that Microsoft will have a tough time catching up with Google. "To shift market share, Google has to get bad and they have to get good," he said. "People will not go to Microsoft, even if Microsoft is better than Google -- if Google is good enough."
• Biz: Google searches for $135 per share - Google has finally setup a price range of $108 to $135 for shares of its company. With these high prices Google hopes to make $2.7 billion and $3.3 billion dollars. Eventually you can buy these shares on the NASDAQ exchange under GOOG. Still $108 to $135 is a pretty high price range, and I it's surely not meant for everyone.
• Off-topic: Smart jacket handles mobile calls and MP3s - Semiconductor maker Infineon continued its adventures in wearable computing on Monday by showing off a men's jacket that includes a built-in MP3 player and can link up with a mobile phone over Bluetooth The article was developed in partnership with Rosner, a German clothing manufacturer, and is called the mp3blue. It contains an 'electronic module' which includes the MP3 player, 128MB of memory, a rechargeable battery and a Bluetooth transmitter that lets the user connect to their mobile.
• Off-topic: US nuclear clean-up carries major risks - Over the last 50 years nine reactors at the 1500-square-kilometre site have produced 67 tonnes of plutonium for the US nuclear weapons programme. In 2002 the US Department of Energy (DOE) embarked on a 30-year, $50 billion clean-up, which includes emptying more than 190 million litres of liquid radioactive waste from 177 underground tanks.
• AMD knocks up to 30% off Athlon 64 prices - AMD adjusted its desktop processor pricing today, cutting what it charges for Athlon 64 processor by up to 30.9 per cent while increasing the cost of its Athlon 64 FX chip and some Athlon XP parts to compensate. Gone from AMD's official price list are the XP 2200+ through to the 2700+. The list now shows only the 2800+, 3000+ and 3200+.
• Toshiba, NEC To Release Details of New DVD Format To Rival Blu-ray - The HD DVD format allows the recording of more than eight hours of high-resolution movies on a single ROM disc, using a blue-laser diode and advanced video compression technology, the statement said.
• Longhorn Gets HD-DVD Compatibility - Microsoft announced this morning that Longhorn, the company's next-generation OS, will include support for High Definition DVD (HD-DVD), the video-playback format that's expected to succeed DVD.
• HP Unveils New IPaqs - T-Mobile's product, the IPaq Pocket PC H6315, will cost existing T-Mobile customers $600; a $100 rebate offer will bring the price down to $500 for those who activate a new T-Mobile account. This model uses a Texas Instruments OMAP 1510 processor, and has 64MB of SDRAM and 64MB of Flash read-only memory, with 55MB available for file storage, plus an SD expansion slot. It has a 3.5-inch color screen, and comes with a built-in camera and basic image-editing and organizing software. It also includes a snap-on keyboard for composing messages.
• Seagate Ups Drive Warranties To 5 Years - Seagate have just announced that they are going to standardize on a five year warranty for all of their hard drives, including desktop and notebook units.
• Creative and id Software make loud Doom noise - Creative Technologyand id Software have today announced an agreement, enabling Creative to develop EAX Advanced HD 3D audio for future licences. Additionally, an agreement has been reached allowing for Creative's patented shadowing technique to be used in the Doom 3 engine.
• Tricks up their sleeves - ATI, nVidia and Far Cry 1.2 - In the last few weeks, we've seen a host of sites running tests with the beta 1.2 Far Cry patch, showing the gains to be had from running the Shader Model 3.0 path. But, that's only part of the story, and today we'll be looking at the bigger picture - Namely, how the Far Cry 1.2 patch affects both nVidia and ATIs current hardware. If you though the update was all about nVidia, you'd be very wrong...
• DOOM 3 [H]ardware Guide Coming - id Software and HardOCP will be publishing more benchmark results for Doom 3 throughout the upcoming week. The results, which were accumulated based on 65 hours of testing, will be revealed in their "DOOM 3 [H]ardware Guide - "GF3, TI4600, 5800, 5900, 6800, 680GT, 6800U are all coming this week. As well as 8500, 9600XT, 9800Pro, X800Pro, X800XT."
• AOpen Aeolus 6800 Ultra DVD256 - While the 6800 GT is no-doubt a better value buy, there's still a lot to be said for the full-speed 6800, especially given one or two games titles that are about to rear their awesome-looking heads.
• nVidia 6800LE review - The card is identical to the standard 6800 as far as looks and size are concerned, however, its slightly under-powered. With a little help from Scott Wasson at The Tech Report, we believe that the number of pixel pipelines has been reduced from 12 to 8 although we haven’t received any info from nVidia. The core has also been dropped from 325 to 320 although memory size and speed remain identical to the 6800 - 128MB/350MHz (or 700MHz DDR). We asked for a price indication and were told that the card should be about 30% less than the standard 6800 which would put it at under US$200- a very sweet spot.
• LiteOn SOHW-832S review - Looking at the specs, the 832S will write to DVD+R DL at 2.4-speed, DVD+R/-R at eight-speed. DVD+RW/-RW at four-speed, CD-R at 40-speed and CD-RW at 24-speed. These are pretty healthy specs, and the fast CD burning capability means that there is little need to have more than one optical drive in your system again a big advantage to the small form factor user
• Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.6.6 - This guide is not designed to be used in combination with other Windows tweaking guides or other Windows tweaking software. It is also not designed to be used in parts.
• Catalyst 4.7 Driver comparison - Radeonthetop.com have posted their Catalyst 4.7 Driver comparison.
• Windows XP SP2 Pre-RTM Build 2162 download - Last week (the 14th to be precise), Microsoft released Windows XP SP2 build 2162 to beta testers to collect last-minute feedback before Windows XP's biggest update hits RTM sometime in the first half of August. Please note that this is a beta product and does not reflect in any way the final RTM product will be. Use caution if installing on production systems.
• DirectX 9.0c Redistributable - This download provides the DirectX 9.0c end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. The redistributable license agreement covers the terms under which developers may use the Redistributable. For full details please review the DirectX SDK EULA.txt and DirectX Redist.txt files located in the license directory.
• DVD Shrink 3.2.0.14 - DVD Shrink is software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc.
• FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder 20040725 Alpha - FFDSHOW is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 movies.
• FarCry Benchmarking Utility v1.2.1 - The HardwareOC FarCry Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes Far Cry video card benchmarking fast and easy.
• dgVoodoo 1.30 - DgVoodoo is the ONLY Glide wrapper available which allows you to play Glide-based games on any DirectX 7 capable video card, and works for BOTH Windows and DOS games. This allows you to play all-time classics such as Tomb Raider, GTA, Red Baron 3D, UT or Carmaggeddon in Glide mode.
• VIAHyperion 4-in-1 v4.51Pro Beta - This driver has not been officially "released". Test show better performance than the Hyperion 4.51v version driver, on recent VIA chipsets such as KT600, KT880, P4X400, PT800, PT880. This driver contains an IDE performance driver and IDE filter driver. This driver does not pass the Microsoft HCT and has no digital signature. Remeber it's only beta, try only at your own risk.

• Virus Purporting Bin Laden Suicide Hits Web - A virus purporting to show images of Osama Bin Laden's suicide popped up on the Internet on Friday, designed to entice recipients to open a file that unleashes malicious software code, security experts said. The virus was attached to a message that was posted on over 30,000 usenet newsgroups and is not being spread via e-mail, said Web security vendor Sophos.
• Interim Release 1218 Windows Server 2003 SP1 available for beta testers -  FYI, a new build of Windows Server 2003 SP1 has been released to beta testers this evening.
• Windows Server 2003 Security Guide 1.3  - The Windows Server 2003 Security Guide provides guidance to assist in hardening Domain Controllers, Infrastructure servers, File servers, Print servers, IIS servers, IAS servers.Certificate Services, and bastion hosts.
• Off-topic: GPS Coke Can can obtained and X-rayed - Remember the Coke can that's been disrupting Army and government operations all over? The one that's got the cellphone/GPS transponder inside that allows you to collect on a new Chevy SUV? The one you damn near gave yourself diabetes trying to find, not even because of the prize but because, come on, look at it! Yeah, that one. Well, lucky lucky, someone got their hands on one and had it dissected and exposéd via X-ray. They were even thoughtful enough to compare it side-by-side with an improvised explosive device (IED), which is what everyone was so concerned about (just not us). (thanks Slashdot)
• Off-topic: ET first contact "within 20 years" - If intelligent life exists elsewhere in our galaxy, advances in computer processing power and radio telescope technology will ensure we detect their transmissions within two decades. That is the bold prediction from a leading light at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, California.
• Off-topic: Bright idea: LEDs poised to replace light bulbs - A recent advance in light-emitting diodes may illuminate the path to replacing light bulbs with LEDs within the next five years, according to researchers. Fred Schubert, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.), claims to have invented a 99-percent efficient reflector that promises to speed the replacement of light bulbs with LEDs. "Until now, all lighting systems, especially incandescent bulbs, generated more heat than light. But our 99-percent efficient reflectors for LEDs makes them the first candidate for light-bulb replacement that generates more light than heat," said Schubert.
• Off-topic: Army rations rehydrated by urine - Would you eat food cooked in your own urine? Food scientists working for the US military have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate by adding the filthiest of muddy swamp water or even peeing on it. The ration comes in a pouch containing a filter that removes 99.9 per cent of bacteria and most toxic chemicals from the water used to rehydrate it, according to the Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts.
• Off-topic: Halo 2 Theatrical Trailer -check it  out.
• Playstation chipping mod banned in the UK- A British court has upheld a plea by Sony to ban the sale of modified Playstation 2 chips. That, according to the BBC, follows Sony bringing a case to the High Court using the European Union's directive on copyright, which faced a great deal of opposition before it was issued last year. The report said that David Ball, who sold Messiah mod chips for the Playstation 2, has been banned from selling mod chips. The ruling means that using them, selling them or advertising their sale here is also illegal.
• Microsoft needs 7,000 resumes - Microsoft expects to hire roughly 6,000 to 7,000 workers over the next 12 months, the company said Friday, though it is unclear how many of those hires will be filling new posts.
• MP3 creator returns with 3D sound - Karlheinz Brandenburg, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Technology, along with a team of co-developers, is in Los Angeles this week showing off his new "Iosono" technology to representatives of Hollywood studios and giants including Disney. Brandenburg is credited with much of the work leading to the MP3 format, also developed at Fraunhofer. He and his team are touting their new product as true "three dimensional" audio, which can give the impression of, for example, a horse galloping through the center aisle of a movie theater, or pinpoint a noise so that it sounds exactly like a person shouting from outside theater walls.
• How many dead LCD pixels are OK on a screen? - In fact, there is an ISO specification which covers this particular problem. The ISO 13406-2 standard deals with this problem, and classifies pixel faults as Types One , Two, and Three, as well as fault clusters. Type One is a pixel in a stuck high state, Type Two a pixel in a stuck low state, Type Three is when a pixel or subpixel is abnormal for another reason, and a fault cluster is two or more pixels or subpixels with faults within a five by five pixel block.
• Seagate and Maxtor post losses - It seems that hard drive companies are falling on hard times. On Tuesday, Seagate announced a net loss of $33 million for Q2 2004. On Wednesday, Maxtor reported a similar loss in the amount of $26.1 million for the same time period.
• Intel to bundle ATI-based VGA cards with 915/925 motherboards - Intel and ATI Technologies plan a co-marketing initiative called "Driving Change," which will target the channel and bundle ATI own-brand add-in-board (AIB) clients with Intel own-brand motherboards, according to sources at Taiwanese motherboards makers. The plan, which will kick off on August 2 in North America and Europe, will offer channel distributors discounts of US$20 or US$30, depending on the motherboard models. A discount of US$30 is being offered for an ATI Radeon X600-based graphics card bundled with an Intel BOXD925XCV, BOXD925XBC or BOXD915PBLL motherboard. An ATI Radeon X300-based graphics card bundled with an Intel BOXD915PCYL, BOXD915PCY or BOXD915GAGL board will be US$20 less than the list price, the sources added.
• Sapphire releases the TOXIC X800 PRO VIVO - Developed for the enthusiast, Sapphire believes in empowering our family of hardcore tweak addicts by including a built-in calculated performance enhancements with the inclusion of the A.P.E. , TMR and Lethal Cooling technologies . The Automated Performance Enhancement (A.P.E.) allows for the optional increase of memory clock speed to pre-tested levels while maintaining the hardware's health.
• HP offers up Compaq X gaming PC - HP will offer two different Compaq X variants based on specific Intel and AMD processor platforms. The Intel-based GX5000T series features an ASUS P4C800-E motherboard, and there are four Intel Pentium 4 processor options ranging in speed from 2.8GHz to 3.4GHz. The AMD-based GX5000Z series features an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard; processor options include the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 3800+ as well as the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53.
• An All-Around Athlon 64 System for $1,500 - ExtremeTech has posted an article about building an Athlon 64 system for $1,500.
• TR's CPU decoder ring - The following chart lists a large number of processors, and gives you just about all the pertinent details of each one. Wondering exactly what the differences are between the two types of Athlon XP 3000+, or what the heck a Pentium 4 550 is?
• ASUS P5AD2 Premium i925X Motherboard - Based on the Intel i925X chipset, this motherboard is so feature-packed that ASUS is actually marketing it as a motherboard suitable for entry-level servers and workstations! But will this bold stab at both the workstation/server market as well as the hardware enthusiast work? Let's find out.
• Socket 939 Roundup - Based on top performance, the full implementation of the nForce3 Ultra features, value, overclocking performance, and flexibility, the MSI K8N Neo2 emerges from a class of top Socket 939 Athlon 64 boards.
• ABIT AV8 (Socket 939) - It looks like ABIT tried to cut costs this time around, cutting a few corners here and there but ending up with a good motherboard at the end. It's not the best all around Socket 939 motherboard out on the market, but is cost effective and a great overclocker.
• Cheap PCI-Express cards roundup - Digit-Life compared Gigabyte GV-RX60X128V, MSI RX600XT-TD128 based on ATI RADEON X600XT and Gigabyte GV-NX57128D, MSI PCX5750-TD128, Leadtek WinFast PX360 TD based on NVIDIA GeForce PCX5750. The characteristics themselves make it clear that these cards are of the middle level in the price range within 110-160 USD.
• HIS' X800 IceQIIs Cometh - THG benchmarks the Excalibur Pro IceQ II VIVO and XT PE IceQ II VIVO to gauge how well the vendor harnesses the X800's power.
• RAID 5 Scaling Tests With Up To Eight Drives - Costs are no doubt an important factor for SATA storage. THG tested several configurations using up to eight drives from RAIDCore, Raptor and Western Digital to determine the best price/performance ratio. 
• Toshiba SD-R5272 8x DVD±RW review - The drive had no problems reading pressed and CD-R media at 40x, but slowed to 24x when reading CD-RW discs. Toshiba's new drive also reached a maximum DAE speed of 24x. This is pretty slow considering most of the 8x DVD writers we've looked at have been able to rip audio CD's at 32x or faster. As a writer, the SD-R5272 performed reasonably well. With its 32x CD-R and 16x CD-RW writing speeds it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives we've tested, but its writing quality was very good.
• Windows XP Service Pack 2: Install With Care - The real surprise with Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 isn't potential compatibility issues, but the mayhem that can occur when SP2 is downloaded onto a system. CRN Test Center engineers evaluated a release candidate two (RC2) version of SP2, and upon completion of the install on three out of five systems, the machines blue-screened. A message stated that "winserv" was missing. The blue screen occurred on both Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel platforms, and all systems were running Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 1 installed. Every possible avenue to get back into Windows failed.
• CATALYST 4.7 has an issue with 3DMark03 - DriverHeaven is reporting that ATI has withdrawn its latest CATALYST 4.7 driver from Futuremark certification because of a documented display corruption problem with 3DMark03.
• Kerio MailServer 6 released - Kerio MailServer 6 introduces integration with Outlook allowing for shared calendars, contacts and tasks. New Kerio WebMail features drag-and-drop, right-click menus and keyboard shortcuts. (thanks Shaitan's Blog)
• FarCry Benchmark v1.1 - The HardwareOC FarCry Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes video card benchmarking fast and easy. You can select different resolutions, rendering engines, detail levels and much much more by one click.
• Siriel4 game engine 0.9 - Siriel4 is game engine for adventure, arcade, maze like games. The main goal of this engine is to provide tools and scripts for easy game creation. Game creators only write the necessary scenario descriptions for the game in a scripting language (such as Lua) and do not have to care about such low-level details as animation loading, etc
• MultiRes 1.47 - MultiRes 1.47 is a small, free, 32-bit alternative to QuickRes, with refresh rate and multi-monitor support for up to nine display devices under Windows 9x/Me and Windows NT/2000/XP.
• Lookout V1.2  - Lookout is lightning-fast search for your email, files, and desktop integrated with Microsoft Outlook. Built on top of a powerful search engine, Lookout is the only personal search engine that can search all of your email from directly within Outlook - in seconds...
• GNOME 2.7.4 - The GNOME project (download) provides two things: The GNOME Linux desktop environment, an intuitive and attractive desktop for end-users, users, and the GNOME development platform, an extensive framework for building applications that integrate into the rest of the desktop
• The Bat! 2.12.03 (SHW) - The Bat is powerful email client with a friendly, neat interface.
• nLite v0.98.4 - Mainly, it's a little bit of a slipstreamer, customizer, reducer and iso creator all in one package. Works for every version of Windows XP installation, so far tested up to slipsteamed SP2 build 2162. To avoid confusion, this is for pre-installation, not like XPlite which is post installation customizer. This version still could be buggy, if you encounter any critical errors please report it and use 0.97, it's quite stable.
• Hyper-Threading Technology Test Utility - If  the Hyper-Threading Technology Test Utility has returned a non-passing result for the tested desktop or notebook system, this area will provide guidance in understanding the results and steps to resolve potential system issues.
• Tray Helper 4.3 - Tray Helper is free application with many features (f/e: email checker, auto mail responder, anti-spam, popup-killer, event reminder and more).
• HyperSnap-DX 5.60.02 (SHW) - HyperSnap-DX (download) is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx, 3dfx, Voodoo and Glide mode games.
• Fresh Download 7.10 - Fresh Download (download) is an easy-to-use and very fast download manager software that turbo charges downloading files from the Internet, such as your favorite software, mp3 files, video files, picture collections, etc. Unlike any other similar utilities, this software is 100% free, no charges, no banners in the software, no spyware.
• Foobar2000 v0.8.3 - Foobar2000 (download) is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats.
• SpeedFan 4.14 - 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.
• Nvidia ForceWare 62.20 Beta - This time again, and props to them, Neowin.net was able to grab and leak ForceWare drivers, this is build 62.20 for Windows 2000 & XP. The files are dated 07/15/2004 and will work with the entire range of Nvidia graphics cards.These fully support and NVIDIA graphics card and bare in mind they are not WHQL qualified so please be careful. Mirror: Guru3D.
• LG 4040B firmware A304 - This new firmware supports 4X speed for LG DVD-R 8X Media and improves the readability for 8cm DVD-R/RW media
• Lite-On CD-RW firmware - LiteOn have released a new DVD Dual and CD-RW firmware updates for  Lite-On SOHW-1213S, Lite-On SOHW-832S, Lite-On SOHW-812S, Lite-On SOHW-832SX, Lite-On SOHW-812SX and  Lite-On SOHR-5238S.

• BT blocks 20,000 attempts a day to access child porn - Thousands of people are being stopped from accessing hardcore child pornography on the internet every day because of a new filtering system. British Telecom, which introduced the technology, said it was blocking more than 20,000 attempts to download paedophile websites each day.
• DVD Pacific - Stolen Card Numbers? - A number of DVD Pacific users in Australia have recently (in the last week and a half) had fraudulent charges appear on their credit cards. Has anyone here had a similar experience? (thanks Tero Koiranen)
• National Hi-Tech Crime Unit smashes online extortion racket - The UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has worked with Russian authorities to smash a racket responsible for extorting thousands of pounds from online sport bookies. Three men were arrested in St Petersburg and south west Russia on Tuesday following months of collaboration between the NHTCU and Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs computer crimes department. Bookies have been hit with denial of service (DOS) since October 2003, with cyber criminals bringing web sites down by bombarding servers with thousands of messages in a bid to extort money from them.
• Cell phone glitch throws off GPS - Satellite-tracking features on some Motorola cell phones haven't been working for the last few days, and some people believe the culprit is a Y2K-like software bug.  Nextel Communications and Motorola said they are aware of what they describe as a "software issue" that affects the assisted global positioning satellite location services inside possibly hundreds of thousands of Motorola phones. A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System), as it's known, determines a location using a combination of software on the phone and information from satellites and the cell phone network.
• Hotmail Storage upgrade - 2GB For Free & Pop3 Access - Microsoft have begun increasing free users accounts to 250MB storage and their paid subscribers to 2GB of storage. It appears you can get 2GB of space free by registering an @msn.com email address. MSN Premium accounts with @msn.com .NET Passport can use the following server: POP3: pop3.email.msn.com, SMTP: smtp.email.msn.com.
• Autumn's the time for 512MB graphics - An Nvidia and ATI Autumn refresh will bring you 512MB of memory and we remember that ATI actually said something about delivering 512MB cards by the end of this year.
• Prices of 19-inch LCD monitor panels to drop more than US$20 - Prices of 19-inch LCD monitor panels are expected to drop by more than US$20 next month, according to Taiwan-based LCD monitor maker Amtran Technology. Currently, 19-inch LCD monitor panels range in price from US$340 to US$370.
• Toshiba to Introduce Quick-Start Multimedia Laptop - Japan's Toshiba Corp. is launching its first multimedia laptop with a much clearer display and quick-start video and TV functions to carve out a position in the promising field, a company official said on Wednesday. With the "Qosmio" line to be unveiled on Thursday, Toshiba seeks to benefit from expected growth in demand for multimedia computers that can play and digitally record TV programs, DVDs and other video and audio materials from the Internet.  The laptop will have a 15-inch LCD screen that is brighter and clearer than other LCD televisions, said Oscar Koenders, Toshiba's head of marketing of computer systems in Europe.
• Intel's 90nm Pentium M 755 review - AnandTech takes an in-depth look at Dothan's latest incarnation, the Pentium M 755.
• Gainward CoolFX 6800 Ultra / Connect3D X800XTPE review - The card is very expensive, water-cooling tends to be though so this is of no surprise to us and to be honest it’s not really a concern. Some people may say “I’m not paying L600 for a graphics card” but your not, your paying for the card and a water-cooling setup which can be further updated to include CPU cooling (Gainward also sell the CoolPC kit). If you were to buy a standard
  6800U and a decent water-cooling kit you’d be looking at a similar price, not guaranteed 450 mhz/1200mhz and you’d have to do all the hard work of removing/attaching the components yourself. For these reasons the Gainward CoolFX 2600 Ultra/ Golden sample is excellent both in performance and value. Another review can be found on TGH.
• BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC review - BFG has come to the 6800 GT party with an excellent card that does everything it should and a whole lot more. I've owned many, many gaming cards in my computing life - from a 3dfx Voodoo Banshee to this 6800 GT. My personal favorite has been a Visiontek GeForce3, until now. The BFG 6800 GT OC has taken my gaming experience and kicked it up several orders of magnitude, affording me performance, compatibility, stability and image quality beyond my wildest expectations.
• ATI Radeon X600 XT review - The Radeon X600 XT's downside comes into play when Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering are enabled. Like almost all mainstream level cards before it, the Radeon X600 XT has trouble scaling well with AA and AF enabled at high resolutions. With the Radeon X600 XT priced at just over $200, the card's main competition will be from NVIDIA based GeForce FX 5750 cards, which are priced around the $185 mark
• Samsung’s 243T 24 Inch LCD Display - The 243T is an impressive model, but at around $2,500 a pop, these screens are well out of the budget range of most users. Still, it’s a fun product for us to dream about one day having on our desks.
• AirPort Express - Looking rather like a PowerBook AC adapter, the AirPort Express is a multipurpose device that can act as an 802.11b/g wireless access point, serve as a bridge to extend the range of your AirPort Extreme or Linksys WRT54G (more on that later), stream music from iTunes to a home stereo system, and finally, share a single USB printer via 802.11b/g. All this for US$129.
• Cuttermaran 1.58 - Cuttermaran is a cut program for MPEG1 or MPEG2 video streams. The streams can be cut without recalculation. The asynchronous between audio and video will be minimized.
• SpeedswitchXP 1.4 - SpeedswitchXP is a small applet that sits in the system tray and allows dynamic switching of the frequencies of mobile Intel and mobile AMD CPUs under Windows XP.
• RightMark 3DSound 1.20 - A new version of RightMark 3DSound is available for download. What's new: functionality was considerably extended: all main features of ЕАХ4 Advanced HD were added - Environment filtering (Obstruction, Occlusion, Exclusion), Environment Reflections, Environment Panning, Multi-environments, Environment Morfing...
• Zoom Player 4.01 RC2 - Zoom Player Standard (download), a flexible feature rich Media Player that for all its features and goodness remains bloat-free.
• NEC ND-2510A firmware 2.06 - This firmware should continue the pattern from 2.05 of bitsetting to DVD-ROM for +R DL discs by default.

• Credit risk for customers after firm's PCs stolen - Intuit, a provider of financial software and services, is warning 47,000 customers that their credit-card data may be at risk after computers were stolen from a company office. According to a letter sent to customers last week and a notice recently posted on Intuit's Web site, the theft happened in early June at the Omaha, Nebraska, office of ItsDeductible, a software maker acquired by Intuit last year to be part of its TurboTax tax preparation business. Thieves broke into the office during the weekend of 11 June, according to the notice, and took several items, including a PC with password-protected customer data. Inuit spokeswoman Julie Miller said the records on the PC contain personal data, including credit-card details, for about 47,000 customers who purchased ItsDeductible products between December 2002 and November 2003.
• The new face of cybercrime - Most spammers do not intend to sell. All they want is to "phish" your credit card number. Messages now zip around the Internet purporting to come from trusted companies and asking you to "verify your account." The victim is taken to a Web site that looks genuine but is run by a fraud ring. Besides the direct loss from the stolen card numbers, this fraud damages confidence in Internet security.  This is the new face of cybercrime. Whereas hacker vandals once coveted bragging rights, professional hackers have profit in mind. What's more, they are considerably more determined and have better resources than vandals. A new approach is necessary, and we must unlearn some of the lessons drawn from hacker vandalism.
• Filipino phone phreakers foiled - A gang of eight suspected of ripping off the Philippines' main phone company and its customers of millions over the last six years have been arrested by local authorities. The Manila-based syndicate allegedly exploited security loopholes to obtain free access to telephone calls at the expense of customers of the Philippine Long Distant Telephone (PLDT). The process - known as phone phreaking - involves electronic manipulating phone systems, normally by sending additional control codes down phone lines. The gang is accused of reselling this free access for illicit gain.
• Opera: Multiple spoofing vulnerabilities - Opera fails to remove illegal characters from an URI of a link and to check that the target frame of a link belongs to the same website as the link. Opera also updates the address bar before loading a page. Additionally, Opera contains a certificate verification problem.
• Unreal Tournament 2003/2004: Buffer overflow in "secure"  - The Unreal-based game servers support a specific type of query called 'secure'. Part of the Gamespy protocol, this query is used to ask if the game server is able to calculate an exact response using a provided  string. Luigi Auriemma found that sending a long 'secure' query triggers a buffer overflow in the game server.
• Off-topic: Speaker system lets flowers sing - An audio technology that turns plants and flowers into loudspeakers has been developed in Japan, although some experts remain sceptical about the idea. The speaker system, designed by Let's Corporation, a technology firm based in Okayama, southern Japan, mimics the way conventional audio speakers work. But it uses flowers instead of the conventionally used cone made of paper, plastic or metal, to generate sound waves. Flowers are inserted into an acrylic tube containing a magnetic coil and an oscillating component. Applying an alternating electrical current causes the tube, and the flowers, to vibrate at high speed, producing audible sound.
• Microsoft Expands Access to Windows Source Code - The Redmond, Wash., company said on Monday that all the MVPs within the Microsoft platforms community and living within the 27 eligible countries worldwide will now be able to access Windows source code at no cost.
• Verbatim 16x DVD+R media in September - Verbatim is working closely with the verification authorities and expects to begin manufacturing certified 1-16X DVD+R media shortly after specifications are released later this month. Sample 16X media has already been provided to five of the leading burner manufacturers that are tuning their drives to Verbatim's high-performance media.
• No 60GB iPod - official - There is no 60GB iPod in the pipeline, Apple vice president of hardware product marketing Greg Joswiak has confirmed.
• Intel Unveils Power-Saving Processors - The three new Pentium M chips are all based on the Dothan core, Intel's code name for the processing engine behind its 90-nanometer Pentium M processors. These chips have twice the Level 2 cache of their Banias predecessors, with 2MB of storage as well as faster 400-MHz front-side bus. Intel's new processor numbering system applies to the new chips. The Pentium M Low Voltage 738 processor runs at 1.4 GHz, the Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage 733 runs at 1.1 GHz, and the Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage 723 chip runs at 1 GHz. The new chips cost $284, $262, and $241, respectively, in quantities of 1000 units.
• AMD Sempron specifications revealed - The Sempron's front side bus will have a 25 percent increase as compared to the lower end Athlon XP processors that operate at 133 front side bus.
• Samsung SGH-E100 review - The SGH-E100 is pretty bog-standard under the hood. Dual band 900 / 1800 MHz GSM and GPRS Class 10 are coupled with IR to take care of connectivity. The two LCD screens, one monochrome 96 x 64 and one 16-bit TFT running at 160 x 128, are admittedly excellent. Each is adjustable for contrast or brightness, neither of which seemed to impact battery life, which gave a modest 3 days of average use in comparison to the 9 days claimed by Samsung. Thankfully, the AC adaptor is small enough to take it with you anywhere.
• PNY Verto GeForce 6800GT 256MB review - When you get right down to it, the PNY Verto GeForce 6800GT is an excellent card, considering you can get up to 6800 Ultra performance. It plays all of my games at the highest image quality without breaking a sweat, and leaves room to breath in. I’m especially excited that when games come out with Pixel Shader 3.0 support, the 6800GT will be able to let you enjoy the benefits, mostly performance-wise, as the upcoming v1.2 patch for Far Cry indicates. Another review can be found at EliteBastards.
• Leadtek WinFast A400GT TDH (GeForce 6800 GT) - The Leadtek WinFast A400GT THD is another great package from Leadtek. The card's performance puts it in a heated battle with the X800 PRO. With Doom III now Gold, we are waiting for its arrival to test the A400GT THD on a game I have been waiting for since I saw the preview back when GeForce3 just came out. It is clear that the new generation video cards need a new generation of games.
• Albatron FX5700P Turbo and Gainward Ultra/980 SilentFX Professional -  The memory clock at 500MHz gives you a slightly underwhelming 8GB/sec of GPU-to-memory bandwidth. Albatron aren't interested in following the basic specs too much though. So while they keep the core clock at 425MHz, the memory runs at 650MHz on the P Turbo, for 10.4GB/sec or a full 30% increase over basic spec.
• Twenty One Hard Disk Drive with 160GB Storage Capacity - X-bit Labs take a closer look at the performance and features of 21 hard disk drives from such well-known storage device manufacturers as Western Digital, Samsung, Seagate, Maxtor and Hitachi. They recommend purchasing the Maxtor drives for work with streaming video/audio content, the Hitachi and Western Digital drives for work with common Windows applications. Samsung's devices can be characterized as "universal" - they don't seem to have any obvious weaknesses.
• Toshiba SD-R5272 8x DVD±RW review - One of the best things about Toshiba's new writer is its price. The SD-R5272 is one of the more affordable 8x DVD±RW drives currently available.
• Plextor PX-712UF review - Overclockers Online have posted a review of Plextor PX-712UF. "What I can say is that this drive is very sweet. If you already have the 708UF, then don't upgrade quite so fast. However, if you're in the market for a very fast external drive, then this may be it. With the 8MB Buffer, you don't need to worry about creating a coaster while running all your favorite applications" They also have posted a review of Plextor ConvertX PX-AV100U. The PX-AV100U is the entry ConvertX model and the article aims to provide you with an idea of how well this device performs in converting analog sources to various digital video formats.
• HP Compaq nx9110 review - Getting down to brass tacks, what you get for your money is an Intel P4 3.2GHz CPU with 512MB of DDR333 RAM, a 60GB 4,200rpm HDD and a DVD writer. The DVD writer will burn DVD+R discs at four-speed, DVD+RW media at 2.4-speed, write CD-Rs at 16-speed and burn CD-RWs at 10-speed. On the video side the screen is a stunning 15.4in widescreen display capable of a 1,280 x 800 resolution, fuelled by an ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 graphics chipset. Audio is also well catered for courtesy of HP’s JBL Pro integrated speakers ­ the overall effect is excellent.
• Far Cry Benchmark v1.1 - The HardwareOC's Far Cry Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes video card benchmarking fast and easy.
• Public folder RSS Feed Event sink - Glen Scales created an Event sink for public folders so when a new mail or post arrives into that folder it will fire a script that updates a feed with the last 7 days of posts.
• Opera v7.53 (b3850) final - Opera (Win32 w/o Java ~ Win32Java ~ Linux) introduces the looks and the performance of an exceptional Web browser. Opera's user interface has received a major overhaul with the new start-up dialog, and new default buttons, skin and panels in a blue and white color scheme that can be changed back to classic Opera look or another design. At start-up you can select a single or multiple document interface (SDI/MDI).
• Codec Pack All in 1 6.0.1.7 - This package contains all you need to see DivX movies: DivX, XviD, AC3.
• Fraps 2.2.4 - Fraps (download) is designed as a generic tool for DirectX and OpenGL games. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as: Benchmarking Software, Screen Capture Software and Realtime Video Capture Software. This new version adds preliminary DirectX 9.0c support, improves Fraps graphics for systems using large size DPI setting and fixes keyboard response delay encountered by some users.
• YMPEG 1.2 - YMPEG (download) offers you the most simplest way to encode or convert your favorite videos. YMPEG is a first Freeware MPEG Codec which can integrate itself with Windows and offers seamless encoding from your favorite application (VFW).
• nLite v0.98 Beta - Mainly, it's a little bit of a slipstreamer, customizer, reducer and iso creator all in one package. Works for every version of Windows XP installation, so far tested up to slipsteamed SP2 build 2162. To avoid confusion, this is for pre-installation, not like XPlite which is post installation customizer. This version (changelog) still could be buggy, if you encounter any critical errors please report it and use 0.97, it's quite stable.
• Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility 7.1 - This version of the Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility has been updated to support the new Intel Xeon Processor, Pentium 4 processors, Mobile Intel Pentium 4 processors, Pentium III processors, Mobile Pentium III processors with Intel SpeedStep technology, Pentium III Xeon processors and Intel Celeron processors with 66, 100, 133, 400, 533 , and 800 MHz system memory bus products, as well as adding new processor identification functionality (CPUID).
• ATI Radeon DNA-DRIVERS 2.7.4.7 - These are modified/hacked ATI Catalyst drivers (based on the official CATALYST 4.7). The drivers have been optimized with two things in mind, better Image Quality and more/stable frames per second when compared to the official Catalyst drivers from ATI - download.