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Gameguru Mania News - Jul,09 2004 - tech

Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:19 AM CEST - Jul,09 2004 - Post a comment / read (3)

DrinkorDie suspect back in Oz jail - The alleged ringleader of a gang of Internet copyright pirates was back in jail last night after US authorities won the latest round in their battle to extradite him from Australia on multi-million dollar software piracy charges. Hew Raymond Griffiths, 41, of Bateau Bay, New South Wales, is back in Silverwater jail after judge Peter Jacobson ruled magistrate Daniel Reiss was wrong to release him on bail in March. Jacobson ruled that Reiss's reasoning in concluding no extraditable offence had been committed was incorrect. The judgment is a setback for defence efforts to have Griffiths tried in Australia, but it does not mark a definitive ruling.
Building a Better Mozilla - Most people who switch to Mozilla or Mozilla's Firefox browser quickly notice that the browser is pretty bare. It contains exactly what you need to browse the Web -- no less and no more. And while there's a lot to be said for running a lean, clean program, sometimes you long for more features, a little extra functionality. Enter Extensions, little programs that you can add to Mozilla or Firefox to make the browser do what you want it to do. There are now close to a hundred extensions available for downloading. Most work perfectly; others are a bit buggy.
Experts worry that synthetic biology may spawn biohackers - Design automation systems tailored to the task of genetic engineering could prove to be double-edged tools. While they represent a central thrust of the emerging synthetic biology movement, they also can lead to the accidental or deliberate creation of pathogenic biological components.
Off-topic: Brain implants 'read' monkey minds - Brain implants have been used to "read the minds" of monkeys to predict what they are about to do and even how enthusiastic they are about doing it. It is the first time such high level cognitive brain signals have been decoded and could ultimately lead to more natural thought-activated prosthetic devices for people with paralysis, says Richard Andersen project leader at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, US. By decoding the signals from 96 electrodes in a region of the brain just above the ear – called the parietal cortex - the researchers were able to predict 67 per cent of the time where in their visual field trained monkeys were planning to reach.
Off-topic: The Man Who Knew Too Much - As of yesterday, the 30-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City had won a total of $788,960, beating the previous record-holder, Tom Walsh, by a margin of over $600,000. Granted, this unprecedented victory streak was also made possible by this season's change in Jeopardy! rules—the term limits have been lifted, as it were, so that the run of a winning contestants may continue indefinitely, instead of being stopped after five consecutive games. But Ken is no mere beneficiary of this loophole in Jeopardy!
Apple says that Sony's walkman capacity claim is misleading - When Sony released its rival to the i-Pod it claimed that it could hold 13,000 songs compared to the iPod's flacid 10,000, even though the total capacity was half the size. Greg Joswiak, vice president of Hardware Product Marketing at Apple said that Sony could only stuff 13,000 songs on the hard drive because its ATRAC3 (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding for MiniDisc 3) compression system could be set at the low rate of 48Kbps which was nowhere near CD quality.
Fujitsu Flashes Megapixel PDA - Fujitsu launched this week a new PDA targeted at business users. The first new feature is support for VGA (640 pixels by 480 pixels) resolution screens and the second is the ability to display images in either portrait or landscape mode. The display used in the device is a 3.7-inch TFT LCD. Other features include a 1.3-megapixel class digital still camera function and built-in support for IEEE802.11b wireless LAN. At its heart the device has an Intel PXA270 XScale processor running at 520 MHz and supported by 128MB of RAM and 64MB of ROM.
Intel Begins Shipments of 3.60GHz Processors - Intel Corporation has initiated shipments of its recently announced Pentium 4 3.60GHz processor also known as Intel Pentium 4 560. Announced in mid-June, the chip did not immediately make appearance in retail and personal computers assembled by leading makers of PCs, such as Dell. Intel Pentium 4 processor 560 operates at 3.60GHz, features HT and SSE3 technologies and comes in LGA775 form-factor. The chip is compatible with Socket T mainboards supporting 800MHz processor system bus, based on i915- or i925X-series chipsets from Intel. The chip can dissipate up to 115W of power and requires mainboards to support Platform Compatibility Guide 04B. Two stores in the USA listed by Xbitlabs.Dealtime.com offered the chip for $720 and $745, but at press-time the product was out of stock. Intel's official price for the product is $637 when bought in business quantities.
Intel chip defect slows down DDR2 packaging and testing orders to Taiwan - With Intel's recent chip defect likely delaying production ramps of DDR2 chips, Taiwanese memory packaging and testing firms are seeing slowdowns in their DDR2-related orders, according to sources.
Is DDR2 Ready To Replace DDR1??? - Expect DDR2 memory at 533MHz to be comparable to DDR1 at 400MHz, but don't expect to see any "noticeable" memory bandwidth performance gains till DDR2 667 and above with low timings!
Microsoft Mice Photos - Microsoft has released five new mice today; including two designer mice: Optical Mouse by S+ARCK (Red/Blue): $34.95, Wireless Optical Mouse in Mood Ring: $44.95, Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer in Cobalt Basin: $54.95 and Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer in Crimson Fire: $54.95
Testing the memories - Does latency mean anything? - Well yes, the average difference will be a few percent, sometimes more (when applications are more latency-bound or memory-bound in general), sometimes less (when it is either the case of cache-fit, or just pure memory bandwidth that matters, as in video streaming). But isn't it the same case when, say, moving from 3.2 GHz to 3.4 GHz Northwood, where we also talk about, say, 3% on average?
Olympus C8080 Wide Zoom review - Hardware Analysis take a closer look at the Olympus C8080 Wide Zoom, a camera that sets itself apart by offering excellent image quality and ease of use.
Sony VAIO VGN-S1VP notebook review - Finished in a very fetching black and silver, the S1VP is the kind of machine that all self confessed IT style junkies would love. The black lid is offset beautifully by the mirrored VAIO lettering and the smallest of Sony logos. Opening the lid reveals a black keyboard at the centre of a silver chassis, although opinion in the office is split about the chrome plated touch pad buttons....
Acer Ferrari 3200 Notebook review - Although THG's benchmarks showed the Ferrari 3200 is not the fastest gaming notebook, it certainly represents an excellent compromise between gaming and normal use. Another point about which Acer can be proud is the fact that its mobile Athlon64 notebook is the most sophisticated, best performing, best equipped and most attractive laptop around.
DDR2 Roundup: Reaching for 667 and Beyond - Right now, Micron memory chips have proved to be the top performers, and these were found in Crucial, Micron, Kingmax, and Corsair memory. The Kingmax may well be the equal of the other 3, but the performance was hampered by our 256MB DIMMs, so we cannot state that with confidence. The Corsair 667, Crucial 533, and Micron 533 were all at the top in every benchmark, so clearly, these 3 are the top performers.
ASUS V9520/TD GeForce FX 5200 Video Card - It's abundantly clear that L50 - L60 isn't going to buy you the kind of performance that will run, say, Doom III with ease. That's an obvious point which is worth making. ASUS hasn't done anything intrinsically wrong with its interpretation of a GeForce FX 5200 video card. The bundle is solid for a budget card and construction is excellent. The problem, if you can call it that, lies with the NV34 GPU. Comparative (and that's the key word) performance looks poor with other GPUs that hover around the L100 mark, so much so that running at 1024x768, with no image enhancement, can be problematic with new titles that make full use of DX9's feature set. This point is exemplified by the v9520/TD's performance in AquaMark3.
HIS X800XT IceQ II VIVO LE / HIS X800Pro IceQ II VIVO Limited review - What we have here are two very fast and very high in quality videocards from HIS based on ATi's latest X800 series 'VPUs'. The performance difference between the two is quite noteworthy, the HIS X800XT IceQ II really starts to dominate at higher resolutions, particularly when introducing AA and AF.
Lite-On, LG and BenQ Bring 8.5-GB Recordable DVDs to the Party - Dual-layer technology, which makes it possible to store 8.5 GB of data or four hours of DVD quality video (MPEG-2) on a DVD, is finally here. TGH tested the Lite-On SOHW-832S, the LG GSA-4120B and the BenQ DW-1600 to see what this technology is about.
Philips PSC724 Ultimate Edge - The PSC724 was capable of besting the Revolution 7.1 on multiple occasions. One large advantage many of you should consider of the Ultimate Edge is the price that it rolls out at; a mere $69.99. While this isn't quite a budget sound card, it certainly brings with it high quality audio at an affordable price point. The package is a no frills bundle, but with the money one saves on this card over an expensive Audigy bundle you could buy the games you really want or sink that extra dough into a worthy set of speakers.
ASUS Terminator 2: a Universal Barebone review - Terminator 2 is unlikely to become a hit in sales. It is a bit too expensive for an ordinary PC base, the Standard variant has too poor package and functionality for an entertainment-oriented home PC, while the Commercial Deluxe one has no extension slots. On the other hand, the price for T2-P Standard can be quite suitable for those not trying to economise as much as possible on their first purchase.
BenQ FP231W 23-Inch LCD Flat Panel review - ExtremeTech has posted a review of BenQ FP231W 23-Inch LCD Flat Panel.
Benchmarking with Far Cry - This is the extreme torture test, 1600x1200 with a good amount of AA and AF piled on top. The frame rates these cards are able to achieve are truly remarkable, but remember; during actual gameplay the frame rate would be slower in scenes of action. The X800 XT does incredibly well here, showing an 11% jump over the shader model 3.0 path and an impressive 25% boost over the shader model 2.0 path on the 6800 Ultra.
ATI Catalyst 4.7 Performance Analysis - Well, there are the new ATI Catalyst 4.7 drivers for your viewing pleasure. The performance jump isn't as great as last time and there is nothing new like the last release which brought us Overdrive for the new line of Radeon X800 graphics cards – on the outside, the ATI Control Panel looks exactly the same as the 4.6 version. While there isn't a big jump in performance (and in fact, a decrease in certain areas), it is always a very good idea to update to the latest set of drivers as it fixes up some of the bugs in your favorite games that were in previous releases and this is usually a good enough reason to update for many.
SATA RAIDing With Maxtor - RAID comes in a couple main flavors: RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 5. These are others, but these are the most commonly used RAID configurations. The first two are increasingly common in the machines of home PC enthusiasts while the latter is almost exclusively found in business-class servers. In this article, I'm going to take a brief look at SATA RAID performance with two 120GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA hard drives.
ATI Bios, Softmod & Tweak Guide Inc X800 VIVO > XT - check it out!
List of Live CDs with Linux - The purpose of this page is to provide a comprehensive, easy-to-search list of all available Linux-based Live CDs.
MySQL 4.1.3 Beta - changes ~ download
mIRC 6.16 - To use IRC you need a small program like mIRC (changelog ~ download), an IRC client for Windows, written by Khaled Mardam-Bey. mIRC is a friendly IRC client that is well equipped with options and tools.
GSpot v2.5 Beta 4 - GSpot (download beta4) determine what codec a video/audio file uses and what codec your system will use to play it. Identifies MPEG (.mpg), QuickTime (.mov), RealMedia (.rm), Windows Media (.wma / .asf), Flash (.swf) and others; will attempt a DirectShow render those (and any other) file, and report either the error or detailed results.
CustomBar 1.0 - CustomBar (download) is a bar that is always visible, much like the taskbar. Unlike the taskbar, you can put pretty anything you want on it. This is accomplished through a scripting/plugin/skinning system that is powerful enough to create some basic apps in. C++ plugins can be used to further extend functionality.
SpywareBlaster 3.2 - SpywareBlaster doesn't scan and clean for spyware - it prevents it from ever being installed. Spyware, adware, browser hijackers, and dialers are some of the fastest-growing threats on the Internet today. By simply browsing to a web page, you could find your computer to be the brand-new host of one of these unwanted fiends!
Firefox 0.9.2 - FireFox 0.9.2. is out! Firefox is a free, open-source web browser for Windows, Linux and MacOS X and is based on the Mozilla codebase. It is small, fast and easy to use, and offers many advantages over Internet Explorer, such as the ability to block pop-up windows.
Opera v7.52 - Opera (Win32 w/o Java ~ Win32 with Java ~ 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).
Maxthon (MyIE2) v1.0.0168 Beta - Maxthon (MyIE2) (download) is a powerful web browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer engine (your most likely current web browser) which means that what works in IE, works the same in Maxthon but with many additional efficient features.
UniAN Catalyst driver 1047a - These are modified/hacked ATI Catalyst drivers based on ATI Catalyst v4.7.

Gameguru Mania News - Jul,08 2004 - tech

Thursday Tech Reading part #1 - tech
(hx) 12:31 PM CEST - Jul,08 2004 - Post a comment / read (9)

Another Internet Explorer flaw found - Microsoft on Friday released a fix that's designed to protect computers from one of three flaws that, together, could be used to digitally slip past a PC's security through the browser. This weekend, however, a security researcher identified another flaw that could serve the same purpose and that isn't fixed by Microsoft's patch. Another story can be found here.
Google GMail "CheckAvailability" Script May Disclose User Information to Remote Users - Ahmed Motaz reported that a remote user can invoke the '/accounts/CheckAvailability' script repeatedly to cause the system to return information beloging to another user's query. The information disclosed includes the target user's first and last name and the target user's desired GMail account username. The remote user must have a valid GMail invitation, the report said.
New Bagle Variants Spread - Antivirus software companies are warning customers that new editions to the Bagle family of e-mail worms are spreading on the Internet, and depositing copies of the worm's source code on computers they infect. Leading antivirus firms including Sophos, Symantec, and McAfee issued alerts about two new variants, W32/Bagle-AD and Bagle-AE, this week. The new tactic could place copies of the worm's core computer code on thousands of compromised computers, and may be a sign that the author or authors of one of the most prolific worms in recent months are feeling the heat from the law, according to one security expert.
ITU wants spam dead within two years - Delegates at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) spam conference have called for standardised, tougher worldwide anti-spam legislation, which they believe could stamp out junk email within the next two years.
Slow file transfer to USB stick issue acknowlegded - The extended saga about Windows XP requiring an extraordinarily long time to write bundles of small files to USB removable drives may have come to an end. According to Microsoft, as of 6 July 2004, it is "Working As Designed". You may recall that this started with several contributors to the Compuserve PCHardware forum, including Judith Miner, Roy Longbottom and Dan Landiss, noticing that writing several small files to a USB flash RAM is multiple times slower than writing the same number of bytes in a single file. One might reasonably expect some slowdown, but the ratio is as much as 50:1. FAT32 is slower than FAT16, and the slowdown seemed to be proportional to drive capacity.
Microsoft Aims to Save $1 Billion - Microsoft customers have heard the vendor profess that its software allows them to "do more with less," but now it is Microsoft employees' turn: The company is cutting back on benefits. Microsoft plans to save nearly $1 billion through efficiency improvements and cost-cutting in its 2005 fiscal year, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer says in his annual strategy e-mail message to employees this week. The company's new fiscal year started on July 1.
Windows XP Beta Shuts Out Nocona - Customers can now purchase workstations that use Intel's Nocona Xeon processor, with 64-bit extensions to the x86 instruction set, but they can't run the beta 64-bit version of Windows designed for those extensions on the new workstations. The publicly available beta version of Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems can only be installed on systems with AMD' Opteron and Athlon 64 processors, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.
Apple confirms iPod mini July release date - Apple's iPod mini music player will be released in the UK on 24 July. The 3.6oz, 4GB device, which holds up to 1,000 CD-quality songs, will be available from Apple's website, retail stores and authorised resellers for L179 later this month.
More details revealed about Nforce 4 - The chipset will be Socket 754/939 and 940 capable and will have multiprocessing capabilities. You will be able to use it as a single CPU platform. And you will also be able to use it as a two way, four way and up to a maximum of eight way as a multiprocessing platform. This chipset will support a maximum of 32 PCI-E lanes says Theo, has suggested 1x16 X PCI-E slot, one 1 x 8X for SLI card and four times one lane for peripheral devices. This definitely confirms our previous claim that Nforce 4 will be a platform which will let you plug two Geforce 6 series PCI-E cards into a machine and end up with a much cheaper MP machine than those based on Intel's "Tumwater" chipset.
AMD Sempr0n socket A is coming - The good news is that only a BIOS update will enable Sempr0ns to work on current Socket A boards, perhaps not all but I guess the majority of them. We suspect that you need FSB 400 to have those CPUs work as all K8s are working at FSB 800 or should we say 200 MHz. Yes we know that Hypertransport is AMD's FSB these days. The Sempr0n Socket A will work at 2500+, 2600+ and 2800+ for starters.
Intel to incorporate NX Bit security technology into its CPUs - Intel plans to incorporate Execute Disable Bit (NX Bit) security technology into its processor lineup from the end of the third quarter, according to sources at local motherboard vendors. The plan should not involve any increase in cost or require any redesign work on motherboards – a simple BIOS upgrade enables support – said the sources.

ATI CATALYST Drivers v4.7 - tech
(hx) 02:43 AM CEST - Jul,08 2004 - Post a comment
ATI has released a new ATI Catalyst drivers (release note) bringing them up to version 4.7. The package contains: RADEON display driver 8.03, Multimedia Centert 9.1, HydraVision 3.25.0006, HydraVision Basic Edition 3.25.9006, Remote Wonder 2.3 and WDM version 4.05.

Resolved game issues:

Setting the D3D option to Optimal Quality and configuring the game Freedom Fighters to 1280x1024 no longer results in display corruption being seen on the test resolution window. This issue occurred under Windows XP with an ALL-IN-WONDER 9200 installed

The water that surrounds Death Island in the game Halo: Combat evolved is now seen as blue in colour. This issues was known to occur under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON 8500 installed

Image rendering issues in the Truform room found in Serious Sam are no longer noticed when increasing the Truform level to maximum under the Advanced Rendering Option

Flashing textures in the water are no longer noticed when running Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON X800 XT installed

Playing the game TOCA Race Driver under Windows XP no longer results in the shadows being missing under the car when the shadow quality is set to high

Gameguru Mania News - Jul,06 2004 - tech

Tuesday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 07:24 PM CEST - Jul,06 2004 - Post a comment

Bagle source code unleashed - Virus writers are distributing viral source code with the latest version of the Bagle virus series, Bagle-AD. Much like its 29 predecessors, Bagle-AD is a mass-mailing worm that is packed using UPX file compression. IT comes in the form of a password-protected .ZIP file, with the password included in the message body as plain text or within an image. The ZIP file contains an executable with the extensions EXE, COM or SCR.

Windows XP SP2 cracked already? - Microsoft has claimed that it's introduced features in SP2 which mean that illegal users of stolen or cracked activation codes won't be able to upgrade the OS, which is due for release in August of this year. However, sources in the community are claiming that there's already a keygen for service pack 2 out in the wild that will bypass the security arrangements.

Barclays unveils key anti-cyberfraud device - Barclays Bank has issued credit card readers to 5,000 of its Barclaycard customers in a trial of secure online transactions. The six-month pilot to secure online and telephone transactions follows successful internal trials over the last few months to combat the growing problem of card-not-present fraud, which accounts for around 40 per cent of all credit card losses.

MySQL Authentication Bypass / Buffer Overflow - This advisory details a bug that allows a remote user to entirely bypass the MySQL password authentication mechanism, allowing them to authenticate as a MySQL user without knowing that user's password. Using a similar method, a stack buffer used in the authentication mechanism can be overflowed, though exploitation of the overflow is not straightforward

Checkpoint Firewall-1 vulnerability announced - A fingerprinting technique, developed by NTA Monitor and dubbed IKE Vendor ID fingerprinting, allows the specific version of Firewall-1 to be identified. NTA reckons that the security issue affects all of the Checkpoint Firewall-1 products that are running IPsec VPN – currently there is no vendor fix, disabling IPsec is the only known workaround so far.

Academy backs 'pirate-proof' tech for Oscar samplers - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has sanctioned the use of 'pirate-proof' DVDs to allow Oscar voters to preview the movies they're supposed to have seen before choosing their favourite director, actor, gratuitous use of the word f**k in a serious screenplay, etc. If it wins the support of the studios, the move will see DVD content protection specialist and Dolby subsidiary Cinea shipping thousands of discs and players to voters. In addition to a new hardwired encryption system, Cinea's S-View uses a watermarking system that writes a code identifying the host DVD player onto the disc every time it's played and even embeds it into key picture frames. If the disc is copied or the image grabbed using a camcorder pointing to the screen, Cinea can determine whose disc was used as the source for the pirate copies.

File sharing advocate has movie pirated and file-shared - Famous lefty documentary maker Michael Moore, who has gone on record as supporting the file sharing of his work, has had his latest flick pirated and file shared. A jerky hand cam version of Fahrenheit 9/11 was being distributed in the US last week, according to the anti-Moore Web site www.MooreWatch.Com. According to news.com, MooreWatch co-founder Jim Kenefick, said that Moore has said that he doesn't care if people download his movies or steal his book or sneak into his movies. He is said to have said he doesn't agree with copyright laws and that he makes movies, books and TV shows because he wants things to change.

Professor gives Cisco manual away for free - Basham, a professor of information technology and IT security at St. Petersburg College in Clearwater, Fla., wrote his own 800-page Cisco networking textbook and last week made it available for download over the Internet free of charge. The book is available as a Word document here.

Off-topic: Virtual Reality May Distract the Brain from Pain - A trip into virtual reality may literally take a person's mind off the pain of a medical procedure, a new study shows. Scientists found that slipping into a computer-generated world not only lessened how much pain volunteers felt during an uncomfortable procedure, it also dampened activity in the brain's pain centers.

Off-topic: Titan Reveals its Mysterious Surface - Scientists for the first time have peered through the thick atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, to reveal mysterious features and a possible crater. The latest information from the Cassini spacecraft also shows a large cloud of gas that surrounds both Titan and Saturn, extending far outside the planet's ring system. But scientists so far have seen so sign of the oceans of methane thought to cover the planet-sized moon.

Off-topic: Spider-Man 2 Has Over 30 Mistakes - Spider-Man 2 may have won over the critics, but the hard-nosed bastards at moviemistakes.com are listing 31 mistakes already.

Off-topic: Let software catch the game for you - Software that can identify the significant events in live TV sports broadcasts will soon be able to compile programmes of highlights without any help from people. The technology will save broadcasters millions in editing costs - and should eventually lead to new generations of video recorders that will let people customise their own sports highlights packages. But developing software that understands sport is no easy task.

Off-topic: Evolution could speed net downloads - Internet download speeds could be improved dramatically by mimicking Darwin's evolution to "breed" the best networking strategies, say computer scientists. To tackle the challenge, Pablo Funes of US company Icosystem and Jürgen Branke and Frederik Theil of the University of Karlsruhe in Germany used "genetic algorithms", which mimic Darwinian evolution, to develop strategies for internet servers to use when caching data. Using a simulation they were able to improve download speeds over existing caching schemes.

Microsoft pays EU in full - Microsoft has paid the US$600 million fine handed down by the European Commission in its antitrust ruling against the company. Representatives of the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant confirmed last Friday that Microsoft deposited the payment in an escrow account while the company's appeal is taking place. While Microsoft had the option of submitting a promissory note in place of such a payout until proceedings are complete, the company dipped into its massive cash reserves, estimated at US$50 billion, to cover the largest antitrust fine ever levied against a company by the European Union.

BT introducing bandwidth limits - Bandwidth limits are a growing an inevitability with ISPs; NTL introduced them a while ago, and now BT appears to be doing the same thing. Each month, BT customers will get 15/30 gigabytes (512k/1meg respectively) worth of bandwidth. If they go over that, they will be charged for extra bandwidth by the gigabyte (L2/Gig). (thanks Neowin.net)

1GB mail at www.walla.com - walla.com just opened a free 1000mb mailbox. Check it out. (thanks Tom Rosen)

Microsoft develops Windows for parallel computing - Microsoft is developing a version of its Windows Server 2003 operating system that is designed to handle applications running across dozens of single- or dual-processor computers working in parallel. The software, due in the 2H'05, represents a different approach to high-end computing than the company's currently available DataCenter edition of Windows.

ATI's Richard Huddy talks about Get In The Game - HEXUS' Ryszard recently spoke with ATI's Richard Huddy, primarily about ATI's "Get in the Game" (GITG) initiative.

Intel resumes deliveries of 915 chipsets - Intel has resumed deliveries of its 915 chipsets, starting early this week, according to sources at local IT makers and channels. Sales of the new-generation Pentium 4 chipsets were suspended in late June after a defect was found in the ICH6 south bridge. Although Intel informed local motherboard makers that it will recall all boards manufactured during the period between June 7 and June 14, it has yet to announce the recall price.

Mobile processors compared - GamePC has published a performance comparison of mobile processors, including Intel's Pentium M and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, and desktop replacement and mobile flavors of AMD's Athlon 64.

Corsair Memory Overclocks DDR2 to 667MHz - Corsair's new XMS2 PC2-5300 modules are able to function at speeds of up to 667MHz with CL4 4-4-12 latency settings. The new products are also equipped with heat-spreader with special LEDs to allow users to monitor activity of their RAM. According to the company's statement, XMS2 5300 Pro DDR2 SDRAM memory modules are shipping in quantities now. This makes Corsair Memory the first company to start shipments of 667MHz DDR2 products. Additionally, the memory firm ships DDR2 modules at 400MHz and 533MHz.

BFGTech GeForce 6800Ultra OC - Right now if you are in the market for a GeForce 6800Ultra based video card you cannot go wrong with the BFG GeForce 6800Ultra OC. It packs all the capabilities and features of the GeForce 6 series into a package that is solid and overclocks well out of the box.

GeCube RADEON X800 PRO - This video card is a copy of the reference design, but the sticker is nicer and more pleasant than the «native ATI» one with another set of bared teeth. There are no reprimands concerning its operation, the card is quite stable. 2D quality of this specimen is up to the mark: 1600x1200 at 85Hz - no reprimands. Overclocking capacity of this specimen is not bad at all: 530/1140 MHz.

Plextor PX-712A DVD Burner review - The PX-712A will write to DVD+R media at up to 12X and DVD-R media at up to 8X. Of course, it will also write to DVD+RW (4X), DVD-RW (4X), CD-R (48X), and CD-RW (24X), and read DVD-ROM (16X) and CD-ROM (48X) media. Those are all impressive numbers. Gone are the days of paltry CD read and write speeds for the DVD burner. This drive excels in all categories! It also has something that is not often found on optical drives - an 8 MB buffer.

Ultra Products X-Connect 500W Power Supply - The X-Connect power supply is as innovative as it is beautiful. Today's performance seekers aren't worried about looks over performance, but it's nice to know that you can get looks, innovation, and performance all with a single PSU. I was a little gun-shy after the voltage problems I had with the pre-production model, but Ultra Products regained my confidence and proved to me that they have designed and built a worthy product.

Syncmaster 173P 19-inch LCD Display Review - The compact little 17" screen of the Samsung Syncmaster 173P boasts a resolution of 1280x1024 pixels, and an industry standard dot pitch of 0.264mm that makes for a crisper image than current 19" LCDs can muster. While the 173P does retail a bit higher than the average 17" LCD, priced a little over $600USD, it does offer up a contrast ratio of 700:1 and brightness value of 270 cd/m2.

AudioTrak Optoplay: At a glance - The AudioTrak OPTOPlay rejuvenates the audio experience in a laptop or PC with 24-bit 96 kHz professional quality audio. OPTOPlay is a USB device to enhance a user's listening experience including Dolby Headphone Technology**. It's small and easy to pack away in a laptop bag.

17in Widescreen notebook review - TrustedReviews have a review up of the Systemax Hurrican 6000 which is a 17in Widescreen notebook with an Athlon 64 processor and a Mobility Radeon 9700 and 5.1-channel speakers.

FarCry's New Patch Shows It Does Get Better Than This - As was to be expected, SM 3.0 does not improve rendering quality, even though NVIDIA has repeatedly suggested just that in several of its presentations. Whether the results we saw here in FarCry will translate into a general advantage in SM 3.0 games for NVIDIA remains to be seen, as the performance improvements could be caused by other factors as well. For example, it is entirely possible that the new SM3.0 code path also contains shader code specifically optimized for the NV4x architecture

Half-Life 2 (beta) Geforce 6800 vs Radeon X800 Benchmarks

Mac OS X emulator & Stefan Weyergraf RIP - There are currently two flavors: a generic and a JIT (Just In Time) version. The generic version is the slowest, running about 400 times slower than the computer on which PearPC runs So, if you have a 400Mhz Pentium, the generic PearPC version should top out at a screaming 1Mhz on your system. Fortunately, there is hope. The JIT version of PearPC is a bit more efficient, running at a much faster pace of 40 times slower than the host hardware. This means that our 400Mhz Pentium would drive PearPC at about 10Mhz. In a real world scenario, this would put PearPC at about 77Mhz on a 3GHz Pentium. And although this may be a bit depressing, the fact that we actually have a PowerPC emulation environment running in a completely alien computing architecture is well, quite cool. Unfortunately, on a blog for PearPC, co-author Sebastian Biallas has written of Stefan Weyergraf's death late yesterday evening. A tragic end to a young developer who proved that Mac emulation software wasn't a myth

[Useful]: Sysinternals Autorun - This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them.

[Useful]: Sysinternals TCPView - TCPView is a Windows program that will show you detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on your system, including the local and remote addresses and state of TCP connections.

[Useful]: Sysinternals PSTools - The tools included in the PsTools suite, which are downloadable individually or as a package, are: PsExec - execute processes remotely, PsFile - shows files opened remotely, PsGetSid - display the SID of a computer or a user, PsKill - kill processes by name or process ID, PsInfo - list information about a system, PsList - list detailed information about processes, PsLoggedOn - see who's logged on locally and via resource sharing (full source is included), PsLogList - dump event log records, PsPasswd - changes account, passwords, PsService - view and control services, PsShutdown - shuts down and optionally reboots a computer, PsSuspend - suspends processes, PsUptime - shows you how long a system has been running since its last reboot (PsUptime's functionality has been incorporated into PsInfo).

[Useful]: Sysinternals Process Explorer - Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

phpMyAdmin 2.5.7pl1 (patch level 1) - phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you'll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database.

Linbox Rescue Server 20040702 - The Linbox Rescue Server (LRS) (download) is a tool to centralize hard disk images, file backups, hardware inventory, Windows PCs software inventory, and remote access on a single server. The LRS can be managed from any PC through a Web-based administration interface. A bootable installation CD or DVD can also be generated from any hard disk image. It supports Ext2/3, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, NTFS, and FAT filesystems (including Windows' dynamic disks).

WinMX v3.53 - WinMX (download) is a FREE file-sharing program like no other. It allows you to connect, download, and share files with MILLIONS of other users through the decentralized WinMX Peer Network (thanks Ally Russell)

VideoLAN 0.7.2 - VideoLAN is an excellent multimedia player with it's own plugins for playing different formats, so it doesn't need any codecs to be installed. It works great for previewing partially downloaded files too.

Sateira CD&DVD Burner v1.42 - Saterira CD/DVD burner allows you to create audio and data CD / DVD, CUE / ISO images, multisession and bootable CD/ VD's

DVD Decrypter 3.2.3.0 - DVD Decrypter is a free tool which enables you decrypt and copy a DVD to your PC's hard disk. From there you can choose to watch them with the likes of PowerDVD and WinDVD or you can re-encode them to MPEG1 (VCD) or DivX..

DVD Region+CSS Free 5.10 - DVD Region+CSS Free has been updated to version 5.10. This software enables you to watch and copy any region CSS-encrypted DVD movies on any DVD drive. This new version added support for Explorer, which means you can copy DVD to hard disk in explorer window now and support for Nero Burning ROM and Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator, which means you can make bit-to-bit copy now.

True Launch Bar v.3.0 - True Launch Bar (download) is a utility that seamlessly integrates into Windows shell and gives it additional flexibility by allowing the user to group selected application icons and shortcuts into cascading popup menus of any complexity level.

WinRAR 3.40 Beta 2 - WinRAR (Win32 ~ Linux ~ changelog) 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.

NVIDIA ForceWare 61.80 Beta drivers - The files are dated 06/16/2004 and will work with the entire range of Nvidia graphics cards. I haven't had time to test these fully and bare in mind they are not WHQL so please be careful.

Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro review - tech
(hx) 02:59 PM CEST - Jul,06 2004 - Post a comment
TrustedReviews let us know they have posted a review of the Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro graphics card:

Testing with the bundled Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness showed a fairly even match, although the 6800 GT was still slightly ahead. The Sapphire lagged behind considerably on the Halo test, with scores of 62.7fps and 46.9fps at 1,280 x 1,024 and 1,600 x 1,200 respectively, compared with 75.8fps and 59.9fps on the 6800 GT.

But turning to Far Cry, the Sapphire turned in some great numbers, that not only beat the 6800 GT reference board, but are also way ahead of the X800 Pro reference board I previously looked at. Of course, to be fair, the X800 Pro reference board was running on older drivers, and an older revision of Far Cry, which could explain the performance boost. But it definitely appears that the X800 Pro is less bothered by AF than the 6800 GT.

Even with only 12 pixel pipelines the Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro turned in some good numbers in the benchmarks, and if you go to Komplett you’ll get it at a reasonable price too. The impending release of the GeForce 6800 GT may spoil the party for the X800 Pro, but for now it’s the only, reasonably, affordable next generation graphics solution.

Gameguru Mania News - Jul,05 2004 - tech

BFG Tech GeForce 6800 GT OC review - tech
(hx) 02:17 PM CEST - Jul,05 2004 - Post a comment / read (3)

Far Cry - BFG 6800 GT OC

Far Cry - Sapphire X800 Pro

Today Bjorn3D looks at what will be probably NVIDIA's best selling GPU for the rest of the year. And the card that it sits on is a BFG Tech GeForce 6800 GT OC. Here is an excerpt:

The BFG 6800 GT OC is a great card. Yes, it is expensive at $400+, but you get what you pay for. The performance is great, and you can more than likely count on it overclocking even more than its preset overclock values. It will of course run even hotter then, but as long as you keep your case cool, which you should try to do anyway, then I don't see it as a problem. Most users would be more than happy though just keeping it at its default overclocked speeds, and then you get the awesome lifetime warranty to fall back on. Oh, and don't forget 24/7 tech support. These are great extras that make up for the weak bundle.

If you can't quite afford to spend $500+ for the very highest of the high-end cards, then you should definitely put the BFG 6800 GT OC at the top of your consideration list. It's an awesome card with plenty of power.

A Note About Temps
Some of you are probably wondering how hot the 6800 GT OC runs. Well, when my system was idle and doing no 3D rendering, the GPU core maintained a temperature of about 56C while the ambient temperature was 38C. Load temperatures are of course a bit higher. Immediately after running 3DMark03, the core was reading over 73C, and ambient reached 52C. Therefore, you can figure load temps for the core to be mid to upper 70s Celsius and even lower 80s perhaps. That's one hot tamale!

Gameguru Mania News - Jul,04 2004 - tech

Weekly Hardware reviews - tech
(hx) 11:00 PM CEST - Jul,04 2004 - Post a comment

CPU - AMD Sempron Benchmarks, Specs | Dothan / Prescott SPECint Performance Compared | AMD Athlon64 FX53 | Athlon 64 3800+ (German) | Athlon FX53 and Athlon 64 3800+ | Intel LGA775 CPU

Motherboard - Socket 754 Chipset Shootout || Intel 925p/915p Chipset(1) | Intel 925p/915p Chipset(2) | Intel 925p/915p Chipset(3) | Intel i925X and i915P/G Chipsets(4) | Abit VT7 VIA PT880(German) | Albatron PX875P Pro | Asus P4P800SE i865PE | DFI Infinity 865PE Intel i865PE | ECS PF4 Extreme i915P | EPoX 8KDA3+ nForce3 250GB(1) | Epox 8KDA3+ nForce3 250Gb(2) | Foxconn 925A01-EKRS i925X | Gigabyte K8NS Pro nForce3 250Gb | Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 nForce3 | Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro2-W i865PE | MSI KM4M-L VIA KM400 | Shuttle AN51R nForce3 250 | VIA EPIA TC10000 || Small Form Factor roundup(AOpen EZ65, Gigabyte's G-Max CA2, Soltek's Qbic 3401a, and FIC's Condor) | AOpen XCCube EZ18 nForce2 SFF System | Gigabyte G-Max CA2 SiS 661FX SFF | Jetway Miniq 765 Magic Twin nForce2 IGP SFF | Morex 3677 Mini-ITX Case | Shuttle SK83G VIA K8M800 SFF | Shuttle XPC SK83G SFF System | Soltek Qbic 3401A i865G SFF | Soltek EQ3801 SFF PC

RAM - Dual Channel DDR-500 Kits Compared | AData PC4000 Memory | Corsair TWINX1024-3200XL PRO Series Dual Channel Memory Kit(1) | Corsair TwinX1024-3200XLPRO Memory(2) | Corsair XMS-XL PC3200 Memory(3) | Corsair 1GB 3200XL-Pro(4) | Corsair XMS XL Pro DDR400 Memory | Corsair XMS 3200XL Pro | Corsair XLPRO TwinX 1 GB Memory Kit | GeIL Ultra Platinum PC4400 DDR550 Memory Kit | MCI DDR400 Memory(German) | Mushkin Special DDR400 Memory | Mushkin 2x512MB Dual Pack DDR400 2-2-2 Special | Patriot PDC3200ELK Memory || Kingston Elite Pro Compact Flash 1GB
Storage - Maxtor OneTouch HDD | Western Digital Raptor 74GB HDD | Western Digital's Raptors in RAID-0 | HDD Data Protection Hardware | Mapower Warps Pocket 2.5 External HDD Case | Vantec NexStar 3.5 External HDD Case(video) || DVD-RW roundup(German) | Asus CRW-5232AS CD-RW | Asus DRW-0804P DVD-RW | Gigabyte GO-W0808A DVD-RW | LG GSA-4120B(1) | LG GSA-4120B Triple Format Double Layer DVD-RW(2) | LG GSA-4082B Super Multi DVD-RW | Memorex True 8Xn external DVD±R/RW | MSI X48 CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive Review | NU DDW-082 8X DVD-RW(1) | nuTech DDW-082 8X Dual DVD-RW(2) | Philips DVDRW885K Double Layer DVD+R/RW | Pioneer DVR-A07XLA (German) | Ricoh MP5308D DVD±R/RW | Extreme CD-Rom testing || Apacer Handy Steno HT203 - USB Memory Key | Simple Talent 512MB USB 2.0 Flash Drive | Victorinox Swissbit Swissmemory USB | Vantec NexStar

Video - Pixel Shader 2.0 vs 3.0 review | Mainstream Video Card roundup(German) | AOpen GeForceFX 5900XT 128MB | BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra | eVGA GeForceFX 5700 | Gainward GeForceFX 5900XT | Gainward GeForce 6800 Ultra 256M(1) | Gainward GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB(2) | Galaxy GeForceFX 5700LE | HIS 9550 VIVO(1) | HIS GeForceFX 9550(2) | Leadtek WinFast A400 TDH | nVidia GeForce 6800GT 256MB | XFX GeForceFX 5700 Ultra || ATI Radeon To ATI FireGL Mod Guide Rev. 2.0 | ATi Radeon X800XT PCI-E 256MB | ATI Radeon x800 XT PE | Asus Radeon X800 Pro | Asus AX800 Pro Radeon X800 Pro 256MB | MSI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB | GeCube All-In-Wonder 9600XT 128M/TV/FM | Gigabyte Radeon X800 Pro 256MB | HIS Radeon All-In-Wonder 9600XT | PowerColor Radeon 9600XT | Sparkle GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB || nVidia QuadroFX | PNY QuadroFX 1300 PCIe | PNY QuadroFX 3400 PCIe | Compro VideoMate Live USB2.0 External TV Tuner

Monitor - NEC 1980SX 19 LCD | ViewSonic VP2290b LCD

Cooling - Antec Overture Revisited | AeroCool EL-Dragon | Coolermaster Cavalier 1 Mid Tower Chassis | Cooler Master Centurion 1 Case | Cooler Master STC-T01 Stacker | Danger Den Maze 4-1 GPU Block | Foxconn AMD 3400+ Cooler | Gigabyte 3D Cooler-Ultra GT | Nexus AXP-3200 SkiveTek Cooler | Noiseblocker SX1 und S1 Fan | SilverStone SST-FP53 HDD Cooler | Spire SP450B0-CoolGate Cooler | Speeze Owlstream Cooler | Scythe Samurai SCSM-1000 CPU Cooler | Thermaltake Silent Tower Cooler | Thermaltake Tower112 Copper Heatpipe Cooler | Thermaltake CL-P0006 Pipe101 Cooler | Titan CU9TB und D9TB | Ultimate Computer Heat Exhauster Cooler | Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu HSF

WaterCooling - Asetek WaterChill Antarctica Kit | Cool-Matic FX RAM water block | CoolerMaster AquaGate Liquid Cooling System(1) | CoolerMaster Aquagate ALC-U01 Liquid Cooling System(2) | Danger Den TDX Water Cooler | Poseidon WCL-03 CPU Water Cooler | Swiftech H20-8600 Water Cooling Kit | Swiftech MCX159-R | Titan TWC-A04 Water Cooler Kit | Titan TWC-A04 WaterCooling (German) | Titan TWC-A04 Water Cooling Kit

Case - AeroCool HT-101 High Tower Case | Cooler Master TC-01 Cavalier 1 Case | Chenbro Gaming Bomb Case | Chenming 602A ATX Case | Chieftec CX-03(German) | Diabolic Minotaur Case | Lian Li V1000 Aluminum Case | Logisys Armor Case | Mercury EC-7103H | NZXT Guardian Crafted Gaming Armor | Opus Technologies MT-200 Case | Silentmaxx ST-11 Big-Tower V2 | SilverStone Temjin SST-TJ02 Case | Silverstone SST-TJ03 Aluminium Case(German) | Thermaltake Tsunami Dream Computer Case | Thermaltake Silver River 3.5 Case | Yeong Yang YY-5601 Case

PSU/UPS - Akasa PaxPower 460W PSU | be quiet! Blackline 350W PSU | Coolmax Fanless Switching 300W PSU | Enermax Coolergiant EG385AX-VHB 380W PSU | OCZ PowerStream 470W PSU(1) | OCZ Power Stream 470W PSU(2) | SilenX 400W 14dBA Active-PFC PSU | SilenX iXtrema Pro 400W PSU | Thermaltake PurePower 480W Butterfly PSU

Sound - Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS | Zalman Surround Sound || Altec Lansing VS4121 2.1 Speakers | Altec Lansing FX6021 Speakers | Edifier R501 5.1 Speakers | Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 Speakers | Logitech Z5300 Speakers | Realworld Sicuro 5.1 Gaming Speakers | Sennheiser PX 100 200 and 250 Headphones | Shure E3c In-ear Earphones

Peripheral - Belkin n52 Nostromo Speedpad | Gyration Ultra GT Keyboard and Mouse | i-rocks Optical Mouse | I-Rocks IR-7100 Optical Mini Mouse | Keyboard Master WK9200 Hunter Gaming Keyboard | Logisys Optical Wheel Mouse | Razer Boomslang Speed and Razer Viper Mouse || COREPAD(1) | Corepad Mousepad(2) | Razer eXactMat Mousepad | Steelpad 3S Mousepad | Thermaltake Gamma Pad Mousepad | Xtrac Hammer Mousepad

Network - Actiontec 54 Mbps Wireless Ethernet Adapter

Printer - HP Scanjet 4670 Scanner | Samsung CLP-550 Colour Laser Printer | Samsung ML-2151N Monochrome Laser Printer

Modding - A.C. Ryan UV Red MORF PSU Modding Kit | AeroCool PSU Mod Acryl Cap | Front Panel Fan Mod | Sharkoon LED Lightbar Blue | Thermaltake Xray Cigarette | Thermaltake XTunner 4 Fan Control Kit | Vapochill Lightspeed Evaporator

Miscelanous - Actiontec Wireless Bluetooth Headset |

Techsolo TCA-3010 WebCam

Epson PhotoPC P-1000 Photo Viewer

Olympus C-770 Ultra Zoom Digital Camera

Notebook, Camera, MP3 players - Acer TravelMate 371TCi Compact Notebook |

BenQ Joybook 6000 Notebook

DELL Inspiron 9100 Laptop

Dell Inspiron XPS Notebook

Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo A1630 Athlon 64 Notebook

HP iPAQ 4150 PocketPC

Sony Vaio U50 Mini PC

Toshiba M35-S320 Notebook

Voodoo Envy Gaming Notebook

Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB

Freecom Beatman Flash MP3 Recorder

iRiver IFP-190T MP3 Player

Muzio JM-200 Two Color OLED MP3 Player

Samsung Yepp YP-55i MP3 Player

Pioneer DV-370 DVD Player

RCA Lyra RD2780

Gateway Wireless Connected DVD Player

Xclef HD-800 MP3 Player

Phase One P25 Digital Camera

Gameguru Mania News - Jul,03 2004 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:48 AM CEST - Jul,03 2004 - Post a comment / read (1)

[!] Critical Update for Microsoft Data Access Components - Disable ADODB.Stream object from Internet Explorer - Adodb.stream provides a method for reading and writing files on a hard drive. This by-design functionality is sometimes used by web applications. However, when combined with known security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer, it could allow an internet web site to execute script from the Local Machine Zone (LMZ). This occurs because the ADODB.Stream object allows access to the hard drive when hosted within Internet Explorer.
Microsoft takes Windows Update away from the pirates - Much rejoice there were when Microsoft's Barry Goffe announced that everyone (including the so-called "thief's") would be able to install Windows XP Service Pack 2. A few days later, A Microsoft spoke person said otherwise and from then on, it was very clear that Microsoft was not going to let shady users have an easy ride - it was like a screeching noise to the ears of those without a legit copy. SouL2kEEp has just reported that Windows Update 5 has also been taken down the same path as Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. Neowin has a screen shot of the message that claims an invalid Product ID is being used.
Microsoft pushes OS updates to fight attacks - Microsoft Corp. announced that it is pushing out changes that alter the configuration of its Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems to help customers fight off attacks that use Web pages running Internet Information Server (IIS) as launching pads for malicious code.
Are the Browser Wars Back? - The problem is that hackers continue to find and exploit security holes in Explorer. Many of them take advantage of Explorer's ActiveX system, which lets Web sites download and install software onto visitors' computers, sometimes without users' knowledge. ActiveX was meant to make it easy to add the latest interactive multimedia and other features to sites, but instead it's become a tool for sneaking spyware onto unsuspecting PCs. That's why the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a partnership between the tech industry and Homeland Security, recently took the unusual step of advising people to consider switching browsers. Whether or not you do, US-CERT advises increasing your Internet Explorer security settings, per Microsoft's instructions. (Alas, the higher setting disables parts of Slate's interface.) Even if you stop using Explorer, other programs on your computer may still automatically launch it to connect to sites.
Webcam lets users eyeball others - i2i, in development at Microsoft's research lab in Cambridge, UK, is a two-camera system which very carefully follows an individual's movement. It uses a specially developed algorithm to fuse what each camera sees to create an accurate stereo "cyclopean" image. This means it looks as if users are looking each other in the eye. It can also display floating 3D emoticons.
Nokia's N-Gage QD For Handheld Gaming, Take Two - Nokia now boasts a new and improved handheld game deck six months after its first serious foray into this territory far exceeded its expectations. With its latest gaming device, the N-Gage QD, Nokia seeks to correct some of flaws associated with its first attempt. But does Nokia really make the portable gaming life easier?
Samsung readies 3D game phone - Samsung's phone has a joystick and comes preloaded with three games, including ZioGolf and Metalion, and more can be downloaded from the company's "fan club Web site." The SCH-V450 also comes with a "32MB Memory Stick Duo," which can be inserted into a slot on the side of the phone. It can also store and send pictures, and it can play music. Consumers can play MP3 files without opening the phone, but by instead using a keypad that extends beyond the folded clamshell. The phone offers several command features in conjunction with its music player, including pause, skip and random choice.
Intel to gradually introduce WiMAX technology into notebooks in 2006 - WiMAX (world interoperability for microwave access), a wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) technology, is expected to grow faster than Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), the set of standards for wireless local area networks (WLAN) did, according to Lonnie McAlister, product manager for the Wireless Networking Group at Intel Asia Pacific. McAlister forecast that the WiMax technology would begin being included in notebook products starting in 2006.
Nvidia two card system shatters 20000 3dmarks03 - Polish site nvision.pl told is reporting that Nvidia's "two cards" will rock at 21185 3dm03. This is definitely a great result if we are talking about the 1024x768 default 3dm03 score
Far Cry 1.2 Patch Performance - Hexus net has posted an article on the new 1.2 patch for Far Cry.
Apache 2.0.50 - Apache 2.0 (download) offers numerous enhancements, improvements and performance boosts over the 1.3 codebase. The most visible and noteworthy addition is the ability to run Apache in a hybrid thread/process mode on any platform that supports both threads and processes. This has shown to improve the scalability of the Apache HTTP Server significantly in our testing.
Audio DVD Creator 1.50 - Audio DVD Creator 1.50 allows you to create a DVD disc compiled from normal Audio CDs and MP3 files and play it on any DVD player since it's DVD-Video compliant. You can choose the audio format from high quality, up to 6 hours PCM 48kHz/16bits or high quantity, up to 45 hours AC3 192kbps.
RightMark Memory Analyzer 3.2 - The RightMark Team is pleased to announce the release of our new test suite, the RightMark Memory Analyzer. It aims the detailed, stable and accurate measurements of the most important low-level characteristics of the CPU/Chipset/RAM subsystem of your PC.
Nero Suite Updated - The Nero Suite contains: Nero Burning Rom 6.3.1.17 (changelog), Nero Burning Rom 5.5.10.56, Nero Burning Rom WMA9 Plug-In 2.0.9., Nero Burning Rom WMP Plug-In 1.0.1.5, Nero Media Player 1.4.0.22b, NeroMIX 1.4.0.22b...and more.
PlexTools Professional v2.15 - Plextor Europe has released a new version of their PlexTools Professional software.
MotherBoard Monitor 5.3.7.0 Patch 1 - Motherboard Monitor is a tool that will display information from the sensor chip on your motherboard in your Windows system tray. MBM supports a wide range of Chipsets & Sensor Chip combinations. MBM is compatible with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and .NET. This new patch should fix some problems with MBMStarter.dll/mbm.dll. I suggest you only download it if you need it. It is at the bottom of the download page.

Gameguru Mania News - Jul,02 2004 - tech

Leadtek WinFast A400 Ultra TDH review - tech
(hx) 06:36 PM CEST - Jul,02 2004 - Post a comment

Digit-Life have posted a review of two Leadtek retail cards Leadtek WinFast A400 TDH and Leadtek WinFast A400 Ultra TDH, which are based on NVIDIA's flagship NV40 GPU. Here is an excerpt:

We will begin with Leadtek WinFast A400 Ultra TDH. There are evidently no fundamental changes in the relation of forces between GeForce 6800 Ultra and RADEON X800 XT. The former's performance has increased in some places, and now it's difficult to say which of them is the leader. Surely, actual games are harder for NVIDIA, but we shouldn't forget that the company has the habit not to lay its cards on the table till a certain moment, so it definitely must have some reserves. Second, new technologies shouldn't be forgotten either. Both companies have shown them, so it's only time that can tell which one will win. And we're also waiting for patch 1.2 for FarCry, which is rumoured to demonstrate what shaders 3.0 are. Third, prices are an important factor as well, and this aspect is very uncertain for the moment.

Now for Leadtek WinFast A400 TDH. Evidently, if it costs about USD 300 (the price in US stores is USD 320-360 late in June), it will oust GeForce FX 5950 Ultra for good. Besides, ATI has no new card within USD 300, while RADEON 9800 XT is much more expensive even now. There are some RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB that are sold at about USD 280-290, but the appearance of 6800 in bulk sale will be the death of them too. Thus, the low-end 6800 line looks perfect today, while the high-end one is approximately equal to its rival. Much will depend on the prices and PSU features (considering 6800 Ultra needs about 460-480W)

Far Cry 1.2 with Shader Model 3.0 - tech
(hx) 05:54 PM CEST - Jul,02 2004 - Post a comment

As I mentinoned a couple days ago, the public version 1.2 patch for Far Cry should be released soon. TechReport has received an early copy of the patch a few days back so they could test Far Cry performance using Shader Model 3.0:

The new Far Cry patch does indeed seem to be a decent showcase for Shader Model 3.0's potential. The GeForce 6800 cards gain up to about 10% in average frame rates when using the SM3.0 code path. No, the differences aren't going to convert the masses into NVIDIA fanboys overnight, but they do show NVIDIA wasn't kidding about Shader Model 3.0 offering some advantages.

This patch also seems to have cleaned up some problems with the GeForce 6800 code path in the game. Even with Shader Model 2.0, GeForce 6800 performance is way up. Image quality also seems to be quite a bit better than it was on the GeForce 6800 with Far Cry version 1.1. My eye is accustomed to seeing the game run on an Radeon 9800, and the GeForce 6800 cards looked just fine to me with the new patch. I played through a few levels of the game, including some with lots of pixel shader-laden effects on the walls and floors, and I didn't notice any corner cutting or blocky shading or texturing. Of course, some of these changes may be attributable to newer NVIDIA drivers, but the effect is the same.

So what does all of this tell us about the eternal question: "Should I fork over my cash for a GeForce 6800 or a Radeon X800?" I'm not sure, exactly. PC games seem to be approaching the way the console world works, where publishers cut deals to publish exclusive or enhanced games for a given platform. In this case, Ubisoft worked with NVIDIA to make one of the best games of the past six months run smoothly on the GeForce 6800. That's spectacular, especially because the game still runs very well on Radeon cards.

Gameguru Mania News - Jul,01 2004 - tech

Thursday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:28 PM CEST - Jul,01 2004 - Post a comment

Piracy arrest at "Spider-Man 2" opening night - A teenager was arrested early Wednesday in a California theater showing "Spider-Man 2" after a projectionist using night vision goggles saw him using a camcorder to make an illegal copy of the superhero sequel. The 16-year-old could be charged under a law that went into effect January 1 and makes taking a recording device into a movie theater a crime punishable by up to one year in jail and a maximum fine of $2,500.
Hungarian virus writer avoids jail - Hungarian virus writer escaped prison yesterday after he was convicted of writing a virus that infected tens of thousands of Windows PCs. The teenager - identified only as Laszlo K - was given two years' probation for cybercrime offences by Veszprem City Court. Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag reports, via AP, that Laszlo K was initially sentenced to a year in juvenile prison but this sentence was commuted to two years' on probation at a hearing yesterday. As part of his punishment, the teenage must also pay 500,000 forints ($2,400) in court costs.
UK police nab 11 in Net gun crackdown - UK police today launched a crackdown on the sale of illegal weapons over the Internet. Raids began in London, with searches of 18 addresses. More than 20 illegal weapons have been seized in Operation Bembridge already, including 17 guns, a tear gas canister and four air rifles. In addition, officers collected nine guns designed to fire blanks, but capable of being converted to fire live ammunition. So far, 11 men have been arrested.
MPs call for stiffer hacking penalties - The jail sentence for computer hackers should be raised from six months to two years and the police should be allowed to extradite criminals who hack into British computer systems from overseas, a committee of MPs said yesterday. The all-party parliamentary internet group (APIG) wants the government to toughen up the laws surrounding computer crime and warned that the police are insufficiently resourced to deal with the growing problem of cyber-crime.
US-CERT warns against Internet Explorer use - The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) is so concerned with Internet Explorer vulnerabilities that they're recommending that web users switch to an alternative browser.
Six-year-old flaw resurfaces in IE - A security flaw that had been fixed in older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer has reappeared in the latest version of the browser software. Security company Secunia issued a bulletin warning of the flaw in versions 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0 of Internet Explorer (IE). The problem had been fixed six years ago, when it appeared in versions 3.0 and 4.0 of the IE browser.
Five countries send 99% of spam - Five countries are responsible for 99 per cent of spam email sent around the world, according to a study by anti-spam company Commtouch. Commtouch analysed hundreds of millions of unsolicited emails and said about 55 per cent of spam messages originated in the US, while slightly more than 73 per cent of them referred recipients to websites hosted in China. China, South Korea, the US, Russia and Brazil host more than 99 per cent of all websites mentioned in spam, according to Commtouch.
Google declared 99 cents GMail invitations illegal - Google has updated Gmail's Terms of Service on Monday, prohibiting users from engaging in commercial activities with their Gmail invitations. Apparently, Google is not very happy with all the Gmail invitations that were being sold accross the Internet and has decided to put an end to this officially, Notsnarc reports.
Off-topic: Spacecraft Cassini Enters Saturn's Orbit - After seven years of hurtling through space to the outer solar system, the U.S.-European Cassini spacecraft squeezed through a gap in Saturn's shimmering rings, fired its brakes and settled into a near-perfect orbit around the giant planet. Mission scientists and engineers watched tensely at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory late Wednesday as a signal indicated first that Cassini had safely passed through the ring plane and then performed a crucial engine firing.
Off-topic: Pornography site strips political references - The Whitehouse.com pornography Web site, which poked fun at its government namesake with parody sections about first ladies and interns, has been stripped of all political references. Its owner, Dan Parisi of New York, agreed to the changes to comply with a recent ruling by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granting his Web site a potential trademark for "Whitehouse" -- but only if he took steps to make sure visitors to his pornography site don't believe it was associated with President Bush's site, www.whitehouse.gov.
Off-topic: Bullet-proofing cars with water - Scientist working for the Norwegian Defence have come up with a solution which makes the car bullet proof as well as cheaper to run, according to the New Scientist. The solution is to install thin tanks made of plastic or light weight metal in doors and fenders. Inside the tanks are placed several layers of plates made of energy-absorbing carbon fibre. When the tanks are empty the car is not bulletproof, but it does not weigh much more than an oridinary car, and is therefore cheaper to run. When needed, the tanks are filled with water, thereby making the car bulletpfoof. The tanks have been tested using high velocity bullets, according to the New Scientist, which also writes that the new armour has been patented.
Nokia, Sun make multiplayer mobile game play - Multiple player reversi doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment--but a Java-based cell phone version of the game could be the beginning of a new mobile software strategy for Nokia and Sun Microsystems. The game, developed by Sega Mobile and based on Nokia's Snap technology, is one of the first-ever cell phone programs to use both XML-based Web services, which allows software from different providers to work together, and "middleware," applications that sit between layers of other software and act as a translator. The game will make its debut this week at the JavaOne trade show here
Microsoft confirms Windows XP64 will be OEM only - Micosoft has confirmed that Windows XP64 will be sold through system builders and distributors and people will be able to buy it pre-installed on a system builder PC "or just purchase the OS with some piece of hardware.
Microsoft Rolls Out Revamped Web Search Service - Microsoft Corp. late on Wednesday rolled out a revamped version of its MSN Web search service with partner Yahoo Inc. and made an early test version of its homegrown search engine available to Webmasters and search enthusiasts.
How Much PC Does $300 Buy? - If surfing the Web and working on the occasional office document is 99 percent of your computing, then the $300 Linux-based Microtel SYSWM8001 is a budget alternative to a Windows PC.
Sony Debuts 20 Gigabyte Walkman to Silence IPod - The Japanese consumer electronics maker said the 20-gigabyte device, which is its second hard-disk drive gadget aimed at unseating Apple and can store 13,000 songs, will be launched on July 10 in Japan, by mid-August in the United States and in September in Europe. Dubbed the Network Walkman NW-HD1, it marks a major upgrade to the legendary Walkman brand and the announcement comes on the 25th anniversary of the introduction of Sony's groundbreaking portable music player -- July 1, 1979. It is expected to sell for around 53,000 yen ($487) in Japan and less than $400 in the United States, Sony said, undercutting Apple's 40-gigabyte device, which sells for $499 and can hold up to 10,000 songs.
Commodore and CBM are back - but now with MP3 players - Anyone remember the Commodore 64? Yes, the company is back again, but with a 20GB MP3 player titled the e-Vic; named after the old Vic-20 computer. CBM business machines is also back with two series of MP3 players - m-Pet flash-based and f-Pet USB-Flash based players. The e-Vic features MP3, WMA and uncompressed Wav support, 128 x 64 pixel blue-backlit display, up to 28 minutes anti-shock memory, user definable EQ with 5 presets, voice recording and line-in recording. Its rechargeable battery runs for 10 to 15 hours.
Matsushita DVD recorder - Matsushita will start selling its Blu-ray DVD recorders, which can record as much as 10 times the information contained on current DVDs. Recordable DVD discs compatible with Matsushita's new recorder have a capacity of 25 or 50 gigabytes, compared with 4.7 gigabytes for current DVDs. A 50-gigabyte disc can hold 4.5 hours of digital programming at the highest quality or 63 hours of analog programming. The DMR-E700BD recorders will go on sale in Japan on July 31 for about Y300,000, or $2,768, Hirosi Ryu, a spokesman, said.
Corsair Memory Announces 667 Megahertz XMS2 Modules - Corsair introduced four new products in this family of ultra-fast modules. These memory modules offer the incredibly fast speeds of DDR2 5300 and the low latencies of 4-4-4-12. The DDR2 5300 product line currently includes the following products: TWIN2X1024-5300C4: matched pair of two 512MB 5300C4 modules, TWIN2X512-5300C4: matched pair of two 256MB 5300C4 modules, CM2X512-5300C4: 512MB 5300C4 module, CM2X256-5300C4: 256MB 5300C4 module
Tapwave Zodiac 1 preview - If you like to play games and need to get yourself organized, the Tapwave Zodiac may be a perfect fit: This portable gaming console also doubles as a very capable PDA. Or else it's a PDA that doubles as a very capable portable gaming console. Either way you look at it, you may never look at your work-a-day PDA the same. The Zodiac comes in two memory configurations: the Zodiac 1 (which we tested) with 32MB of memory ($299 direct) and the Zodiac 2 with 128MB ($399.
1GB Corsair XLPRO Ultra-Low Latency TwinX Memory Kit Review - Adrian's Rojak Pot has posted 1GB Corsair XLPRO Ultra-Low Latency TwinX Memory Kit review.
AOpen XCCube EZ18 nForce2 SFF System review - Bjorn3D takes a look at another small form factor PC, this time the AOpen XCCube EZ18 nForce2 SFF System.
SFF Round Up - Neoseeker has taken a look at a few SFF systems including Gigabyte's G-Max CA2, Soltek's Qbic 3401a and FIC's Condor.
Hands Across Four Water Cooling Systems - The Hydrocool 200 ex from Corsair is good for overclockers looking to get the maximum out of their system and who don't care much about noise levels. The easy hose removal and carry handle make it interesting for LAN partygoers as well. At a price of $199 (€249) for the entire system it is relatively inexpensive. TGH also has tested watercooling solutions from Koolance Exos-AI, Innovatek and Zalman.
HIS 9550 VIVO review - Overclockers Online let us know they have posted a review of HIS 9550 VIVO.
Point of View NVTV review - If the NVIDIA Personal Cinema is a match for ATI's All-In-Wonder, combining graphics card, media tuners and software, the NVTV is analogous to ATI's TV Wonder, ATI's standalone media tuner and software. Basically it's the TV tuner decoupled from a Personal Cinema product, bundled with controlling software. You're then free to augment your own (supported) graphics card to the NVTV in order make use of it.
Asus AX800 Pro/TD review - HotHardware.Com has posted a review of Asus' Radeon X800 Pro powered AX800 Pro/TD. This card ships with a very comprehensive software and accessory bundle, which even includes a webcam, and it sports a uniquely colored PCB. We evaluated its image quality, and compared its performance to 5 other video cards, including a 12-pipe GeForce 6800 and a 16-pipe GeForce 6800 GT.
XFX GeForceFX 5700 Ultra GDDR3 - The XFX card is notable for featuring two DVI connectors, rather than the usual single DVI and D-SUB. This means, obviously, you can hook up two DVI panels directly to the card without needing a converter, enabling you to get the best quality from your dual displays.
Creative Audigy 2 ZS review - TechSpot has posted a review on the Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card.
Edge DiskGo! USB Watch Drive and USB Pen Drive - Flash memory seems to be everywhere, and Edge is trying to increase that ubiquity by unveiling a line of classy, multifunction flash memory products that conceal their utility within polished exteriors. Well, mostly polished: The Edge DiskGo! USB Watch Drive—Steel Dress Style is a hit, but the Edge DiskGo! Flash Drive + Ink Pen could use further refinement.
ViewSonic VP2290b review - At first glance you might be mistaken in thinking that the VP2290b is just a chunky widescreen 22.2in TFT display but at the centre of the dark grey chassis is a 9.2 megapixel LCD manufactured by IDTech. Yes, I did say 9.2 megapixel, which almost gives you four times the pixel density that you'd expect from a 1,920 x 1,200 display. In other words, the VP2290b is capable of running a maximum resolution of 3,840 x 2,400 otherwise known as QUXGA-Wide.
Epson PhotoPC P-1000 Photo Viewer review - The first thing that struck me when I unpacked the Epson unit from its box was how compact it is, particularly considering its better than average screen resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. Measuring in at 142 x 91.5 x 23mm (WxDxH), the relatively modest dimensions of the P-1000 mean that it’s (just about) small enough to fit into the palm of your hand. Its diminutive size is no doubt due, at least partly, to the fact that Epson has crammed 212 pixels per inch into the P-1000's 3.8in LCD display.
Flashing A Motherboard BIOS Guide - PC Stats has published a new beginners guide about flashing a motherboard BIOS.
Removing Spyware Guide - ASE Labs has posted a guide about removing Spyware from your PC.
NetCaptor 7.5.2 - For the first time in over 2 years a free version of NetCaptor (powerful web browser) is available. We call it NetCaptor Personal Edition (PE), and as of NetCaptor 7.5, its free for personal, home use. NetCaptor PE downloads and displays small text ads called sponsored links - that's why its free.
Pegasus Mail 4.21c - Pegasus Mail is a free, standards-based electronic mail client suitable for use by single or multiple users on single computers or on local area networks.
SecureCRT 4.1.7 (shw) - SecureCRT (download) gives you an encrypted SSH session with both SSH1 and SSH2 servers. SSH security goes far beyond the basic secure logon, rerouting data or local applications using TCP/IP ports through an encrypted channel.
SecureFX 2.2.6 (shw) - The SecureFX (download) client application lets you choose between SFTP or FTP over an encrypted SSH2™ connection for secure transfers, or standard FTP for non-secure transfers.
PowerArchiver 2004 9.0 Beta 2 (shw) - PowerArchiver (download) is an award-winning archive utility for the Windows family of products that provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools though an easy to use interface that seamlessly integrates with Windows Explorer. This new version added support for 7zip and extended Tar.
CleanCache 2.14 - CleanCache (download) is a free (for 1 - 2 systems), very powerful Internet Explorer 6.0 and Windows XP cleaner.
CleanMOCache 1.04 - CleanMOCache (download) is a free (for 1 - 2 systems), very powerful Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox/Opera and Windows XP cleaner. It will delete all browser tracks, AutoComplete, WinXP tracks and the deletion of user created additives.
Fraps 2.2.3 - Fraps (download) is designed as a generic tool for DirectX and OpenGL games. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as: Benchmarking Software, Screen Capture Software and Realtime Video Capture Software. This new version brings a bit faster video capture in the latest DX9 titles.
K-Lite Codec Pack 2.27 - The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. The very user-friendly installation is fully customizable, which means that you can install only those components that you want. What's New in the K-Lite Codec Pack 2.27: Updated XviD Decoding to 1.01 Final 2004-06-05, Updated XviD Encoding to 1.01 Final 2004-06-05, Updated Monkey's Audio DirectShow decoder to 1.00.
K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.03 - The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack is a software bundle which includes the K-Lite Codec Pack Full, QuickTime Alternative, Real Alternative and BSplayer. Features: K-Lite Codec Pack 2.27 Full, QuickTime Alternative 1.33, Real Alternative 1.23,- BSplayer 1.00.809.
GSpot v2.5 Beta 1 Build 040701 - GSpot (download) determine what codec a video/audio file uses and what codec your system will use to play it. Identifies MPEG (.mpg), QuickTime (.mov), RealMedia (.rm), Windows Media (.wma / .asf), Flash (.swf) and others; will attempt a DirectShow render those (and any other) file, and report either the error or detailed results.
Avast! Virus Cleaner Tool 1.0.196 - Avast! Virus Cleaner is a free tool that will help you remove selected worm infections from your computer.

AMD Sempron 3100+ benchmarked - tech
(hx) 01:37 PM CEST - Jul,01 2004 - Post a comment

A64 2800+ (9x200 512kb L2 cache) to the left A64 Sempron 3100+ (9x200 256kb L2 cache) to the right

It seems that the Sempron is just 2.1% slower in 3dmark2001, 0.4% slower in Superpi ,4.4% faster in Prime95 ,only 1.2% slower in PC-Mark2004 (0.25% Memory score / 2.2%CPU score) and only 4.5% slower in CPUMark 99 compared to the A64 2800+ wich runs at the same clockspeed!! The only difference between the 2800+ and the Sempron 3100+ is that the latter has only 256kb L2 cache. Also, the Semprons have their 64bit registers disabled, they are locked to work in 32bit mode only. Since Windows XP-64 is _STILL_ not officially released, and most drivers are still slower than for XP 32-bit and some drivers are even not available for XP-64, this move is just logical. Even without the 64bit registers this CPU is more than fast enough to compete with Intel's CPUs! and YES, it is basically a A64 2800+ with half the L2 cache. However, its seems that the missing L2 cache doesn't have a big impact on its performance.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,30 2004 - tech

Net Attack Aimed at Banking Data - tech
(hx) 11:19 PM CEST - Jun,30 2004 - Post a comment / read (8)
Computer security experts warned yesterday of another new Internet threat that can steal the passwords and account information of people who bank online -- the second such discovery in a week. Users can pick up the latest bug, which doesn't yet have a name, from pop-up ads that secretly download software capable of capturing their keystrokes. The pop-ups originate at Web sites that receive their ads from certain online ad services, which apparently had themselves been hacked to spread the malicious code. The bug targets users of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser. Experts said users can protect themselves from the bug by using a non-Microsoft Corp. browser or by using software to block pop-ups. Internet Explorer users are immune if they download and install a patch that was released in April.

This situation is so insane, I wonder if Microsoft will get some truly lasting damage from it. I'd recommend running a full scan with SpyBot & AdAware and switching your default browser to Firefox (download), at least until WinXP SP2 becomes available.

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:21 AM CEST - Jun,30 2004 - Post a comment / read (6)

New IE Malware Captures Passwords Ahead Of SSL - SANS Internet Storm Center is reporting on a new strain of IE Malware. This one targets bank customers, which in itself is nothing new. But the catch is in the way it does it: it installs a Browser Help Object (BHO) that can capture login information before it is encrypted, and 'watches for HTTPS (secure) access to URLs of several dozen banking and financial sites in multiple countries.'." (thanks Slashdot.org)
php codes injection in phpMyAdmin version 2.5.7.- There is a vulnerability in phpMyAdmin version 2.5.7. This vulnerability would allow remote user to inject php codes to be executed by eval() function (in file left.php). However, This vulnerability only effect if variable $cfg['LeftFrameLight'] set to FALSE (in file config.inc.php)
Playboy 'hacker' jailed for two years - A supermarket shelf stacker who claimed he hacked into Playboy's network in an attempt to blackmail the company was jailed for two years yesterday. Simon Jones, 25, conned porn site bosses into believing he had access to private customer accounts. But his ruse backfired when US secret service agents and officers from the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit carried out a down raid on the house he shared with his parents in Southampton, resulting in his arrest and eventual imprisonment.
TweakNews defrauded again - Tweaknews.net has caught yet another person posing as a hardware reviewer and trying to obtain illegal and expensive hardware.
Bill Gates: Progress Report on SPAM - Bill Gates has issued a report on the current status of stopping SPAM made by Microsoft. Already steady progress has been made from the deployment of SmartScreen (Microsoft spam-filtering technology). That's present in MSN 8, MSN Premium, MSN Hotmail, and Outlook 2003. Still this isn't enough as Bill Gates reviews alternatives to fighting SPAM.
Can a Customer take their IP's with them? (Court says yes!) - There has been a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) issued by state court that customers may take non-portable IP space with them when they leave their provider. Important to realize: THIS TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER HAS BEEN GRANTED, AND IS CURRENTLY IN EFFECT. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT COULD HAPPEN, THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAS HAPPENED. THERE IS AN ABILITY TO DISSOLVE IT, AND THAT IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO.
Supreme Court Strikes Down Porn-Shield Law - A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday suggested that a federal law designed to restrict Internet pornography violated Americans' rights to freedom of speech, but the court stopped short of a definitive ruling striking down the law as unconstitutional.
Beastie Boys claim no virus on crippled CD - The Beastie Boys website claims that the copy-control mechanism on the DRM-crippled CD "To the 5 Boroughs" does not install any files on the victim's computer. According to the notice, the disks use "Macrovision's CDS-200 technology, the same technology being used for the past several months around the world for all of EMI's releases in those territories. This Macrovision technology does NOT install spyware or vaporware of any kind on a users PC. In fact, CDS-200 does not install software applications of any kind on a user's PC. All the copy protection in CDS-200 is hardware based, meaning that it is dependent on the physical properties and the format of the CD. None of the copy protection in CDS-200 requires software applications to be [installed] onto a computer."
HP plans new security conscious PCs - Free software that backs up your hard drive automatically will be built into three new PC ranges from Hewlett Packard scheduled for release later this summer. Altiris Local Recovery, developed by software house Altiris, creates a separate partition on the hard drive and backs up settings and important files on a regular basis.
Sources: Sun Plans to Open Nearly All of Solaris Source Code - Developers and solution providers might get more than they expect when Sun Microsystems details its plans to open-source Solaris later this year.
Off-topic: Student Thumbs Her Way to Cell Phone Text Record - Business-administration student Kimberly Yeo, 23, thumbed her way into the Guinness Book of Records by typing a complicated 26-word message on her cell phone in 43.66 seconds. Yeo performed her record-setting feat of texting during the "SingTel SMS Shootout," organized by Singpore Telecom.
Off-topic: Khat drug may improve male fertility - A plant banned as an illegal drug in some countries could help boost men's fertility, say UK researchers. The leaves of khat, a plant cultivated in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula, contain a chemical that peps up sperm and increase their chances of fertilizing an egg. The researchers suggest the chemical could one day be produced as an over-the-counter treatment for couples experiencing problems conceiving. Khat (Catha edulis) has been known for centuries for the euphoria its leaves induce when chewed. The stimulant, cathinone, is not very stable and breaks down to produce cathine and norephedrine. These belong to a group of chemicals called PPAs, which are similar to amphetamines and adrenaline.
Windows XP Game Advisor launched - Microsoft announced the release of a new version of Windows XP Game Advisor today. The free online tool helps Windows XP users search for games as well as analyze their system to see if they can run the game.
AMD discontinues Athlon MP processor? - According to this report over at The Inquirer, AMD is discontinuing Athlon MP processors to further encourage Opteron adoption. Only a handful of online vendors still carry the MP chips, which never made it past 2800+.
Nvidia goes for Nforce 4 - NFORCE 4 will be the name of the project that will finally bring PCI Express to the Athlon K8 market. This chipset will be socket 754/939 ready and 940 compatible and all CPUs Athlon 64s, FX, Sempr0ns and Opterons will work on it. The platform will have one to two PCI express 16 slots making this Geforce 6800 SLI mode possible for not quite as much crazy money as you'll have to invest in Tumwater and Xeon CPU.
ATI to release RV480 PCI Express in Q4 - Even if they haven't supplied and sold as many as the market would have liked of the X800XT, PRO and XT Platinums, ATI is already thinking about the next chip. The new chip will be called RV480 and it should be a faster version of R423 chip with similar marchitecture. Some sources suggest that this new chip might feature Pixel shader 3.0 but I guess that would mean too much modification to the core and 60 million more transistors to add to the existing 160. In that case, ATI R480 would ironically end up at the same transistor count as Nvidia NV40.
Sony Shows Pocket-Sized Camcorder - The Sony DCR-PC350 MiniDV Handycam Camcorder is the smallest 3-megapixel video camera in Sony's MiniDV lineup, says Linda Vuolo, director of Sony's camcorder products. The camera measures 4.25 inches high and is 2.38 inches deep. The 3.3-megapixel video camera weighs less than 1 pound and comes with a more efficient CCD (charge-coupled device) that records digital video at a 530-line horizontal resolution, and takes still images at a 2016 pixel by 1512 pixel resolution, she says.
Socket 940 vs. 939 - Socket 940 FX-53 and Socket 939 Athlon 64 3800+ look identical and for the most part they are. There is a cost of manufacturing advantage for motherboard makers to move to Socket 939 which uses a 4 layer PCB motherboard instead of the more expensive 6 layer motherboards for Socket 940. This was not the driving influence for AMD to pursue Socket 939. AMD needed the next generation socket to carry the processor through another growth curve.
NEC 1980SX 19in LCD review - This is a very nice looking monitor with a thin, black bezel (also can be purchased in a metallic white). Being able to use VGA and DVI lets you actually hook two computers to the monitor at the same time and switch between them.
Actiontec 54 Mbps Wireless Ethernet Adapter - The 54 Mbps Wireless Ethernet Adapter is the fastest, meanest wireless adapter on the road. It transforms a home or an office into a grand wireless network where any wireless capable device can connect to it. With 54 Mbps wireless speed, it is guaranteed that the Internet does not contain any slowdowns and it is extremely easy to install. It can transfer information up to 54 Mbps and makes it capable to share the Internet, printers and other devices.
X800Pro to XT Softmodding - Some threads going on other forums at the moment about people that have successfully soft modded the current batch of Club3D X800 Pro Vivo cards to XT by flashing with a Gigabyte Bios. These cards are shipping with the 1.6ns Ram, bridges still intact and even have XT stickers on the HSF - by all accounts they are effectively XT cards with 4 pipelines disabled in the bios.
Norton AntiVirus 2005 Beta preview - Symantec already started to develop the latest AntiVirus software suite for year 2005, I have the beta installed and would like to write some stuff about it. Like older versions, the options and all looks the same but now with some more options and the design has some small changes. It all works like the old way and is explained very good in the Help and Support center.
BHODemon - BHODemon is a free tool that will list all Browser Helper Objects that are installed on a Windows system by scanning the registry and give you the ability to disable them. This will also list "good" BHOs as well, but nevertheless is a useful tool in detecting and disabling malicious software.
phpMyAdmin 2.6.0-beta2 - phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you'll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired data.
Firefox 0.9.1 and Thunderbird 0.7.1 - The Mozilla Foundation has just made available interim releases of Firefox 0.9.1 (direct link) and Thunderbird 0.7.1 (direct link). Apparently: 'These releases are designed to address early issues found in the new extension manager and automatic upgrade system as well as making changes to the new Firefox theme based on initial feedback.'"
HijackThis 1.98 - HijackThis, a general homepage hijackers detector and remover. Initially based on the article Hijacked!, but expanded with almost a dozen other checks against hijacker tricks
PowerStrip 3.50 (shw) - 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 Radeon 9700DV and Matrox Parhelia.
Fraps 2.2.2 - Fraps is a tool that lets you monitor current framerates in a corner of the screen for programs using DirectX or OpenGL technology. It also allows you to easily take screenshots of games and make gameplay movies.
FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder 29-06-2004 - FFDSHOW is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 moviesl
The Codecs 2.1 - This package contains the best and newest codecs that are needed for playing most movies (Divx, VCD, SVCD etc.).
Riva Tuner v2.0 RC15 - RivaTuner is the most powerful tweaking utility for NVIDIA and ATI display adapters running under Windows 98 / Windows 98 SE / Windows ME / Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The purpose of this utility is to give you access to all the undocumented features of Detonator and Catalyst drivers. Drivers have a lot of undocumented registry entries. Some of them don’t affect anything, but there are some that are very useful.
Realtek ALC AC97 Audio Driver v3.60 - Realtek released version 3.60 driver for their ALC AC97 audio chipsets.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,29 2004 - tech

CPU scaling tested on the latest GPUs - tech
(hx) 09:59 AM CEST - Jun,29 2004 - Post a comment
The chaps over at HardOCP have tested the latest high-end graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA with a range of AMD and Intel processors in order to see how CPU speed affects gaming performance. Here is an excerpt:

There is no question that if you want the best visual gaming experience from your high end video card you need the fastest CPU you can get your hands on to experience the high level of gameplay these video cards are capable of producing. While it has become evident over the past couple of years that video chipset technology is extremely important in producing a great gaming environment, we can't forget about the CPUs at the heart of our machines. Quite simply put, upgrading to some of today's CPU technology can directly benefit your gaming experience.

Which platform pushes these video cards to their most satisfying levels of Image Quality within our limited gaming suite? Clearly that would be the socket 939 or socket 754 Athlon64 CPUs when pushed into the 2.2GHz territory. Overclock these beasts and their gaming performance cannot be matched. At this point, you might want to go back and read our OCing the Athlon64 3000+ and see a little more about our $350 gaming system that was used in these tests.

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:40 AM CEST - Jun,29 2004 - Post a comment / read (2)

Malicious server halted - Russian Web site that had been downloading code to steal financial information from users has apparently been shut down, security officials reported today. No one has figures on how many government or other users may have been affected by the widely publicized network attack.
Gates dishes out security promises - At a news conference here Monday, Microsoft's chairman said computer systems must become more secure and must be at least as reliable as essential physical infrastructure like electricity and water systems. "That absolutely has to be done," he said. The main solution to the problem, Gates said, is to isolate people who are trying to send out malicious code. Gates said one-third of customers have never had problems with security attacks because they have firewalls in place. But for the other 70 percent of the customers, he said, the process of protecting themselves had been "clearly not automatic enough."
Will XP's Service Pack Cause Chaos? - The major changes to Windows XP brought by Service Pack 2 are bound to cause support headaches. Analysts, users, PC makers, and Microsoft all expect a spike in help desk calls. SP2 is due out in the third quarter, so it could be out as soon as next month. The service pack will be downloaded automatically into many PCs through Microsoft's Windows Update service and could create problems, including breaking current applications, disrupting networking set-ups, and prompting non-technical users to make PC configuration decisions that may be beyond their grasp.
Retro Nintendo joins Game Boy - Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has gone retro with a classic version of its 15-year-old Game Boy machine and a collection of original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) titles from the mid-'80s. The Classic NES Limited Edition Game Boy Advance SP ($100) resembles the first television console game launched in the United States by Nintendo in 1985. The company quickly rose to success with games such as "The Legend of Zelda," "Donkey Kong" and "Super Mario Brothers."
New Wi-Fi spec approved - A Wi-Fi security specification received final approval from a standards group, with improvements to the quality and speed of wireless networks expected to follow. As expected, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers approved on Thursday the 802.11i specification as a standard to be used in conjunction with other 802.11 standards. The most significant feature of the 802.11i standard is Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), a strong encryption standard supporting 128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit keys, said Robin Ritch, Intel's director of security industry marketing.
AMD Sempron to arrive on August 17th - According to TheInquirer, the Athlon XP 2700+ and slower chips are going to be canned. Actually, the last order for 2700+ and slower could be placed until yesterday Sunday, June 27, 2004. If you want more of those chips you will have to find someone with some leftovers. AMD is also canning all Athlon MP CPUs since its Opteron sales are doing great and they don’t want to hurt new Opterons with leftovers from Athlon MP. Athlon MP, you were a good chip, rest in peace.
NV SLI Announced - NVIDIA today unveiled a new technology (PR) that enables multiple NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series or NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards to operate in a single PC or workstation for a stunning increase in graphics horsepower. NVIDIA SLI is a patent-pending hardware and software solution that enables system builders to connect two PCI Express-based NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series or NVIDIA Quadro graphics boards on their PCI Express-compatible motherboards. Coverage: TGH, Gamers Depot, TechReport, NeoSeeker, Hardware Analysis, FiringSquad, Sudhian
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe WiFi review - Hexus.net let us know they have posted a review of the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe WiFi.
Asus P4P800-VM Motherboard review - The P4P800-VM is a strong, reliable, and price effective motherboard. Not only does it provide the user with Pentium 4 3.0+ and Prescott support, it also provides a level of performance and guaranteed stability. The low price, along with all the included features like SATA, onboard LAN, audio and Intel’s Extreme Graphics 2, makes this board perfect for those upgrading with a budget.
BFG's pre-overclocked 6800 Ultra review - BFG offers a pre-installed waterblock and card bundle for those who don't want to void their warranty while installing their own; it even runs at 70MHz over a stock 6800 Ultra. Yes, it comes at a $99 premium, but the tradeoff of having a true lifetime warranty intact is very well worth it. Don't have a power supply good enough to run the new Ultra OC card? BFG has you covered as well. They even offer a bundle containing both the 6800 Ultra OC and a 530W power supply. You'll even be able to find the bundle at Best Buy soon.
HIS Excalibur AIW 9600XT TURBO, Platinum Pack - The HIS Excalibur AIW 9600XT is a very nice card. It might not be the fastest card around, but you get a very good all-around card with excellent multimedia features. I will even go so far to say that the AIW cards so far are the ultimate card to use in a multimedia PC and that the Multimedia Center has everything you need to transform your computer into a kick-ass Personal Video Recorder.
Galaxy GeForce FX 5700 LE - So, to sum up, Galaxy's 5700 LE does exactly what you would expect of it - runs games at a speed befitting of its budget status. For the most casual of gamers, who don't expect blisteringly fast shader performance or to run games at high resolutions with anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, it's hard to be disappointed with such a cheap offering.
LG GSA-4082B Super Multi DVD Rewriter review - The LG GSA-4082B drive PCstats is testing in this review tackles CD-R/RW and DVD-/+RW media as well as DVD-RAM discs. The LG GSA-4082B can write DVD-/+R media at 8X, DVD-/+RW media at 4x, DVD-RAM at 3x and read DVD's at 12x. For standard CD media, the drive can burn CD-R's at 24x, CD-RW's at 16x and read CD's at 32x. The drive has a 2MB cache as well as BURN proof technology. Essentially, with this one drive, all of your recordable optical media requirements are covered in one sweep.
Voodoo Envy M:860 - Gaming Notebook - It's no surprise to see that the Envy M:860 is a pretty high-spec notebook. After all, if you want to play the latest games on the move, you're going to need a bit of grunt under the hood. Unlike the Rock last week, this Voodoo is based on AMD technology and the central processing duties are fulfilled by an Athlon 64 3400+. Supporting the AMD CPU is 1GB of 333MHz DDR RAM and a 60GB 7,200rpm hard disk both these components should help to push the performance of the Voodoo that bit further. Of course you can’t have a gaming notebook without a decent graphics solution, and Voodoo has gone for the best mobile graphics chipset available in the shape of the ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 complete with 128MB of memory.
BenQ Joybook 6000 review - Lasting 168 minutes (2 hours and 48 minutes), the Joybook 6000 didn't really meet our expectation for an ultra-portable notebook. Still, with a battery life that's hitting close to three full hours, you could still get a pile of work done while on the go – just make sure you keep track of your WiFi usage as this connection will severely discount the unit's running time.
Razer Viper Optical Gaming Mouse - The Razer Viper Optical is a very unique mouse. It sports a nice sleek design with a lighty ruby tinting that aliminates brightly when used. It also sports some nice gripping features not often found on mice today.
RCA Lyra RD2780 player review - Video playback is a tricky beast. The RD2780 will not play back all types of video files that you might expect it should. This is perhaps the single most important negative aspect of the RD2780. In order for portable video players to really achieve some sort of momentum in the market, a device either needs to support a wide variety of video codecs, or the manufacturer needs to provide easy to use software to create video files compatible with the RD2780. Sure – if you're computer savvy you can re-encode DivX, XviD, MPEG1/2, or WMV files into the appropriate formats but the average Joe sure won't be able to
The Beginners Guide to Linux v1.1 - Linux- sometimes referred to by the press as 'Windows NT's worst enemy'. Wired Magazine once called it 'The greatest story never told'. This is a perfect definition because the story behind Linux is indeed a great one, yet it is unknown to so many people. Let's start at the beginning.
Ray tracing's viability for games discussed - GameStar.de's forum has discussion between NVIDIA Chief Scientist David Kirk and computer graphics professor Philipp Slusallek.
nLite 0.97 Beta - nLite will remove certain components from your Windows XP/2003 installation CD so that they are never installed with Windows. Removing unneeded components you gain on your system speed and security.
SpyBlocker 8.0 - Many web sites have ads that are distracting and a drain on bandwidth. Some sites send cookies and other files to your computer. Still others acquire information about you, your machine, and your browsing habits by using single-pixel Web bugs and other methods. This program (download) monitors this type of web activity and lets users control or block the ads and tracking systems. But it also strips ads out of ad-supported software, disabling the ad module and tracking capabilities without disabling the functionality of the program.
Nero CD-DVD Speed 3.10 - Nero CD-DVD Speed (download) is an utility to verify various paramentri of our drive CD-ROM/DVD-ROM: Transfer installments, Seek times, CPU usage, Burst installments, DAE quality, Transfer installments, Spinup/spindown time.
ForceWare 61.36 WHQL Windows 2000/XP - Gainward is hosting the official ForceWare drivers for Windows 2000/XP today, best thing about that is that they are WHQL (Microsoft) certified.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,28 2004 - tech

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 SLI concept - tech
(hx) 03:22 PM CEST - Jun,28 2004 - Post a comment / read (5)

You might remember Voodoo2 that enabled 3Dfx to lead the market for some brief period of time due to SLI (Scan Line Interleave) connection that coupled two cards together to double the total performance. This idea wasn't offered as a concept, because naturally there were no boards with two AGP slots. But PCI-E seems to change this, because a number of Tumwater-based workstations will have two PCI-E x16 slots that would provide a base for testing.(thanks Digit-Life)

So, getting to the matter, today NVIDIA introduced a SLI concept on GeForce 6800. While Voodoo2 SLI utilized a cable connection, NVIDIA utilizes SLI (Scalable Link Interface; or MIO) connector. It enables two cards to share the load using respective algorithms. Like one card handles upper half of the screen and another handles the lower half. No particular performance results were officially announced. But an undisclosed source said that GF 6800 tandem is 77% faster than a GF 6800 with unoptimized drivers. Meanwhile NVIDIA expects 90% performance boost.

Update: Another article can be found at TGH.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,26 2004 - tech

Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 02:57 PM CEST - Jun,26 2004 - Post a comment / read (3)

Russian IIS5 Hacks / worm spreading (updated) - Microsoft teams are investigating a report of a security issue affecting customers using Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0 (IIS) and Microsoft Internet Explorer, components of Windows. Important Customers who have deployed Windows XP Service Pack 2 RC2 are not at risk. Reports indicate that Web servers running Windows 2000 Server and IIS that have not applied update 835732, which was addressed by Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011, are possibly being compromised and being used to attempt to infect users of Internet Explorer with malicious code. Another articles can be found at vnunet, PCmag and PCWorld.
Web site virus attack blunted - The attack, which had turned some Web sites into points of digital infection, was nipped in the bud Friday, when Internet engineers managed to shut down a Russian server that had been the source of malicious code. Compromised Web sites are still attempting to infect Web surfers' PCs by referring them to the server in Russia, but that computer can no longer be reached. Still, Web surfers should take precautions, as the Internet underground is increasingly using this type of attack as a way to get by network defenses and infect officer workers' and home users' computers.
Printing from Internet Explorer Lets Users to Cause DoS - System CPU usage could reach 100% and an extremely large number of paper sheets, more than the HTML contents's actual page number, could be consumed when a certain HTML page is printed from Microsoft Internet Explorer. This problem is attributed to some contents described in the TABLE element. Several Web pages present the same flaw, which causes the printer to consume over 500 sheets of paper.
Russia fines text hack spammer - Russian teenager has been fined 3,000 roubles ($103) after being convicted of spamming 15,000 mobile phones. The university student hacked into a mobile phone network before sending a text message, according to an Interfax news agency report by way of Reuters.
Senate Unanimously Passes Anti-Camcorder Bill - The US Senate just unanimously passed a bill allowing the criminal prosecution of recording movies with a camcorder in theatres. Victims of the new bill would face 3 years in prison on first offense (5 if it was done for profit), repeat offenders would get 10 years.
Microsoft patents human skin - Microsoft has reportedly succeeded in patenting human skin as a new kind of network. InSourced claims recently awarded US Patent No 6,754, 472 is a "method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body". The patent, it says, is part of a new plan to link together several devices using skin as a connector. As an example, Microsoft says it would be possible to have just one speaker for a person's watch, PDA, and portable radio, if they were all connected to that speaker through skin.
Off-topic: US army dips into nanotech research - The US Army research laboratory is funding research into how nanotech can improve defense systems. The goal of the project, funded for the first year to the tune of $2.4m, is to "gain control of structures and devices at atomic and molecular levels and to learn to efficiently manufacture and use these devices", according to Jimmy Davidson, the principal investigator of the program at Vanderbilt Engineering. Initially, the researchers will focus on developing diamond/carbon nanostructures for biological and chemical sensors; developing a new energy-conversion device,; and developing electron emission devices for advanced electronics.
Off-topic: Gaming their way to growth - Webzen and Gravity, two of the leading online gaming companies in Asia, are gearing up to bring their "Lord of the Rings"-type multiplayer games to a worldwide market. About 80,000 U.S. gamers are already trying out Gravity's feudal fantasy "Ragnarok," according to the company, which has introduced the game in Brazil, Italy, Turkey and 13 other countries. Not to be outdone, Webzen estimates that 40 million registrants hold temporary or recurring subscriptions for its online game "Mu" in China and South Korea, with an average of 500,000 people playing it at any given time.
Off-topic: Bush, Kerry Offer Ideas on Technology - President Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry offered ideas Thursday to push the United States to the cutting edge on technology, with the hope of securing crucial political support in Silicon Valley and other high-tech regions. Kerry, noting that the Internet was started with help from research in his home state of Massachusetts, said the United States needs a president who understands the needs of the high-tech industry.
Off-topic: Lewinsky speaks out on Clinton memoir - Monica Lewinsky says she feels betrayed by Bill Clinton's failure to acknowledge how he destroyed her life in his newly released memoirs. In an interview with British broadcaster ITV, the former White House intern best known for her affair with the 42nd US president says she was disappointed at how their relationship is addressed.
Off-topic: Weird rock formation occupies attention of Mars rover experts - The Spirit rover is looking at a Martian rock unlike anything seen on Earth, with a pitted surface and strange nuggets on the end of stalks. "I have never seen anything that combines all those characteristics together in the way this does," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for the NASA rovers. "Now, I won't tell you that somewhere on Earth, there isn't a rock that looks like this, but we may be dealing with something uniquely Martian here."
RIP: Computer Pioneer Bob Bemer, 84 - Robert W. "Bob" Bemer, 84, who helped invent the language used by most of the world's computers to translate text to numbers and who was the first scientist to warn of the Y2K problem, died of cancer June 22 at his home on Possum Kingdom Lake in Texas.
Credit card-sized smart phone ships... sort of - Swedish smart phone developer Neonode may have begun tentatively shipping its credit card-sized N1 handset, reports on the web suggest. The N1 is based Microsoft Windows Mobile for Smartphones, but offers its own user interface, zForce, all running on a 100MHz ARM processor. The GPRS-enabled handset ships with a 64MB SD card, 16MB of which is used for system memory. It's not clear whether the machine uses the card instead of built-in RAM, but that's certainly what the company's web site implies.
Microsoft cuts Xbox price in Taiwan - Microsoft announced yesterday it will cut the price of its Xbox game console in Taiwan from NT$5,980 to NT$5,666, effective immediately. Starting in July, gamers in Taiwan could also receive discounts from Microsoft's online gaming service, company sources said.
HP says as many as 900,000 notebooks buggy - Hewlett-Packard has discovered a memory flaw that could be in as many as 900,000 of its notebook computers and is offering customers free memory modules as a remedy. The computer giant said Friday that through tests, it discovered a circuit design flaw in some notebook memory modules that could cause Windows operating system "blue screens," intermittent lockups or memory corruption. HP is asking customers who own specific notebook models to download and run a software utility to test their machine for the flawed memory. HP notebook models affected by the replacement program include Compaq Evo Notebook models N610c, N610v, N620c, N800c, N800v, N800w, N1000c and N1000v as well as Compaq Presario models 1500, 2800, x1000 and x1200, the HP and Compaq Business Notebook nx7000, and the HP Pavilion zt3000.
Verizon recalls cell phone batteries - The TM-510 batteries, which carry the LG Mobile Phones brand, don't have the circuitry normally installed to prevent overcharging, according to a notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which issued the recall with Verizon. When they are charged, the batteries can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to users, according to the notice, issued Thursday.
Flaw Found in Intel's New Chip Sets - Intel has discovered a flaw in its recently launched chip sets that can preclude a system from starting up normally, and is planning to recall a certain amount of those chip sets from system vendors and channel partners, a spokesperson confirms. The 915 G/P and 925X chip sets, formerly known as Grantsdale and Alderwood, have a flaw in the I/O controller on the chip sets that can prevent a PC from starting normally, says Howard High, an Intel spokesperson. The incident is similar to Intel's recall of 820 chipsets in May 2000, but with a less serious impact. In the 2000 recall, Intel paid customers US$110-130 for each defective product and recalled all-related materials. The company is likely to implement a similar remedy this time.
Intel Officially Launched Celeron D Processors - Intel Corporation today announced its first value processors made using 90nm process technology. The new Celeron D central processing units firmly enhance performance of the company's products intended for customers in budget. Intel Celeron D processors pack 256KB of level-two cache, twice the size of the previous-generation Celeron chips, and 533MHz processor system bus, a 33% improvement over 0.13 micron value chips from the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker. Besides, the new Celeron CPUs also sport SSE3 technology found in the latest incarnation of the Pentium 4 dubbed "Prescott". While the new Celeron D processors traditionally have much in common with the more advanced Intel Pentium 4 chips, including deeper pipeline and enhanced prefetch mechanisms for Prescott-based central processing units, the Celeron D do not sport the Hyper-Threading technology.
The most useless video card features of our time - EliteBastards have take a look at some of those features that promised so much, but delivered so little.
KINGMAX announces 1GB SO-DIMM DDR2-533 modules - KINGMAX officially announced the new 1GB SO-DIMM DDR2-533 modules designed for notebooks (in particular, those based on Alviso chipset). 1GB SO-DIMM DDR2-533 modules will go on sale in Q3 this year along with Alviso-based notebooks. 256MB and 512MB modules will also be on sale at that time.
Leadtek WinFast A400 GT TDH: a low-noise graphics card on GF 6800 GT - Taiwanese Leadtek launched sales of its new WinFast A400 GT TDH graphics card on NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT GPU. According to company's Japanese office, the board will cost Y58,800 ($540). This AGP 8X product features a low-noise cooler and doesn't occupy a nearby PCI slot (unlike most Ultras, for example). The 60mm fan provides 30 dB noise. Other card features include 350MHz core clock 1000MHz clock of 256MB DDR3 SDRAM, 400MHz RAMDAC; D-Sub (2048x1536), DVI-I (1600x1200), S-video; DVI-RGB adapter bundled (thanks Digit-life)
Intel HD Audio Arrives - AC97 had clearly run out of gas and HD Audio marks both an improvement now, and its flexibility will enable some interesting implementations up the road. That said, there are still some pieces missing from the puzzle. For starters, there is currently no DVD-Audio player that can be used with Intel's HD Audio to enable that content format. Given HD Audio's design specifications—multichannel 96KHz/24-bit and two-channel 192KHz/24-bit—it was clearly aimed at being able to enable playback of DVD-Audio content, but the software support isn't yet in place. Hopefully, InterVideo and CyberLink will step up and enable DVD-Audio on Intel's HD Audio platform in their respective applications: WinDVD and PowerDVD.
Sony BW-RU101 Professional Disc for Data First Look - This first Sony blue-laser drive is pricey, but it provides a solid growth path for data-heavy users who are currently using tape or 9GB magneto-optical drives. Blue-laser rewriter can store 23GB on a single disc. Inexpensive rewriteable and write-once media now shipping.
Gainward's Cool FX 2600 is a performance water beast - The card is covered with a huge water block on the front side as there is no necessity to cool the other side of this monster card. All components are up front. Nvidia's normal clock for Geforce 6800 Ultra is 400MHz and by default Gainward clocks its water cards to 450MHz and up to 470 or even 480MHz once you install its overclocking tool. That should be the limit of the chip. As for the memory, Nvidia clocks its referece cards to 1100MHz while Gainward clocks its cards to 1200 MHz.
XFX 6800 Ultra review - Hexus.net let us know they have posted their review of a retail GeForce 6800 Ultra card. The review XFX GeForce 6800 Ultra sample was clocked out of the box at 450 MHz core.
Ultra Products 2 * 512 MB PC 3200 Dual Channel Kit review - The Ultra Dual Channel Kit is clearly a budget kit as it's quite affordable and comes in a very nice box you’ll never use again. If you don’t plan on overclocking your FSB very much then this kit would be an ideal low budget decent performance alternative to the Corsair, TwinMOS, OCZ modules.
GeIL Ultra Platinum PC4400 DDR550 Dual Channel Memory Kit review - Bjorn3D has posted a review of the GeIL Ultra Platinum PC4400 DDR550 Dual Channel Memory Kit.
AOpen CDRW (CRW5232) & Combo (COM5232) Internal Drives Video Review - The AOpen CDRW (CRW5232) & Combo (COM5232) offer excellent features with fast worry free writing of data at a bargain. Both drives come with 2MB of data buffer memory, two extra faceplates & useful software. The CRW5232 is a 52X CD-R, 32X CD-RW & 52X CD-ROM drive & the COM5232 is a 52X CD-R, 32X CD-RW, 52X CD-ROM & 16X DVD-ROM. Watch the Video to find out more
Akasa PaxPower 460W PSU review - The PaxPower is the first PSU that I have come across with the new separate 12V rails, but Akasa has stuck to a standard 20-pin ATX connector. This might look like a major omission, but Akasa is trying to appeal to anyone looking at buying a new PSU and has thus bundled a converter in the box. If you were to buy an ATX to EPS converter on its own you're looking at shelling out around L6, which is not a lot of money, but they are not that easy to come by and it's always good to get everything you need in the box.
Cheap and Reliable RAID 5 Storage Compared - Serial-ATA hard disks offer an affordable and seemingly reliable alternative to SCSI. TGH put five controllers to the test from Adaptec, HighPoint, ICP Vortex, LSI Logic and Promise.
NEC MultiSync LCD1960NXi review - PCMag has posted a review of the NEC MultiSync LCD1960NXi display.
Samsung SyncMaster 192MP review - The Samsung SyncMaster 192MP falls a bit short as a dedicated TV, but as a computer desktop display that lets you monitor television while you work, it's hard to beat.
NV40 & R420, Performance Testing - Spode Abode have tested the following cards - 5950 Ultra, 6800, 6800 Ultra, 9800XT, X800 PRO and X800XT PE.
6800 AA Analysis @ NVNews - NVNews forum has an interesting thread on the 6800 Series Anti Aliasing Sample patterns.This is a work-in-progress and will continue to be updated over the coming days/weeks.
phpMyAdmin 2.6.0-beta1 - phpMyAdmin (changelog) can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you'll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database.
Why you shouldn't pay money for software - No, this isn't a guide to warez or cracking Photoshop. However, even if you're not a Linux user, there's no reason you have to shell out your hard-earned bread on software for Windows systems. There are lots of free software apps, both open-source and freeware, that run on Win32 (and eventually 64) machines.
The Best Free Software - 94 tools and sites that help you work smarter, communicate better, and have more fun--all great, and all gratis
Winamp5 Full 5.03c - Nullsoft Winamp (download) 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.
GAIM 0.79 - Gaim (download) is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
Firefox 0.9.1 Beta - Firefox empowers you to accomplish your online activities faster, more safely and efficiently than any other browser, period.
CPU-Z 1.23 - CPU-Z is a diagnostic tool that provides information on your CPU, including: processor name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, partial overclock detection, processor features, supported instructions sets, L1 and L2 cache information, location, size, speed, and technology.
ATI MultiMedia Center 9.1 - This version (WinXP ~ Win2k) of the MMC has been further enhanced for improved stability, and performance.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,25 2004 - tech

Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:02 AM CEST - Jun,25 2004 - Post a comment / read (5)

Russian IIS Hacks / worm spreading through patched servers?? - Bink.nu's reader pointed out to an IIS discussion group (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis.security) where several IIS administrators discovered some strange .dll files on their web servers in the past 24 hours. According to the discussion on that list, they are all 1kb .dll files. They were deposited in the winntsystem32inetsrv directory with names like iis7xy.dll where x is a random number that appears to be between 1-3 and y is a random character or number.
Web Graphics Exploit Marching Across Internet - When visitors to a few particular Web sites-including popular auction, shopping and price-comparison sites-request pages that include the malicious graphics, the code automatically downloads itself onto their machines. Once installed, the code unpacks itself and loads a keystroke logger on the PC. NetSec officials said the attack seems to exploit a vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The code then forces the machine to contact two IP addresses-one in Russia and one in the United States. The Russian site is hosted on a broadband connection and is part of a network known for spamming and other transgressions.
Anti-Spyware Bill Advances in Congress - A U.S. congressional committee on Thursday approved a bill designed to crack down on deceptive "spyware" that hides in users' computers and secretly monitors their activities. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 45-4 for a bill that would require software makers to notify people before loading new programs on their machines that collects information about them. Spyware can sap computing power, crash machines and bury users under a blizzard of unwanted ads. It can capture passwords, credit-card numbers and other sensitive data.
AOL Worker Arrested on Spam Charges - An employee of America Online was arrested this week for stealing AOL user screen names and selling them to an unsolicited commercial e-mail operation, AOL says in a statement. AOL says it discovered the screen name thefts and passed the information on to federal law enforcement agencies, leading to the arrest. AOL has fired the employee, it says in the statement, and is committed to his full prosecution. U.S. media reports say that the number of screen names stolen totaled 92 million, and that the e-mail spammer had also been arrested. The AOL employee received over $100,000 for the list of names, media reports say.
Senate Bill Targets File Swapping Networks - The U.S. Senate has introduced a bill that would make it easier for artists to sue file-swapping services like Kazaa and Morpheus. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) are the co-sponsors of the “Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004,” which would allow companies to be held liable if they “intentionally induce” copyright infringement.
XP SP2 Firewall warning - Anybody that thinks SP2's Windows Firewall is such a large improvement had better make sure that they know all the facts. If you believe you need a firewall you will still not want to rely upon SP2's built in Firewall. All of the hype behind Service Pack 2's Firewall may lead most people to believe that Windows Firewall is all they need to stay safe. All of the marketing buzz gives people a false sense of security. While this IS a large step in the right direction it still is nowhere near where it should be. Anybody currently using or planning on using SP2 had better read through this carefully to find out WHY it's not anywhere near as secure as the marketing team will try to make you think.
Last-minute changes made to XP SP2 - Microsoft has been making changes to its second service pack for Windows XP in light of customer feedback. Release Candidate 2 (RC2) of the service pack was officially released on 15 June and feedback from beta testers has resulted in changes both to the user interface and to functionality.
Off-topic: Smoking wipes 10 years off a life - Smoking wipes 10 years off a person's life on average, according to the longest ever study of smokers, but giving up at any age brings huge benefits. Quitting at 30 virtually eliminates the risk from dying prematurely, and giving up at 50 halves it. But half of those who fail to kick the habit will die as a result of smoking, and a quarter of all smokers die in middle-age.
Off-topic: Noisy secret of Mona Lisa's smile - For centuries, artists, historians and tourists have been fascinated by Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile. Now it seems that the power of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece comes in part from an unlikely source: random noise in our visual systems. Christopher Tyler and Leonid Kontsevich at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco manipulated a digital image of the painting by introducing random visual noise - the equivalent of the snow seen on a badly tuned TV set - and asked 12 observers how they rated the resulting expression on a four-point scale from sad to happy.
Off-topic - ESA on mission to surf gravity's waves - A UK company has won the contract to build the heart of an ESA experiment designed to detect gravity waves, predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity. The Lisa (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) Pathfinder mission, scheduled for launch in 2008, is a precursor to the main event. The Lisa mission itself could revolutionise astronomy, scientists say, but before that can happen, they need to know whether their experiments will work. This is where the pathfinder mission comes in.
Microsoft DX9.0c available. Almost -The latest version of Windows XP service pack 2 has DirectX 9.0c inside. Which is great. But this service pack is still not officially launched, and according to reports on other sites appears to have suffered some delays. The people that are getting MSDN packages from Microsoft are already able to download it and some of them told us that they've done so, but we haven't. All drivers from 61.34 have support for Shaders 3.0, it appears.
Windows XP Starter edition? - Microsoft is currently planning a new edition to the Windows XP family of operating systems, namely "Starter Edition". Starter Edition is the name of a previously announced effort to deliver a tailored and localized Windows product to Thailand and Malaysia, as part of Microsofts efforts to enable access to technology. Previous rumours suggested that Windows XP Starter Edition would include a set of applications on top of the standard Windows XP installation (including Office 2003). Neowin cannot confirm these reports but are awaiting a statement from Microsoft Press. According to CNET, Windows XP Starter Edition will be available in September and will cost 1,490 Thai baht, or about $36.
Yahoo to Trillian: Talk to the hand - Beginning at about 6 p.m. Wednesday, Yahoo changed its instant messaging language to prevent third-party services, such as Trillian, from accessing its service. Like previous statements, the company said the block is meant as a pre-emptive measure against spammers from its Yahoo Messenger service. (A new patch for Trilian client can be found below)
Hotmail offers extra space - Hotmail will announce plans to offer more space to customers. In a bid to rival Google's upcoming Gmail, MSN plan to give free customers as much as 250meg of email space. MSN will also announce a plan to have a "plus" paid version of Hotmail for $19.95 a year which will include 2gig of email space.
Comdex 2004 canceled - Computer trade show Comdex, once the biggest event on the tech calendar, has been canceled this year, a victim of the growing interest in shows emphasizing consumer electronics and specialist IT gear.
Toshiba Develops World's Smallest Fuel Cell for Wearable Electronics - Japanese electronics giant Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it has developed the world's smallest methanol fuel cell for use in wireless headsets and other wearable electronics devices. The prototype direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is roughly thumb-size, measuring 22 millimetres by 45 millimetres (0.88 inches by 1.80 inches) and weighs 8.5 grammes (0.29 ounces).
ADSL2 and ADSL2+ deployment expected to surge after 2005 - Deployment of ADSL2 and ADSL2+ will be minimal until 2006, according to sources in the Taiwan xDSL manufacturing industry.
Intel Nocona foretells 64-bit desktop CPUs? - Intel’s planned launch of its next-generation Xeon processor, codenamed Nocona, next week has stirred a wave of market reports that the chipset giant may soon come out with a 64-bit desktop chip, according to sources at Taiwanese PC makers.
AMD updates Athlon 64 and Opteron Revision Guide - The document Rev. 3.25 lists erratum 109 which addresses a bug discovered in AMD's labs several weeks ago. According to the company, specific succeeding instruction may cause single data sets to be skipped which potentially could result in calculation errors and ultimately system crashes. The error is considered to be minor and rare. Users who are concerned about the error are advised to contact their mainboard manufacturer for a BIOS update.
Asus' Z9000 Notebook Offers Road Warrior Pretenses - Asus says its Z9000 notebook is tailor-made for the road warrior, with an integrated ATi 9100 IGP graphics chipset and a Pentium-M 1.7 GHz CPU. But do its power and battery life live up to Asus' mobile pretenses?
Toshiba Satellite P25-S670 - How do you build the ultimate multimedia notebook? Just ask Toshiba. Its latest portable, the Toshiba Satellite P25-S670, is a standout Media Center Edition PC that combines component-out and surround-sound capabilities, a first in such a notebook.
Mobinote DVX-POD 7010 - The DVX-POD is an iPod-looking Portable Media Player that features a 7-inch color LCD (720x480), 20GB 1.8-inch HDD, and weighs only 600g. You may notice that the DVX-POD has no visible front panel buttons, but has cleverly hidden the media controls at the top of the device with A/V ports situated on its sides. Video playback formats include MPEG-4, DivX 3.11, 4 and 5, QuickTime 6 and WMV files, but can also record TV video directly into MPEG-4. As for audio, it supports WMA and MP3 audio files and can also record voice memos via its built-in microphone. Photo formats include JPEG, GIF, and BMP images.
X800 XT PCIe (R423) review - Well there we have it, the R423, quite unexciting to say the least and certainly not worth contemplating if you already have a X800XT AGP board. Its also clear that right now PCIe doesnt have the hardware available to stress its theoretical bandwidth limitations with the R423 performing no better and in some cases slightly worse than its AGP counterpart. Its hard to get a totally equal testing platform and some of these differences could well be due to the underperforming DDRII on the PCIe system. It's not a bad move by ATI releasing the R423 because its a board that will tide you over for many months if you are wanting to get into PCIe (when its readily available on the market), but dont be expecting groundbreaking performance over current AGP hardware. This will of course in time change when next generation hardware hits the market.
All-in-Wonder 9600 XT vs Personal Cinema FX 5700 - Which multimedia graphics solution reigns supreme? TechReport has rounded up an All-in-Wonder Radeon 9600 XT and Personal Cinema FX 5700 to find out
Logitech MX 310, 510 and 900 - Gamers Depot have published a review of Logitech's revamped lineup of MX Mice.
The Complete ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Voltage Modding Guide - Adrian Rojak has completed his ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Voltage Modding Guide. As the title suggests, this guide will be all about volt modding the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. He covers all existing voltage modding methods as well as a new and easier method that he discovered and personally tested.
Bjorn3D's Very Own Nalu GF6800 Screenshots - Wohoo! Check it out!
Slackware Linux 10.0 out - Among the many program updates and distribution enhancements, you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: GNOME 2.6.1 (including a collection of pre-compiled GNOME applications), and KDE 3.2.3, the latest version of the award-winning K Desktop Environment. Slackware uses the 2.4.26 kernel bringing you advanced performance features such as the ReiserFS journaling filesystem, SCSI and ATA RAID volume support, and kernel support for X DRI (the Direct Rendering Interface) that brings high-speed hardware accelerated 3D graphics to Linux (PR ~ download)
SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services SP1 - Microsoft on Tuesday refreshed its six-month-old reporting platform for SQL Server 2000 with a service pack that adds some minor functionality.
MS AuthDiag RC1 - Microsoft has released the RC1 of AuthDiag, a new IIS troublshooting tool designed specifically to assist with troubleshooting authentication. This is no ordinary utility in that it can help wtih diagnosing problems with NTFS, privledges, invalid registry key permission, incorrect metabase properties, UNC properties, and more.
Trillian patches - Patches are available /Trillian Basic 0.74 Patch I | Full ~ Trillian Pro 1.0 Patch / 2.013 Update (member login required)/ for Trillian and Trillian Pro to fix a Yahoo connection problem.
Fresh Download 7.05 - 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.
WinAce 2.6 Beta 1 - WinAce (download) is not just another archiving shell. With it's own powerful compression format ACE and built-in support for other popular compression types like ZIP, RAR and MS-CAB (to name a few), WinAce could actually become the only archiver you need.
Serious Samurize 1.55 - Samurize (download) is a system monitoring utility with outstanding configuration power. The configuration program is totally separated from the client for minimal memory usage. The program displays almost any kind of information right on your desktop/taskbar and homepage.
CDCheck 3.0.1.43 final - CDCheck is a utility for the prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files on CD-ROMs with an emphasis on error detection. With CDCheck you can check your CDs and discover which files are corrupted. By using the program proactively, you can insure that your data on CD-ROMs are safe -- before it"s too late! CDCheck provides the following features: readability verification, binary compare, CRC file creation (and verification) and file recovery.
BurnInTest Professional 4.0 Build 1015 - BurnInTest is a software tool that allows all the major sub-systems of a computer to be simultaneously stress tested for endurance, reliability and stability. BurnInTest tests the CPU, hard drives, CD ROMs, sound cards, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, RAM, network connections & printers.
A (huge) anti-spyware download list - There's a huge list of anti-spyware tools.
ForceWare 61.71 Beta drivers Wi2k/XP - These are ForceWare drivers for Windows 2000/XP version 61.72 This is a full NVIDIA reference set that supports all NVIDIA graphics cards. The drivers are dated at June 17th 2004 making them the newest available. Also, there are some new graphics cards entires in these drivers: NVIDIA_NV41.DEV_00CE.1 = "NVIDIA NV41GL" , NVIDIA_NV43.DEV_0140.1 = "NVIDIA NV43"

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,23 2004 - tech

GF 6800 GT Preview - tech
(hx) 10:28 PM CEST - Jun,23 2004 - Post a comment / read (1)
Both T-Break and Guru3D have posted a preview of reference GeForce 6800 GT card from NVIDIA:

The physical differences between the ultra and this version is that this card wont take over the space of the adjacent PCI slot and only requires one power connector. We also found the noise level produced by this card to be lower than the Ultra version which is definitely a good thing. Our reference card overclocked quite well. We managed to get the memory up from 700MHz to 880MHz while the core went up from 325 to 375. This resulted in differences between 4% to 12% which is quite a reasonable performance gain. If we could figure out a hack to increase the pipelines from 12 to 16 then we would definitely have a killer card. Here are a few shots of the card followed by the testbed.

Basically, it boils down to the price and availability of a product. The 6800 is definitely a better performer than the previous generation of graphic cards and although we havent seen a retail version yet, we think that it should be available very soon. Regarding the price, nVidia's suggested price is US$350 however, reading at different websites, it seems that this card might be available for $299. If that is the case, then we think that nVidia might have a winner even though the x800 PRO is a better performer as its currently selling at well above $400.

1THz (1,000 GHz) Computers Coming Soon? - tech
(hx) 10:08 PM CEST - Jun,23 2004 - Post a comment / read (3)
Yahoo! News news has a story on tiny transitors that will speed up computers and cell phones in a big way. UCI's Peter Burke has shown for the first time that transistors made from single-walled carbon tubes only a few nanometers wide operate at extremely fast microwave frequencies. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter or about 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. For cell-phone and computer users, Burke's discovery could mean speeds up to "1,000 times" what they are today, said American Chemical Society spokesperson Jason Gorss, whose organization published Burke's research in the journal "Nano Letters." estimate that the theoretical speed limit for these nanotube transistors should be terahertz (1,000 GHz), which is about 1,000 times faster than modern computer speeds," Burke said. According to article, a prototype nano-transistor may be available within two years.

Wednesday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:40 PM CEST - Jun,23 2004 - Post a comment / read (7)

Valve to take legal action against cheating - Valve software has actually started taking legal action against cheating. Gabe Newell speaks: "We've started taking legal action against cheating (cheat-sites, cheat creators,...) both in the US and abroad. This is in addition to the on-going investments in anti-cheating technology. You'll see reports of this percolating up as various actions happens." The German hoster of OGCNetwork, known for it's infamous OGC client-hook, has already taken down the main OGC site after receiving an action for injunction. As Counter-Hack reported, several other large cheat websites have already gone offline as well. Whether this is a result of similar legal actions or simply fear is unknown. Either way, this is good news for all Valve's online gamers.
U.S. Recording Industry Sues 482 More People - A U.S. music industry trade group on Tuesday said it has sued 482 more people for copyright infringement in a continuation of its anti-piracy campaign. Including the latest suits, the Recording Industry Association of America has now sued 3,429 individuals since last September as it seeks to discourage music fans from copying and trading songs through peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa and LimeWire.
MasterCard to combat phishing and ID theft - MasterCard International is working with digital fraud detection company NameProtect to "aggressively combat" phishing and the brokering of illegally obtained credit card numbers online. Rather than reacting to online fraud and identity theft after it has occurred, MasterCard said it would use NameProtect's technology to detect online scams in real time as they proliferate across the internet.
LayerOne Hacking Exposed - You are more exposed to data theft than you probably already know, but you can also do something about it. That is the message from the LayerOne conference held in L.A. last week attended by over 100 computer security professionals, federal agents and hackers. There were also some great wrestling matches to be had...
Spamassassin Beats CRM-114 In Anti-Spam Shootout - A new study of antispam software shows that Spamassassin performed well in various configurations along with Spamprobe , Bogofilter and Spambayes also came out good while CRM-114 failed to live up to its previous claims (thanks Slashdot.org)
Off-topic: NASA Eyes Cash Prizes of Its Own - Within hours of the first private flight to outer space Monday, a NASA official said the agency might offer millions of dollars in prizes to encourage commercial missions to orbit the Earth or land on the moon. Michael Lembeck of NASA's office of exploration systems said such prizes would go to private explorers for such landmarks as "the first soft landing on the moon, or for returning a piece of an asteroid to Earth."
Off-topic: Electric Warship Heralds Evolution in Weapon Technologies - When the U.S. Navy’s first integrated power system (IPS)/electric drive warship arrives in 2011 as the DD(X), the service will mark a technological breakthrough that not only signals a new era for naval engineering, but provides huge amounts of electrical power for uses once considered fanciful, such as free electron lasers, high-powered microwaves and electromagnetic rail guns.
Off-topic: Clinton book mania explodes on the Web - Just hours after former U.S. president Bill Clinton finished a first round of book-signings for his new memoir, published Tuesday, autographed copies were selling on eBay for $250 and more. Some of those copies hadn't even been signed yet. One St. Paul, Minn., seller named Jason Gabbert, an eBay regular and longtime Clinton fan, promised that his family and he had tickets to next week's Los Angeles book signing and were guaranteed a few autographed copies to sell.
Microsoft poo-poos Xbox 2 backwards compatibility 'fiction' - Microsoft today slammed claims that Xbox 2 will not play Xbox games as "irresponsible... pulp fiction". The statement, published by web site Team Xbox, a site that's done as much speculating on Xbox 2's specifications as anyone else has, notes that: "Microsoft hasn't made any announcements regarding the next generation, so it's far too early to speculate about specifics, including backward compatibility."
US Army plans US Army II - One of the latest players in the software games market is planning a new release. According to Wired the America's Army Government Applications office has opened a software design studio with a team of 15 video-game creators, simulation specialists and ex-Army personnel to expand their software writing efforts.
Philips Launches World's Fastest DVD Burner - Philips Electronics has launched the world's first 16-speed DVD writer, which can burn a disc in less than six minutes, the Dutch group said on Tuesday. Philips said it planned to produce 600,000 of the devices every month. Computer makers will pay between 80 and 90 euros ($97-$109) per DVD writer when buying in large quantities, while consumers will have to pay around 180 euros.
Sharp intros 400GB DVD recorder - Japanese firm Sharp said it will start selling a range of DVD recorders from July, one of which will have a 400GB hard drive. The firm is introducing five models altogether over the next few months, with its DVHR450 and DVHR400 going on sale in August.
AMD reveals Opteron crash bugs - AMD has pledged to fix three bugs in its Opteron chips that, if unremedied, could cause host systems to crash in certain circumstances. In a June 2004 Opteron and Athlon 64 Revision Guide (PDF), the chip maker lists three processor glitches - known in the trade as 'errata' - that could mean the "system may hang". A misaligned 128-bit store could cause "processor deadlock" when "a 128-bit store operation (MOVUPS, MOVUPD, MOVDQU) occurs to a cacheable memory type. The store is misaligned across two cache lines such that the upper eight bytes span a cache line boundary. The store has retired but not yet written the data cache. The store is followed by two other load or store operations to the same cache index as the second half of the misaligned store (ie. bits 11:6 are the same)."
Intel Prescott 3.6GHz CPU Review - The fastest 90nm Pentium 4 processor to date uses the new LGA775 socket format exclusively. ExtremeTech benchmarked the 3.6GHz model 560 and compare it against other Intel CPUs and the latest Athlon 64 offering. Has Prescott improved enough to be king of the hill?
Intel's 925X & LGA-775: Are Prescott 3.6 and PCI Express Graphics any Faster? - So, the launch of the 925X and 915 has come and gone, with very little excitement from the community in regards to platform performance - but are there any other diamonds in the rough to be discovered? Alongside the LGA-775 socket interface, Intel gave Prescott a bit of a speed bump - taking it up to 3.6GHz, making it the highest clocked Intel processor available today. This article will be taking a look at the extra 200MHz and how it changes, if at all, the Prescott factor.
AirMagnet Surveyor review - In a nutshell, Surveyor takes AirMagnet's WLAN scanning engine and marries it to an interactive display tool. The display tool is actually the back-end for a data-cruncher that takes the RF and location information gathered during a survey walk-around and transmogrifies them into visual maps of the WLAN signal profile in the survey area.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,22 2004 - tech

nVidia GeForce 6800 GT - Reference Board preview - tech
(hx) 05:23 PM CEST - Jun,22 2004 - Post a comment / read (6)

Both Digit-Life and Trusted Reviews have posted a preview of reference GeForce 6800 GT card from NVIDIA:

Leaving quality issues aside, GeForce 6800 GT is clearly a more powerful accelerator than X800 PRO. If they were sold at equal prices, the former would be much more preferrable as it is faster in most tests. But there are not many places where the difference is really huge.

However, there are too few 6800 cards for the moment, and what price will be for GT is anyone's guess. Considering that GeForce 6800 Ultra are sold at USD 700, chances are GT will be only a little cheaper. But anyway, it will certainly be more expensive than USD 500-520 which is the current price for X800 PRO in Russia. So, the price will be a decisive factor.

As for power requirements, GT has them lower than Ultra, so 400-420W or perhaps even 360W will be quite enough. The one-slot design makes the card fit for any case, and only a longer PCB may hinder the card's installation in the barebone. Also noteworthy is the card's heating, as its core temperature reached 80°C even when the cover was removed.

Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 01:24 AM CEST - Jun,22 2004 - Post a comment / read (23)

Microsoft prepares for mobile virus battle - Besides ring tones and wallpapers, you could soon be downloading virus definitions over the airwaves as part of Microsoft's defence against a possible mobile phone virus outbreak. To allay such fears, Microsoft has built multiple security features into its Smartphone OS, a Symbian rival which is also used in hybrid devices which blends the functions of a mobile phone with a personal digital assistant, claimed Mike Wehrs, director of technology and standards for Microsoft's Mobile Devices Division.
Syrian surfer jailed - Syrian who downloaded and distributed material from a website banned by Syrian authorities has been jailed for two-and-a-half years. Abdel Rahman al-Shaghouri, 32, who had been held since his arrest in February 2003 apparently without access to family or legal representation, was convicted of "publishing false news that saps the morale of the nation".
Music On Car Radios Meant Only For Original Vehicle Owner - The Recording Industry Association of America announced today it would be expanding its crackdown on copyright infringement by suing family members, hitchhikers and carpoolers. Lawyers for the RIAA maintain that the radio in each car was never meant to be listened to by anyone else except the original owner of the vehicle. OMG
Wallpaper designed to protect Wi-Fi networks - Who wouldn't want to have wallpaper that could stop electronic eavesdropping? A British defense contractor BAE Systems has developed a panel that does just that. In addition to being only 50 to 100 microns thick. This panel can be applied to almost any surface. What's interesting about this is that it lets other traffic through. Such as radio and cell phone signals. This technology comes with a price tag of $265,000.
The Microsoft research site provides RSS feed - News and Headlines ~ Downloads ~ Publications
Off-topic: Private rocket ship breaks space barrier - With a triumphant thumbs-up and a broad grin, the pilot of the SpaceShipOne rocket plane celebrated becoming the first private-sector astronaut to steer his ship into space. Melvill's exultant comments capped SpaceShipOne's wildest ride since its rollout a year ago. On the way down from a top altitude of at least 62 miles (100 kilometers), the 63-year-old South Africa native experienced 5 G's of acceleration -- more than shuttle astronauts feel during their descent.
Off-topic: Bill Gates to sponsor F1 Toyota team? - According to report in German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Chairman Gates could be signing up as the Toyota F1 team's major sponsor, covering up to 10 per cent of the company's F1 sponsorship budget. The report also added the Japanese team was hoping to bag Sony as another sponsor - although that might not go down well with rival and current Toyota sponsor Panasonic. Should they sign on the dotted line, Sony and Microsoft would join Intel in Toyota's sponsorship starting line-up and the move could see tech not tobacco become the main driving force in F1.
Off-topic: Beastie Boys CD user protected, fans angry - The Beastie Boys, infamous for their loud brand of shouty shouty whiteboy rap, have finally released a new CD - much to the glee of their fans. Well, most of them, because the few who like to rip their music to their PC, or stick it onto their mp3 players aren't able to do so: the new CD's copy protected.
Off-topic: Spielberg Knocked Out by 'Dodgeball' at Box Office - According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, the aptly titled "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" sold $30 million worth of tickets since opening on June 18. "The Terminal," director Spielberg's latest collaboration with Hanks, followed with a disappointing $18.7 million for the three-day period. Fortunately for Oscar-winners Spielberg and Hanks, a more expensive new arrival did even worse. The Jackie Chan remake "Around the World in 80 Days," reportedly budgeted at $110 million, opened at No. 9 with just $6.8 million for the weekend. The film was financed by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz as part of a plan to make family-friendly projects.
Off-topic: B5 Creator Pitches Trek - Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski told fans on a B5 Usenet group that he and Dark Skies creator Bryce Zabel have put together an idea for a new Star Trek series, which he said would revive the ailing franchise. "I got together [with Zabel] and wrote a treatment earlier this year that specified how to save [Star Trek] and develop a series that would restore the series in a big way," Straczynski wrote. "I actually think it could be a hell of a show. Whether that ever goes anywhere with Paramount, who knows?"
Earth Simulator still supercomputer champion - The Earth Simulator is still the fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the latest "TOP500" list, which was announced Monday at the biannual International Supercomputer Conference held in Heidelberg, Germany.
Internet speed record smashed - The Swedish National Research and Education Network (Sunet), with carrier Sprint, claims to have broken the speed record for transferring large volumes of data across the internet. Without using special technology, the team sent nearly 840 gigabytes of data from a PC in San José, California, roughly halfway around the globe to associates at the University of Lulea in northern Sweden in under 27 minutes. The data was recorded as travelling 10,157 miles across Sprint's global SprintLink backbone and the GigaSunet IP backbone at 4.23Gbps.
Simpler fuel cell architecture being readied for portables - MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc. unveiled patented direct-methanol fuel cell technology based on what the company says is a radically simplified architecture that will power handheld electronics with integrated, internal fuel cells. MTI Micro's DMFC can prolong the run-time of a portable device typically by three to 10 times, said CEO Acker. "If you have a cell phone whose battery runs out in three days, our micro fuel cells can let the cell phone run for 15 days before it requires fuel cell refills," he said. Micro fuel cells for the consumer market won't take off until 2007, Acker predicted, although some selected applica- tions may emerge in 2006.
10-Gigabit Ethernet for the masses - On Monday, Foundry Networks, a leader in the 10-gigabit-per-second Ethernet (10-GigE) market, rounded out its portfolio with 10-GigE interfaces on a new load balancing switch. Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve Networking division plans to build a low-cost 10-GigE core switch using technology it bought from Riverstone Networks. And earlier this month, 3Com announced a new stackable switch that has a 10-GigE uplink.
Production of 16x DVD+RW burners may be delayed - Volume production of 16x DVD+RW burners for Japanese optical drive manufacturers such as Pioneer and Sony and their Taiwanese competitors including BenQ, Lite-On IT and Accesstek may be behind schedule due to a tight supply of LDs (laser diodes), a key component, and a lag in the availability of 16x DVD+R discs, Taiwanese optical disc drive makers indicated.
Dell taps new Intel gear for new gaming system - Dell has launched a "Gen 3" revision of its high-end Dimension XPS desktop that can be configured with either a Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz or an Extreme Edition 3.4GHz. The system comes with all sorts of goodies, including a 925X-based motherboard, PCI Express Radeon x800 XT graphics card, and loads of Serial ATA RAID options.
Intel 915 chipsets and Celeron processors to help push motherboard sales - Taiwanese motherboard makers expect today's launch of Intel's new line of PCI-Express chipsets, the 915P, 915G and 925X, to boost sales starting from July.
Intel's new 775LGA CPUs and 925/915 chipsets review - With all of that said, there is still a very positive side to all of this. And while this comparison is not perfect, you have to look at this Intel launch being akin to AMD’s 64-bit computing. AMD64 and Intel’s LGA775 and 915/925 chipsets offer much of nothing to any computer user, right now. They do however put the building blocks in place for our industry to move forward to better things. The hardware has to be in place before the software and we all know that now and that this not likely to change any time soon.
Terratec's Aureon 7.1 FireWire Attempts Plug-and-Play with Pro Sound Card Performance - Terratec says its Aureon 7.1 FireWire offers a plug-and-play sound card setup via an external FireWire connection. So while you can forget about your screwdriver and worrying about whether or not you have the right PC slot, THG investigates Terratec's easy-setup and performance claims.
DDR versus DDR2 on i915 - In conclusion, it really depends on a few factors. Pricing, availability and performance. Do take note that the current DDR2 are only supported on Intel 915 and 925 boards. Unless you are really keen to upgrade, I would advise you to wait a while when prices drop and more platforms adopt DDR2 and latencies reduced.
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Voltage Mod - Look for the chip at the back of the card as shown. You can measure the voltage of your 6800 ultra from the point shown below. Without drivers loaded it should be around 1.13v with drivers loaded it should be 1.43v. To increase voltage, you can solder a 100K variable resistor to the point shown.
Unreal Tournament 2004 tweaking guide (updated) - This guide provides you everything you need to know to improve your UT2004 experience. As a compilation of detailed setting descriptions, recommendations, tweaks and links to important resources it guarantees something for every fan of this great game (thanks Alistair Russell)
OpenOffice1.1.2 Final - The latest stable release, OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 (Win32 ~ Linux), is ready for download now. OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 introduces the FontOOo Autopilot, which downloads and installs fonts; numerous bugs are also fixed. In addition to English, versions for Czech, Danish, French, German, Japanese and Slovak are ready now, with other localizations following shortly.
WinRAR 3.40 Beta - 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.
CDBurnerXP 2.2.9 - CDBurnerXP Pro (download) is a freeware CD/DVD-Writer program. The program can write CD-R, CD-RW DVD+R/RW DVD-R/RW discs.
SiSoftware Sandra 2004 SP2 2004.7.9.129 - SiSoftware Sandra is an information & diagnostic utility. It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, ODBC Connections, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,19 2004 - tech

Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:28 PM CEST - Jun,19 2004 - Post a comment / read (5)

Raid on pirate DVD factory - Trading Standards officials have raided a secret DVD factory which was supplying pirate films to scores of illegal outlets across East Anglia. Among some of the counterfeit DVDs recovered in the raid were copies of Hollywood blockbusters like Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter:Prisoner Of Azkaban and Troy. Officials even found copies of Shrek 2 - which hasn't even been theatrically released in the UK yet. It's suspected that the counterfeits were made from illicit master discs smuggled in from the Far East..
Attack of the zombies - Almost summertime, and the living is easy--unless you happen to be an IT worker employed in any kind of security-related capacity. In that case, it was just new kinds of trouble this week, as worms, hacker attacks and other threats made life miserable.The biggest of the headaches was Tuesday's attack against Web infrastructure company Akamai, which knocked Yahoo, Google, and various Microsoft and Apple Computer sites offline for at least part of the day.
Mobile phone virus emerges in Moscow - The world's first mobile phone virus, capable of sending itself between handsets, has been discovered by an internet security company in Moscow. The Cabir virus is designed to attack the top-of-the-range models of brands such as Nokia which use the common operating system Symbian. It is disguised as part of the phone's own security software. Onceinside, it activates the wireless information transfer system known asBluetooth. Each time the phone is turned on it searches for other phones nearbywith Bluetooth and then sends itself to the first of them. While it isactive the phone's screen displays the name of its security software,Caribe, and is inoperable. Experts say it is the first virus that can spread between mobile phoneswithout the help of a computer. Although it does not have any malicious effect, experts say it is only amatter of time before programmers adapt it to damage phones or have themcall premium rate numbers or send nuisance text messages.
Italy School Foils Cheats by Blocking Phone Signals - The box-like units, called C-Guard, were developed by experts from the military and defense industries for Netline Communications Technologies. They jam signals in a 262-foot radius in enclosed spaces. They could eventually be installed across Italy to prevent cheating during university exams.
Report Online Thieves Empty Bank Accounts - Checking-account theft is the fastest-growing financial consumer fraud in the country, according to a survey from Gartner Inc. Based on a poll of 5,000 online U.S. adults, the study shows that some 1.98 million consumers have been victimized by checking-account fraud, resulting in $2.4 billion in losses.
Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer - The argument is simple: the benefits of using IE are too few - and the faults too great!
Antipiracy bill targets technology - The proposal, called the Induce Act, says "whoever intentionally induces any violation" of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations, a prohibition that would effectively ban file-swapping networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. The bill represents the latest legislative attempt by influential copyright holders to address what they view as the growing threat of peer-to-peer networks rife with pirated music, movies and software. As file-swapping networks grow in popularity, copyright lobbyists are becoming increasingly creative in their legal responses, which include proposals for Justice Department lawsuits against infringers and action at the state level.
Survey Finds File-Sharing Networks Boost CD Buys - File-sharing appears to boost music CD buying, according to survey results released by Warez.com, a maker of file-sharing software. The online survey, which reportedly has been taken by some 150,000 people, shows that the purchasing of music increases slightly for some consumers after they discover peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Light buyers of music appear to buy more discs after they discover online file-sharing, the survey indicates. The survey showed 47.12 percent of the respondents indicated that they bought fewer than 10 CDs a year before they became file-traders, but that number dropped to 41.4 percent after they discovered P2P.
Copy-protected CD hits #1 - Velvet Revolver's debut CD has reached a milestone of sorts. "Contraband" is the first copy-protected album to hit #1 in the US.
Off-topic: GPS cellphones blank out during 911 calls - Some emergency calls made from GPS-enabled Verizon Wireless cellphones in the US are being disrupted because of a glitch in the way the phones divide their processor time between GPS-location calculations and voice transmission. Verizon Wireless, based in New York City, first announced on Wednesday that the emergency stations that receive 911 calls had noticed disruptions. The company, the largest cell phone service provider in the US, says the glitch causes a series of two second "blank outs" at the beginning of a 911 call. Theoretically a caller could experience up to 16 of these, says Verizon Wireless spokesperson Jeff Nelson.
Off-topic: Challenge to U.S. Might? - At first, the system was supposed to be a GPS competitor. But now, after years of wrangling, the United States and Europe have agreed to cooperate. That could mean more widely available tracking systems -- ones that work in just about every urban canyon, office park and hiking trail across the globe.
Off-topic: Firm trials cancer-zapping nanobots - A nanoscale drug-delivery system is being tested at Singapore General Hospital. The technology is being used to help treat cancer by carrying the treatment directly to the tumour site. The device, developed by biotech company pSivida, is based on a material they call BioSilicon. This is cheap, safe and biodegradable, the firm says.
Off-topic: X-ray replacement - UK company Teraview and US security leaders Smiths Detection announced a new partnership. Together, the companies will work to develop and build new airport and building security scanners, using Terahertz for the first time ever. Terahertz is apparently far more effective at showing up smuggled weapons and drugs than x-rays, and also, according to the companies, carries none of the health risks. The companies claim that serious terrorists no longer carry knives and guns that can be detected by regular metal detectors, rendering them obsolete.
Steve Ballmer Interview - Activewin has conducted an interview with Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp.
Hiding Behind Certification - In his article Hiding Behind Certification, MIT's Michael Schrage argues that CIOs who rely too heavily on certifications as a measure of an employee or sub-contractor's abilities are wasting their companies' money (thanks Slashdot.org)
MS Outlines Xbox Video Chat - Microsoft recently outlined their Video Chat plans which where introduced at their press conference during the week of E3. Yoshihiro Maruyama, general manager of Microsoft Japan's Xbox division,was on hand at a Microsoft event in Japan to present the hardware, software, and business model involving the Xbox Live video communications for the Japanese market.
Gmail – It’s more than the gig - Gmail is currently in its beta testing phase. In this case, the term “beta” belies how robust the system already is. Surely there are features to be added and tweaks to be made, but the system works and very efficiently at that. After a few minutes with my account, I had no qualms switching the e-mail address on my various accounts (E-bay, PayPal, forums, etc.) to Gmail. Here are several reasons why.
New livecam can handle 70 megapixels - Swiss based Roundshot has released an interesting new item, the 360° internet Livecam capable of 70 megapixels
BenQ: LCD TV prices will fall 15-20% in 2H - BenQ expects prices of mainstream LCD TVs to fall 15-20% in the second half of this year, said Peter Chen, general manager of BenQ's digital media division.
Is PCI-Express Necessary? - In August of 2002 VIA launched their KT400 with AGP 8x support. In five years, available AGP bandwidth had quadrupled from 533 MB/s on the 440LX to 2.1 GB/s using VIA’s KT400. In a few weeks, Intel will launch the first PCI-Express motherboards whose x16 PCI-E links will offer 4.1 GB/s of memory bandwidth. In seven years we’ve nearly octupled total video card bandwidth—but how necessary is the gain? Is PCI-Express needed in the video card industry?
DDR2 Memory: Near or Distant Future? - It is a new memory standard promoted by Intel. Potentially, it enables to reach higher frequencies and higher bandwidth. But apart from that, DDR2 has a number of inattractive features that mostly affect time latencies. At this particular moment, its concrete implementations (DIMMs) can't show us the strongs of DDR2, on the contrary, they underline its weaks. The reasons for that are quite material and objective: insufficient (even for DDR2-533) CPU bus bandwidth in today's Pentium 4 and absence of low-timing DIMMs from mass production.
AMD is betting on low-priced chip - While Athlon XPs can be found in Hewlett-Packard desktops priced as low as $399 and in HP notebooks priced as low as $849 before rebates, AMD plans to market Sempron for those PCs. It will aim to place the chip in desktops that cost less than $549 and in notebooks that sell for under $999. But Sempron notebooks could hit prices even lower than that. The machines could start at $650 or $700, Mahony said, but still deliver features, such as 15-inch screens and CD burners, that meet the needs of most buyers.
Intel intros 775-pin Pentium 4s - Intel has announced six new 775-pin Pentium 4 processors, to accompany it latest chipsets, also announced today. The CPU line-up comprises 2.8, 3.0, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6GHz Pentium 4s and a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. The first five of these will ship with model numbers 520, 530, 540, 550 and 560, respectively. Given Intel's intention to dub the P4EE the 7xx series, the 3.4GHz part has not been given a model number, so the chip maker clearly wants to retain the model numbering for 90nm parts - the 3.4GHz P4EE is fabbed at 130nm. The 700 series P4EE - ie. a 90nm part - will not appear until Q4 2004, Intel confirmed today.
Intel unveils Grantsdale and Alderwood chipsets - Intel has previewed its 915 and 925x chipsets, formerly known by their codenames Grantsdale and Alderwood. The new chipsets will be launched officially on 21 June, which is also when the first systems using the chipset will be for sale. Both models offer roughly the same features, with the main difference being that the 925x has a higher performance. More details on the chipsets can be found here.
Verto GeForce 6800 GT announced - PNY announces the Verto GeForce 6800 GT, a great value performance graphics card based on advanced NVIDIA GPU technology. Supercharged by a 16-pipe superscalar graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture from NVIDIA with full support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0. The Verto GeForce 6800 GT contains a quick-start installation guide, driver CD, 1 DVI to VGA adapters, an S-Video Cable, a TVOUT adapter and the full version Far Cry game. PNY Technologies' Verto GeForce 6800 GT will be available in July 2004 with a suggested retail price of L299 Inc vat.
Seagate Attacks With 12 New Disk Drive Products - Seagate will unleash a barrage of new hard drives next quarter as it further expands its product lineup. On the menu are drives with capacities of 400-GB for desktops, 100 GB for notebooks and 300 GB for servers; a USB2 pocket hard drive with a 5-GB capacity and more.
LG GSA-4120B: High Speed Multi-format Champion - As 5X DVD-RAM and 12X DVD+R media catch on, the GSA-4120B will become a more attractive option for end users. Unfortunately, the only real media ready for 12X (Ricoh and Yuden) has not found its way into the mainstream retail markets yet - we are even having trouble finding some with which to test our drives. As with the Plextor 712A, we were disappointed that the LG burner did not burn 12X on the 8X rated MCC 003 discs. Fortunately, the GSA-4120B does make an excellent 8X burner. More options for burning 12X would have been welcomed, but until we see larger media saturation, we are more or less stuck with our options for now.
OCZ Powerstream 520ADJ review - This power supply will be the favorite with many overclockers, the strong rails and adjustability of the 3.3v and 5v lines will ensure the success of this power supply
Dlink DI-624/S & DWL-G650/s Adaptors review - The DI-624 is at first glance identical to the DI-624+, quite why Dlink chose to put a '+' symbol on a lower specification product is beyond me, it has confused many-a-customer. The fact remains however that on the exterior the two are identical. The DI-624/s is a four port, 10/100BaseT wireless broadband router that offers 108Mbps wireless connectivity within the 2.4Ghz range using a single dipole antenna.
Samsung ML-1740 printer review - The Samsung ML-1740 is a lot of printer for the price. The 17-page-per-minute (ppm) engine cranks out pages at high speed and at 600 dots per inch - a higher resolution than most personal lasers. Output quality could be better, but it's among the best we've seen at this price.
Acer Aspire 1714SMi review - For a start let's look under the hood. Though the 1714SMi is no lighter than the 1705SCi it has certainly been working out. Gone is the P4 3.06GHz CPU, having been beefed up to a P4 3.4GHz. Likewise, the DDR SDRAM has been doubled to 1GB and Acer has finally thrown in a decent graphics chipset, replacing the SiS M650 integrated graphics with nVidia’s 128MB GeForce FX Go5700. The original 1705SCi’s stunning 1,280 x 1,024 17in TFT screen and lightening fast Seagate Barracuda 120GB, 7,200rpm Ultra ATA-100 hard drive have wisely been kept.
Notebook round-up - PCWorld tested the four notebooks configured with 1GB of RAM and Windows XP Professional. They came with different Pentium M processors: Dell's Inspiron 8600C ($2899) and HP's Compaq Business Notebook Nc6000 ($2499) ran the 2-GHz Pentium M 755; Gateway's 450XL ($2440) relied on the 1.8-GHz Pentium M 745; and IBM's ThinkPad T42 ($1994) carried the 1.7-GHz Pentium M 735.
MSI MEGA Player 515 review - TrustedReviews has posted a review of the MSI MEGA Player 515 - MP3 Player which has 256MB memory, OLED display and comes in at a bargain price.
Yepp YP-T5 vs MuVo Slim - It's hard to favor one over the other, so it will all come down to a matter of taste and priorities. We'd say it's really up to you. But: the Creative is faster (USB 2.0), includes a battery, restitutes sound a bit better and has a better tuner. The Samsung player has the better screen, doesn't need a PC for recharging, records and encodes in MP3.
Ten Steps to a Secure PC - PCStats have published a new beginners guide to securing your PC againist viruses, Trojan horses and more.
ATI Radeon To ATI FireGL Mod Guide - Adrian's Rojak Pot has published his new guide for turning you're ATI Radeon into a FireGL.
Overclocking the Athlon64 3000+ - With expensive 939-pin CPUs dousing many enthusiast dreams, the 754-pin CPUs are coming back into focus with the help of ABIT and VIA's new K8T800Pro chipset.
MotherBoard Monitor 5.3.7.0 - Motherboard Monitor (download) is a tool that will display information from the sensor chip on your motherboard in your Windows system tray. MBM supports a wide range of Chipsets & Sensor Chip combinations. MBM is compatible with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and .NET. It can sense temps from Cpu, HDD, GFx and Mobo.
SpeedFan 4.13 - SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds, temperatures and voltages in computers with hardware monitoring chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature (almost all :-)) and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported.
Fresh UI 7.13 - 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.
Mozilla 1.7 Final - Mozilla 1.7 (download win32 ~ linux) is for everyone. And we mean everyone. Mozilla is open source, which means it is made possible by a large community of developers, supporters, and users like you.
FileZilla 2.2.7a - The FileZilla client offers similar features and capability to its commercial alternatives. This is a minor update to the 2.2.7 release where new features such as MODE Z file transfer compression was introduced.
FTPRush 1.0.0440 - FTPRush (download ~ screenshot) is a fast, reliable, powerful and easy-to-use FTP/FXP client for Microsoft Windows. It allows you to transfer files from local to server, server to local or server to server.
Intel INF Update Utility 6.0.1.1002 - The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility (readme) installs Windows* INF files to the target system.
Matrox drivers v1.07.00.089 - Matrox has released a new drivers for Parhelia, Millennium P750 and P650.
ForceWare 61.21 WHQL(?) drivers - Station-Drivers have posted a new set of Forceware Drivers. They claim the drivers are WHQL, but I would recommend to install it only at your own risk!

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,17 2004 - tech

Thursday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:27 PM CEST - Jun,17 2004 - Post a comment

"Sasser" worm informant under investigation - The informant who tipped Microsoft Corp. to the identity of the "Sasser" computer worm's creator last month is among five people under investigation as possible accomplices, prosecutors said Wednesday. The worm's confessed creator, Sven Jaschan, 18, was arrested May 7 at his home in northern Germany following the tip to Microsoft from an informant seeking a reward. Jaschan, whose worm raced around the world exploiting a flaw in the company's Windows operating system, is free pending charges. The week after the arrest, police questioned five people, some of whom said Jaschan had given them the source code for the "Netsky" virus, which he also created. "The person who gave the tip is among the other five suspects," said Helmut Trentmann, a spokesman for prosecutors in the northern town of Verden. He added that 50 damage claims have been received so far, but gave no details.
Cisco IOS Malformed BGP packet causes reload - A Cisco device running IOS and enabled for the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DOS) attack from a malformed BGP packet. The BGP protocol is not enabled by default, and must be configured in order to accept traffic from an explicitly defined peer. Unless the malicious traffic appears to be sourced from a configured, trusted peer, it would be difficult to inject a malformed packet. Cisco has made free software available to address this problem.
Multiple Antivirus DoS During Processing of Malformed Compressed Archives - It is possible to construct an archive containing a file or files that will cause a denial of service condition when a scanner attempts to extract the contents of the archive. Usually files within archives are completely extracted before scanned, which gives rise to this vulnerability. Such a malicious file can be obtain from here.
Manufacturers say mobile telephones remain safe from attacks by viruses - Mobile phone handset manufacturers have reassured users that their products remained safe from viruses and stressed that they took the discovery of the world's first computer "worm" aimed at mobile phones seriously. The worm, dubbed "cabir", spreads from handset to handset through Bluetooth wireless technology, which allows devices to communicate directly with each other over short distances of up to 30 metres. It replicates itself on advanced handset models that use the Symbian operating system, and the series 60 smart phone platform. Series 60 is designed by Nokia, the world's number one producer of handsets, but can also be found on phones from manufacturers such as Siemens, Panasonic, Samsung and Sendo.
How to block Wi-Fi signals - The actual cost of this project was about $.50. It was either keep the neighbors out of my network, or get a Dr. Pepper…decisions, decisions :).
UK firm patents software downloads - A British company with a history of taking on larger rivals says it owns six patents affecting software downloads. The claim comes from British Technology Group (BTG), which is in the business of turning inventors' ideas into commercial products. If true, it could mean that dozens of software firms that use the Web to deliver certain kinds of software - including security updates and patches - could be forced to pay royalties to BTG.
Off-topic: Atoms teleported by U.S., Austrian teams - Two separate research teams have demonstrated teleportation of information using atoms for the first time, scientists reported Wednesday. The novel trick someday could help information flow inside quantum computers, machines that in theory can run more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the universe.
Off-topic: Power implant aims to run on body heat - Life-saving medical implants like pacemakers and defibrillators face a big drawback: their batteries eventually run out. So every few years, patients need surgery to have the batteries replaced. Now a company in New York state is planning to tackle the problem by providing patients with an implantable power source that recharges their implant's batteries using electricity generated by the patient's own body heat.
Off-topic: Gamers: don't die alone! - This website allows users to search for their ideal match, be it gay or straight, male or female. Interestingly, the homepage shows several attractive people smiling, maybe talking about their level 75 orcs, or bragging about beta-testing for the latest MMORPG. Or maybe they're laughing and smiling because they'll never have to use a site like this. (thanks TheInquirer)
Sony launching revamped PSX - Sony announced that it will release two new models of its multifunction PlayStation 2 and DVD recorder, the PSX. Like the original, the new PSX will be available in two models--the 160MB hard drive DESR-5100 and the 250GB HD DESR-7100. Both will come in the same color and case as the original PSX, though Sony will also release a limited-edition silver DESR-5100. Scheduled to ship on July 1, the new PSX's main improvements are in its DVD recording capabilities, although there are also minor tweaks in the machine's screen menu. Users will have the option to manually set the recording quality for DVDs, enabling longer movies to fit on a single disc. The machine will also have 50 preinstalled templates to allow users to create their own DVD menus. The new PSX will also come with DVD+RW and DVD-RW compatibility already installed.
Symbian will remain open, promises Nokia - Nokia has attempted to soothe the fears of other Symbian shareholders by insisting that it is commited to Symbian as an open operating platform. The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer - which is expected to acquire Psion's stake in Symbian early next month - has also announced new upgrades to its Series 60 operating platform used on its 7610, 6630 and 6260 smartphones.
Intel plans to introduce Lakeport chips in 2Q 2005 - Intel has informed Taiwanese clients that it plans to unveil its next generation chipset, codenamed Lakeport, in the second quarter of next year, according to sources at local PC and motherboard makers. Lakeport will replace the Grantsdale chipset, which will be released by the chipset giant early next week. Local makers said that they were not informed whether the Lakeport chipsets will support dual-core processing, but some makers speculated on the new models after Intel stated it would be shipping dual-core processors in mid-2005.
Additional Sempron details - AnandTech has posted additional details on AMD's value Sempron line: "Now onto the dirty details about the processor: Sempron won't have 64-bit capabilities. Sempron won't support No eXecute instructions. Sempron only has 256K of L2 cache, and Sempron runs at 62W. The processor will be primarily targeted at Socket A platforms, but will also show up on Socket 754 at launch. It appears some OEM channels will have Semprons for Socket 939 by this time next year as well. Obviously the memory controller will be integrated on the Socket 754 and Socket 939 versions of the processor."
OCZ DDR Booster Diagnostic Device - OCZ announced the release of the DDR Booster, a power-filtering and voltage boost diagnostic device. The DDR Booster uses OCZ's patent pending Powerclean technology to supply cleaner power to the memory module, thereby increasing memory stability and optimizing performance. A digital VDIMM readout and voltage adjustment control dial enables the user to adjust the VDIMM (VDD and VDDQ) voltage to a maximum of 3.9 volts.
Computex Taipeh 2004 Roundup - HardwareZoom has posted part 1 and part 2 of their Computex Taipeh 2004 roundup.
ATi PCI-Express Preview - From the gamer's perspective, the only difference in the R423 and R420 VPUs is the interface. The R420 is an AGP part and the R423 is a PCI-Express part. The difference here from what you will see from NVIDIA is that both these parts are “native”, meaning that they do not use a technology to bridge to the other interface. R420 will only work with AGP and R423 will only work with PCI-Express. NVIDIA on the other hand uses the same GPU for both interfaces with a “bridge chip” technology. There is some argument as to whether or not NVIDIA's bridge chip will introduce some performance-eating latencies, but that remains to be seen.
Toshiba Portege M100 Notebook review - The Toshiba Portege M100 leaves a nice impression after the tests. It features a good, thought-out and recognizable design, originally-shaped stereo speakers, excellent ergonomics and functionality, long time of autonomous work. It's evidently no typewriter, it's truly a portable computer.
Pentium-M 755/745 Benchmarked - At its peak clock speed of 2.0 GHz, the Pentium-M 755 processor is putting up performance numbers which would be comparable to a 2.8 or 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor. All this while consuming roughly 1/4th to 1/5th the power levels of Intel's high-end desktop processors, and creating such little heat that these chips can often be cooled with passive methods (although when used with small notebook coolers, fans will be necessary). Unfortunately, Intel's new Pentium-M 755 (2.0 GHz Dothan) is an extremely expensive little processor, which isn't incredibly surprising considering that it's new to market and availability is low.
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ & 3800+ in the test - K-Hardware.de has posted a review (translated by Google) of AMD Athlon 64 3500+ & 3800+ .
Kingmax's high-end DDR500 RAM review - A very nice increase of a 1000+ points in Pcmark2004 and more importantly our memory is now scoring close to an 875 based motherboard using the same type of memory and latency rating.
Gainward CoolFX Powerpack! Ultra/2600 - There's a performance increase to be had from the Ultra/2600 CoolFX, but unless the price differential drops to within £100 of the air-cooled board, the Ultra/2600 CoolFX is hard to recommend. Undoubtedly the fastest unmodified consumer graphics card in the world in quite a few scenarios, but not far enough away from boards like the X800 PRO, XT PE and other 6800-based cards to be attractive, given the price.
Radeon x800 Pro & XT (PE) review - When to buy these products? So you bought a Radeon 9800 Pro or XT ? Don't upgrade just yet. They honestly are fantastic cards that will have more then enough horsepower to last another year at the least. When you are planning an upgrade from the mid-end segment let's say Radeon 9600 Pro/XT and you have some money to spare, by all means run to the shop as the difference in performance will be very noticeable. Please do bare in mind that you need a rather powerful rig to get the most out of these cards, especially the x800 XT.
ASUS RADEON X800Pro to XT - Bottom line is that it looks like there is a possibility to obtain the power of a RADEON X800XT for about US$300 and that is an awful lot of GPU power for the money. Finally, suffice it to say that different manufacturers will use different quality grades of the graphics core and that may be a very good reason to skip the very cheap offerings and, instead stick with one of the more expensive brands ... - like ASUS, which might turn out to be the least expensive way in the long run to save a lot of money.
Maxtor 6Y200M0 200GB review - Maxtor's DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y200M0 200GB hard drive is a reliable and solid performing hard drive. Because of its detailed instructions and Maxtor's utility program, installation is simple to do and error free. Media enthusiasts will love the large 200GB of storage space and because the 6Y200M0 is very quiet, it will not interrupt you while you work. Gamers will love the speedy access times and can rest assured that the 6Y200M0 will not slow you down.
Promise FastTrack S150 SATA TX4 and SX4 review - MadShrimps take a look at two SATA RAID solutions from Promise, the high end SX4 PCI card which supports up to RAID5 and also the more budget minded TX4 which still packs a punch.
The Plextor PX-712A DVD+/- R/RW ATAPI Drive review - The Plextor PX-712A is a top notch product, with a solid feature set and premium performance. If you are looking to upgrade your current drive or have been waiting for the right one to come along, you'd be hard pressed finding a better product than the Plextor PX-712A.
Transcend TV-Box USB 2.0 TV Tuner review - Overall, I am highly impressed with the Transcend TV-Box USB 2.0 TV Tuner. My experience with the Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP Deluxe had set the bar fairly high for TV tuners, and I was not convinced that an external device could compete with its performance. The TV-Box USB 2.0 matched the performance of the Leadtek tuner, and does so while providing extra benefits such as a simpler installation, flexibility for easy sharing between multiple systems, and the ability to be used on laptop computers.
BenQ FP767-12 17in TFT monitor review -With many TFT displays typically featuring a response time of around 20 to 25ms, the FP767-12 is one of the first to utilise a 12ms panel. Now, although this bodes well for those fast moving games and action sequences in movies, in practice the average user is going to be hard pushed to truly tell the difference between this and a 25ms screen.
HP f2304 23-inch High Definition LCD Monitor First Look - Destined to be primarily a PC display, the f2304 can also handle some part-time duty as an HDTV monitor. Its built-in audio system won't knock down any walls but is okay for TV viewing.
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT (SE/LE) Modding Experience - X-bit Labs managed to achieve 27882 points score in 3DMark 2001 SE.
Which RAID for a Personal Fileserver? - Slashdot has picked up the discussion on The Tech Report's recent article about Chipset Serial ATA and RAID performance comparison.
Kernel 2.6.7 Final - Linux Kernel has been updated once again with few patches and made official stable release.
Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7 - Mozilla Thunderbird (download win32 ~ linux) is a redesign of the integrated Mozilla App-Suite mail component. Our goal is to leverage much of the existing functionality of that product to produce a stand-alone mail application that is simple and extensible.
nLite 0.96.2 Beta - nLite will remove certain components from your Windows XP/2003 installation CD so that they are never installed with Windows. Removing unneeded components you gain on your system speed and security. It supports removal of almost any component and few services. You can make a bootable ISO with it and even easy slipstream Service pack with a click of a button.
WASTE Unofficial 1.5 Beta 1 - WASTE is a software product and protocol from Nullsoft that enables secure distributed communication for small (on the order of 10-50 nodes) trusted groups of users. It is designed to enable small companies and small teams within larger companies to easily communicate and collaborate in a secure and efficient fashion, independent of physical network topology.
BSPlayer v1.00 RC1 Build 809 - A new version of BSPlayer is available for download. (thanks ally russell)
CDRWIN 3.9g (updated) - There's a new version of CDRWin available (download) on the Golden Hawk website. Unfortunately there's no changelog available for this new version. Probably it's just another device update.
BTC DRW-1008IM - 0758 firmware - BTC homepage has been updated with new firmware (0758) for the BTC DRW-1008IM.
ATI Radeon DNA drivers 2.6.4.6 - Guru3D has posted a new ATI Radeon DNA drivers 2.6.4.6. These are modified/hacked ATI Catalyst drivers. 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.

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,16 2004 - tech

MSI FX6800 Ultra review - tech
(hx) 08:32 PM CEST - Jun,16 2004 - Post a comment / read (3)

T-break has posted a review of MSI FX6800 Ultra card:

Looks like the new 61.34 drivers have done a good job for the FX6800 Ultra. All the games we tested ran without any problems at faster than any other card in the round up. Although we would like to mention that we're competing nVidia's highest-end card to ATI's lowest end of the x800 series. We have yet to test the XT and PE versions of the x800 card which would provide a better comparison. We would also like to say that the 6800 Ultra is better suited for people playing at 1600x1200 resolution (yes- we know theres not many) as that is where we saw the biggest performance improvements with this card.

ATI Radeon X800 Pro Group Comparison - tech
(hx) 07:49 PM CEST - Jun,16 2004 - Post a comment

ASUS X800 Pro

Power Color X800 Pro

GeCube X800 Pro

TweakTown compared ASUS, Power Color and GeCube cards:

ASUS have the best bundle by far - Counter Strike: Condition Zero, Deus Ex: Invisible War, a cool webcam, CD case and more. These extras make ASUS stand out, not only in their X800 here today but all their products. As good as all these extras are - are you willing to pay extra for it? There is no denying that there are a specific group of people who buy ASUS, the people who don't mind spending a little bit more money to buy a brand they feel comfortable with, companies like MSI and Gigabyte are also in this group. Their product might not be any faster then the others but they feel comfortable with the name, enjoy the bigger bundle and know if something goes wrong warranty should be done with ease - Same story here.

Power Color has done quite a good job as well with their bundle but unfortunately it is only for a limited time. Power Color, unlike ASUS, has decided to use the standard heatsink but this isn't really a big deal. The Power Color card should be cheaper then the ASUS card but we won't really know for sure until some retail pricing of the ASUS X800 Pro hits the shelves.

GeCube on the other hand has gone for a basic package which far from makes the card worse then the others, but it is aimed at a different group of people. If you want to get an X800 Pro as cheap as possible, this is going to be one of your better option. GeCube's bundle isn't that bad - two full version games, DVD software and all your normal cables, it really isn't that much different to the Power Color option. Going from the Australian prices, the GeCube option is currently one of the cheapest X800 Pros on the market. If you want an X800 Pro that is going to perform like one $75 more expensive, then the GeCube is perfect. Though, if you're willing to spend that little bit more to get a bag or a web cam, you know what card is for you.

Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 04:57 AM CEST - Jun,16 2004 - Post a comment / read (7)

Blackout hits major Web sites - A domain name outage Tuesday morning that left many popular Web sites such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft.com and Apple.com temporarily inaccessible was the result of an Internet attack, according to Web infrastructure company Akamai. The attack caused problems for more than two hours--from 5:30 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. PDT. Many of the world's most popular sites suffered from widespread outages, according to Keynote Systems, which compiles statistics related to Web surfing. On a typical day, the top 40 sites measured by Keynote rarely dip below 99 percent availability. On Tuesday, however, Keynote saw availability drop to 81 percent.
Video game makers sue over copying program - Atari, Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal Games filed suit against the software company in New York federal court, asking a judge to block distribution of 321 Studios' Games X Copy software. "Federal law makes it clear that it is illegal to manufacture, distribute, or sell devices or programs that circumvent technological protection measures built into video games," Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), said in a statement. "That's exactly what 321 Studios’ Games X Copy does, and we fully expect the court to grant our request to ban this product."
U.S. declines to create do-not-spam list - The Federal Trade Commission, expected to announce its decision later in the day, said it feared that unscrupulous senders of unwanted e-mails would mine such a registry of e-mail addresses looking for new victims, according to a summary of the FTC's decision obtained by The Associated Press.
Canada's spam king apologizes - A Canadian man accused of being one of the biggest spammers in the world by Yahoo Inc. has agreed to stop sending unwanted e-mails and plans to help educate children about the dangers of the Internet. The Heads have settled the lawsuit and agreed to pay Yahoo at least $100,000 (U.S.). The exact amount of the payment is confidential, but a lawyer for the family said it was "six figures." Although the lawsuit was against all three men, the allegations centred on Eric Head, 25, who ran a bulk e-mail business from the family's home in Kitchener, Ont. Mr. Head has shut down his operation, called Gold Disk Canada, and become a drummer in a rock band.
DVD pirates to pay R112 000 fine and be deported home - Three Pakistani nationals were fined a total of R112 000 in the Kempton Park magistrate's court and will be deported to Pakistan after being convicted of contravening the Counterfeit Goods Act for importing more than 8 000 counterfeit digital video discs (DVDs). The counterfeit DVDs, including new movie titles such as Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Shrek 2 and Spider-man 2, had a street value of several million rand. Fred Potgieter, the managing director of the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft (Safact), confirmed at the weekend that Farham Radiya was fined R60 000 for importing 4 000 DVDs and Akhtar Ali, who arrived at Johannesburg International Airport on the same flight from Dubai last Tuesday, was fined R12 000 for importing 1 630 counterfeit DVDs and 1 000 pornographic DVDs.
Symantec Enterprise Firewall DNSD cache poisoning Vulnerability - Symantec Enterprise Firewall dnsd proxy, versions 8 and later, is vulnerable to cache poisoning attacks when acting as a caching nameserver. Is possible to inject false entries in its cache and make a false DNS server look like authoritative of a zone, when it is not. Once this information is loaded any request to a subdomain of that zone, will be submitted to the false DNS.
Linux bug discovered - Linux Bug has been discovered which allows a whole system to be exploited by a simple C program. On the site Linuxreviews.org the discoverer Oyvind Sather, from Norway, said that using the exploit requires the (ab)user to have shell access or other means of uploading and running the program-like cgi-bin and FTP access. Then it is just a matter of running this code which works on any normal user account. Along with the code needed to use the exploit, Sather also posted several patches to 2.4 and 2.6 kernels that will keep the exploit from crashing systems. The 2.4.xx kernel patch can be found here. A patch for the 2.6 kernel can be found here. (thanks TheInquirer)
Harvard man loses 3,000 weblogs - Eccentric software developer Dave Winer has removed access to 3,000 weblogs hosted by the company he founded Userland at weblogs.com, without giving any prior notice. Bloggers have been told that if they ask nicely, they may have their data back next month. Winer blamed a computer for his decision.
Yahoo giving 100MB - New Yahoo email sign up will get 100MB email storage for free!
Microsoft on Track to Offer Anti-Virus Software - Microsoft is still on track to offer an anti-virus product that will compete against similar software offered by Symantec Corp and Network Associates Inc., the world's largest software maker said late on Monday. Mike Nash, chief of Microsoft's security business unit, told reporters that Microsoft is developing software to protect personal computers running Windows against malicious software, the worms and viruses that in recent years have plagued users with data loss, shutdowns and disruptions in Web traffic.
Java vs C++ "Shootout" Revisited - Lea used G++ (GCC) 3.3.1 20030930 (with glibc 2.3.2-98) for the C++, with the -O2 flag (for both i386 and i686). He compiled the Java code normally with the Sun Java 1.4.2_01 compiler, and ran it with the Sun 1.4.2_01 JVM. He ran the tests on Red Hat Linux 9 / Fedora Test1 with the 2.4.20-20.9 kernel on a T30 laptop. The laptop "has a Pentium 4 mobile chip, 512MB of memory, a sort of slow disk," he notes. The results he got were that Java is significantly faster than optimized C++ in many cases.
Nokia unveils six mobile models at conference in Singapore - The top-of-the-line Nokia 6630, featuring a 1.3-megapixel camera with 6x digital zoom, is a 3G handset that uses Symbian OS and supports both GSM triband and WCDMA2000. The phone offers a download speed up to 384 Kbps and an upload speed of 128 Kbps. Nokia plans to launch this phone worldwide in the fourth quarter.
Lasers turn beam on TV recycling - A laser technique to separate materials in cathode ray tubes (CRT) from TV and PC monitors has been developed to help recycle the useful elements in them. Tonnes of glass and other material is wasted in old TVs and PCs each year, but it has proved difficult to dissect elements cleanly to use in new tubes. The laser system, made in Finland, means no lead and pollutants are mixed up with useful recyclable elements.
Gainward CoolFX Powerpack! Ultra/2600 - There's a performance increase to be had from the Ultra/2600 CoolFX, but unless the price differential drops to within L100 of the air-cooled board, the Ultra/2600 CoolFX is hard to recommend. Undoubtedly the fastest unmodified consumer graphics card in the world in quite a few scenarios, but not far enough away from boards like the X800 PRO, XT PE and other 6800-based cards to be attractive, given the price.
Sony DRU-700A review - Sony’s DRU-700A is a superb first generation dual layer DVD ReWritable drive. It can burn the ultra-high capacity dual layer discs with ease, but is also lightning fast at burning both DVD+R and DVD-R media, and is a very solid performer in the CD-RW/DVD-ROM areas as well. The drive is quick, quiet, comes with a decent software bundle, and black or white faceplates, so aesthetics should not be an issue.
BTC DRW1108IM 8x DVD±RW review - The DRW1108IM is the latest addition to BTC's growing lineup of DVD writers. Announced in March, their new "DVD Dual" drive is capable of 8x DVD±R and 4x DVD±RW writing speeds and has a maximum DVD read speed of 12x. The DRW1108IM isn't just about reading and writing DVD's though. The drive also boasts features like 40x CD reading and writing speeds as well as support for MediaTek's Super Link technology. Best of all, BTC has included a great software bundle from companies like Ahead Software and CyberLink.
Fan Noise Controller roundup - PC fans can make a lot of noise, but fan controllers can help. However, not all controllers live up to their promise. THG tested 15 to see what worked and what didn't.
A-Top-Z-Alien PC Server Gaming Case review - TechMods has posted an A-Top-Z-Alien PC Server Gaming Case review.
Brother HL-5140 review - PCMag has posted a review of the Brother HL-5140 printer.
TomTom Navigator review - Many cars can be outfitted with a navigation system, but other alternatives are available that offer much more than just navigation. We looked at TomTom Navigator, which enables GPS navigation on the PocketPC and other PDAs.
The Antivirus Defense-in-Depth Guide - The Antivirus Defense-in-Depth Guide provides an overview of the types of malware and their risks, planning an effective antivirus strategy for your organization, and responding quickly and effectively to infections or incidents when they occur
[!] Microsoft Updates XP's Service Pack - Microsoft released an updated test version of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (network installation ~ release notes) this week and says it is on track to deliver the security-focused update in the third quarter. The long-awaited Release Candidate 2 (RC2) version of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP was made available to beta testers on Monday and should be posted to Microsoft's Web site soon, a Microsoft spokesperson says. RC2 could be the final test version of the already delayed service pack, which was originally due in the first half of this year. The updated test version does not bring many obvious changes from RC1 released in March.
OSX Emulator PearPC 0.2.0 - This free, open-source emulator allows Intel- and AMD-based PCs to run several operating systems compatible with the PowerPC, including Mandrake Linux, BSD, Darwin and Apple's Mac OS X.
Coding Workshop Polyphonic Wizard 3.0 - The Coding Workshop Polyphonic Wizard (download) is a software program for your PC that allows you to add new ringtones and pictures to your polyphonic phone without the need for cables or sms (text) services. All you need is your phone and this software to add new polyphonic ringtones! All the technical details are taken care of. All you need to do is pick a midi file, use the trim tool to select the part you want, then send it to your phone.
HJTHotkey 2.7 - It will run in the system tray and when a hotkey/shortcut key is pressed, it will copy the word that has been selected and automatically search for that word on Google, sysinfo.org (startup items, Toolbars, BHO's), windowsstartup.com (startup items), answersthatwork.com (processes)or one of the offline BHO, CWS and Toolbar databases depending on the hotkey that is pressed.
News Interceptor 1.13 - Version 1.13 of News Interceptor is now available for download. This new version fixes some communication problems.
Mozilla Firefox 0.9 - The new release (changelog) packs a whole bunch of improvements and new features, including a new default theme, a new browser migration tool, allowing you to easily switch to Firefox from IE or Opera, new theme and extension managers, improvements in speed and minor fixes.
McAfee AVERT Stinger 2.2.8 - A new version of McAfee Stinger (free AV scanner/remover) is available for download.

DU Meter 3.06 Build 174 - DU Meter (download from SavageNews) is an award winning utility from Hagel Technologies which provides an accurate account of the data which is flowing through your computer's network connection at any given moment. This readout is presented in both numerical and graphical format, in real time. DU Meter includes extensive logging facility, flexible events system, and more. It supports Windows 95/98/NT4/2000 and XP! DU Meter works with virtually all types of network connections: phone modems, DSL, cable modem, LAN, satellite, and more
RadLinker 1.010 - RadLinker is new tweaker/linker for ATI Radeon based graphics cards.
Radeon Catalyst 4.7 Beta - The Guru of 3D has posted Radeon Catalyst 4.7 Beta drivers for Win2k/XP. Try them at your own risk. There is no word on performance just yet. The drivers can also be found at StationDrivers. (thanks BloodUK).

Gameguru Mania News - Jun,15 2004 - tech

Detailed ATI Catalyst 4.6 Comparison Test - tech
(hx) 03:24 PM CEST - Jun,15 2004 - Post a comment / read (6)
UT2004Community.com have posted an extensive comparison between the latest ATI Catalyst drivers 4.6 and the previous 4.5 release. Here is a taster:

In our very own custom ini tests, we also had significant increases across all maps (not one map in any of these tests ran slower in 4.6 than 4.5). The average fps increased from 105.56 to 115.72, some 9.6% improvement over 4.5. In fact, the custom ini managed to win 6 of the 8 tests for highest frame rate, beating even the low detail tests!. Its overall score also took the top frame rate crown, desipite being visually pleasing AND improving frame rates. (see graphics comparisons).

In terms of the different gametypes, the biggest improvement came, as expected for DM and CTF, however, Onslaught players will be pleased by the improvement in the relatively lowly fps given by 4.5 drivers. The 4.6's managing to increase the fps from 74 to 86, some 15.7% improvement. DOM also improved healthily, but the heavily taxing Assault mode only increased by around 5%, moving its score from 61.3 to 66.6fps.

Overall then, the 4.6 drivers outperformed the 4.5 set by some margin across the board. The increase in frame rates were 12.91 and even without the face3 blip included, came out at an excellent improvement of 11.47fps (12.65%). The new average score of 102.14 suprasses the previous drivers 90.67fps without seemingly sacrificing any visual quality. I noticed no difference in the quality of each test whatsoever

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