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Gameguru Mania News - Oct,11 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:07 AM CEST - Oct,11 2002 - Post a comment / read (2)

Astronomers say we may not be alone - A British-led team of astronomers claim they have found a planet similar to earth orbiting a star similar to the sun. Researchers say they have found their best evidence yet that planets which could harbour life are circling other stars in distant space. An international team of astronomers has discovered a huge distorted disc of cold dust surrounding one of the brightest stars in the sky, Fomalhaut, indicating that a planet is orbiting it
Borders opens a chapter on wireless - T-Mobile USA plans to bring wireless Internet access to about 400 Borders bookstores and cafes across the country early next year, the companies announced Thursday.
"Fleming" steals registration information - The Fleming Internet worm is a 32-bit Windows application (.exe file) with a size of 53,248 bytes and written in Visual Basic. The worm spreads via the Windows (.NET) Messenger Internet chat program that is built into Windows XP.
China Says Viruses Infect 80 Percent of Computers - Viruses have infected at least 80 percent of China's computers, the official China Daily newspaper said on Thursday, highlighting the vulnerability of one of the world's biggest PC and Internet markets. The findings were the result of a six-week survey conducted by the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, the newspaper said. "Only 16 percent of computer users we sampled this year reported they were free from any virus attack, while last year nearly one in three users said they suffered no computer infections," the newspaper quoted the center's chief engineer, Zhang Jian, as saying. Half of the infected machines had suffered data losses, problems browsing the Web, or other damage, the newspaper said.
Divx vets look to beat movie pirates - Herndon, Va.-based Cinea, the company Schumann co-founded after Divx folded in 1999, is close to unveiling a beta for its Cosmos digital cinema security system that will help movie distributors keep track of how their products are used while protecting them from piracy. The company "will modify the timing and modulation of the light used to create the displayed image such that frame-based capture by recording devices is distorted," according to an abstract for the winning NIST grant application. "Any copies made from these devices will show the disruptive pattern."
An icebox with your white box - Korea's LG Electronics is selling a 26-cubic-foot Multi-Media Refrigerator, with a built-in 15-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen for watching TV, surfing the Internet or looking at digital pictures. But with a price tag of $8,000, the "first refrigerator of the Internet Age" costs well more than an upscale fridge and a top-of-the-line PC combined. In addition to surfing the Web while searching for a midnight snack, people using LG's kitchen convergence device can store recipes and messages from family members. The LG model also purports to be able to diagnose its own problems, letting an owner know if a part is not working properly. That's good, said one appliance store employee, as there are few technicians with the expertise to fix an Internet fridge.
Maxtor works to simplify data backup - The Milpitas, Calif.-based company has developed a new feature designed to let computer users back up files, folders and drives with the touch of a button. The feature, OneTouch, is built in to a new line of external hard drives, the Personal Storage 5000 family. Backup starts when a user presses a button on one of the drives. The units come with built-in USB 2.0/1.1 and FireWire interfaces, along with 3.5-inch hard drives, the same type used in desktop PCs.
To dual or not to dual - This has been one topic that has plagued me since the development of the AMD dual athlon machine. An inexpensive (compared to Xeon) dual setup seems powerful on paper to us consumers, but what is it worth to an everyday person. What I have done in this review is to try and see what is it really worth upgrading to the latest and greatest.
A Way to Revolutionize x86 CPU Performance -This article describes how multimedia and non-multimedia applications can benefit from MMX, SSE, and SSE-2.
FreeBSD 4.7 - FreeBSD 4.7 is the the latest release of the FreeBSD -STABLE development branch. This new version updates GCC and sendmail, adds several new drivers for USB devices and disk controllers. FreeBSD 4.7 also incorporates all of the security and bug fixes from 4.6.2 (released in August 2002), including several ATA-related bugfixes, updates for OpenSSL and OpenSSH, and fixes to address several security advisories.
NetCaptor v7.0.2 beta 3 - NetCaptor is the a powerful web browser enhancements. Unlike other browsers which only view one site at a time or crowd multiple windows together, NetCaptor opens sites on separate browser tabs.
VisualRoute 7.0b - VisualRoute (download) delivers the functionality of key Internet "ping," "whois," and "traceroute" tools, in a high-speed visually integrated package. VisualRoute automatically analyzes Internet connectivity and performance problems, displaying the results in an easy to understand table and on a world map.
DrvImagerXP 2.1 - Freeware DrvImagerXP creates and restores drive images of FAT32 and NTFS partitions for the Windows2000/XP operating systems. It makes backups of your partitions, but does not copy file-by-file, it doesn't know anything about files.
SiS USB 2.0 driver - The USB2.0 driver for Windows XP and Windows 2000 is released by Microsoft and supported by SiS. For Windows 98 and Windows Me systems, the USB2.0 driver is co-worked and supported by the thirdparty, such as OrangeWare.
Radeon 9700 Pro 7.78 (6193) from DELL - DELL's FTP has offers an OEM release of the latest known Radeon 9700 Pro drivers. It is said to fix issues with Battlefield 1942, NHL 2003 and FIFA 2003.

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,10 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:14 AM CEST - Oct,10 2002 - Post a comment / read (1)

Satellite systems hackable - study - Critical commercial satellite systems relied upon by federal agencies, civilians and the Pentagon are potentially vulnerable to a variety of sophisticated hack attacks that could cause service disruptions, or even send a satellite spinning out of control, according to a new report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Robotic Model Monster Truck Pushes Boundaries Of Computer Technology - Computer scientists at OHSU's OGI School of Science and Engineering have stripped down a radio-controlled monster truck and turned it into a robotic vehicle that's helping them perfect the latest generation of computer software. The "Timbot" is equipped with its own computer system, a video camera, and other sensors. On a very basic level, it can "decide" where it needs to go, using its sensors and an onboard computer, and, at the same time, transmit live video images across the Internet so that a remote viewer can see what Timbot is looking at. The Timbot is one part of Project Timber (Time as a basis for embedded real-time systems) in the Pacific Software Research Center.
Russian TV Show to Offer Space Station Visit as Prize - Russia's ORT television channel and the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos signed an agreement in Moscow Tuesday to televise a contest whose winner will fly to the International Space Station. The first flight is planned for the fall of next year.
Fossil sparks fight over human origins - A fossil claimed to be modern humans' most ancient ancestor has sparked a bitter squabble, with a team of anthropologists declaring the find is making a monkey out of the human family tree. According to its discoverers, Toumai, found in the Djurab desert of northern Chad and triumphantly presented to the world last July, was a man-like creature, or hominid, about the size of a chimpanzee, which lived 7 million years ago. Their claim is that Toumai will overturn the conventional view of mankind, because the evolutionary split between apes and humans clearly occurred far earlier than molecular studies suggest.
DVD and Video Game Theft Reduced by Red Tag Security Device - The Tag Company has launched the Red Tag DVD and Game Security System to home entertainment retailers throughout the UK and Europe. Red TagR has been developed to enable retailers to more openly display DVDs and Games, without the threat of unacceptable levels of theft. Red Tag is easily and simply inserted into the disc box, locking the disc to the box and locking the box shut securing an EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) label inside. Illicit tampering of Red Tag-protected DVD's and games leads to substantial damage to the box or the disc, preventing thieves from acquiring pristine product and packaging for resale.
Software piracy 'out of control' - Microsoft has uncovered evidence that internet software piracy is spiralling out of control. The research, published at the annual East Asia Economic Summit, shows that there are more than two million web pages offering either illegal software or links to pirate sites. Microsoft's report claims the number of offending websites has surged 100 per cent over the past year, and 2,000 per cent in the last three.
Hackers send Sendmail a message - The apparent attack on Sendmail didn't leave a back door in the popular open-source e-mail software package, as previously believed, but compromised the download software on the Sendmail consortium's primary server so that every tenth request for source code would receive a modified copy in reply. The problem apparently only affects source code for version 8.12.6 of Sendmail downloaded between Sept. 28 and Oct. 6, according to an advisory posted by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Coordination Center on Tuesday.
Microsoft ''XDocs'' - "XDocs," a code name for the newest member of the Microsoft Office family, streamlines the process of gathering information by enabling teams and organizations to easily create and work with rich, dynamic forms. The information collected can be integrated with a broad range of business processes because XDocs supports any customer-defined XML schema and integrates with XML Web services. As a result, XDocs helps to connect information workers directly to organizational information and gives them the ability to act on it, which leads to greater business impact.
AGP 3.0 Tutorial - AGP 3.0 is the third generation of accelerated graphics for the Intel-compatible computers and will be officially introduced on 11/12/02. In contrast to AGP 2.0 the AGP 3.0 specification isn't just a derivation of an existing standard. AGP 3.0 is incompatible to AGP 2.0 - in theory. However, compatibility can be forced by implementing the "Universal AGP 3.0 Motherboard" standard.
Ultra High Mode in UT 2003 - If you look in the diagram options of Unreal Tournament 2003, then the detail degree "high" will only encounter as top. The "Ultra High detail" mode, like it the developers ensure, would be on current cards a call for Choppy-orgies and are not implemented therefore in the game - not yet. According to Epic´s Mark Rein the mode will come with a patch delivered subsequently as soon as Nvidia's new NV30 appears.
KDE 3.0.4 - The KDE project just released KDE 3.0.4 for Mandrake (8.2, 9.0 and Cooker), Debian, SuSE (7.3, 8.0 and 8.1), Slackware (under the contribution dir) and TurboLinux.
Windows Media Player v9.0 Beta Build 2903 - There's another leaked build of WMP 9.0.
jv16 PowerTools 1.1.0.148 RC1 - jv16 PowerTools is the next generation of RegCleaner. A full set of tools to keep your computer and your LAN up and running. jv16 PowerTools is basicly the tool to control your computer.
NeroMIX v1.3.0.39 - NeroMIX creates or copies anything you throw at it, in the slickest possible way. Just grab any data and burn it
mp3PRO Winamp Plugin v1.2 - Playback mp3PRO files and streams on your Winamp player.
n.player v0.9.2.000 RC3 - Freeware n.player is a versatile media player that plays DVD, audio CDs, MP3, WMA, AVI, DiVX, or any media with the preisntalled DirectShow decoder. It also supports enhanced features for playing video and audio.
Hero Video Convert 1.0 - Exclusive screensaver technology developed by Herosoft helps you transform movies into screensavers. It is easily to convert DVD to standard VCD format and play it in VCD player or to copy the whole disk, paragraphs or files in DVD to hard disk
Windows XP Prefetch Clean And Control 1.0.0 - Free Tool for flushing the Prefetch log and controlling the Prefetch Parameters.
SIS IDE drivers 2.02.02 WHQL - Release 2.01.03 WHQL and 2.02.02 package containing the new IDE driver for Win2K and XP plus a small utility for Win9x enabling DMA and reporting correct HDD model name and DMA/UDMA speed used.
Nvidia BIOS Editor v1.0 RC3 Build 322 - New v1.0 RC3 build 322 release - this program will support all BIOSes from TNT2 and up to Ti 4600. Except TNT and TNT2 with old version of Control Block (less than version 3)
Official SiS AGP 1.11 Chipset Drivers - Seems to be the first driver to support AGP8x transfer rate for SIS chipsets. Works with all SiS chipsets from 630 and higher and might work with all previous SiS AGP chipsets . There is a newer AGP 1.12 floating around but seems to be more beta (SiS648 , SiS645DX , SiS645 , SiS651 , SiS650 , SiS745 , SiS740 , SiS735 , SiS733 , SiS635 , SiS633 , SiS730 , SiS630).
SIS Xabre Drivers 3.06.55 - SIS released new Xabre performance drivers 3.06.55 (download).

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,09 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:01 AM CEST - Oct,09 2002 - Post a comment

Mandrake Linux 9.0 distro for Xbox now available - The Xbox Linux Project has released the first full Linux distribution for the Xbox, a single CD version of Mandrake 9.0, available here. The Project has already produced various howtos and tools for the installation of SuSE and Debian on the Xbox (you'll still need a modded one, of course), but the Mandrake distribution is intended to simplify matters and, presumably, to broaden the user base.
Intel redesigning the Pentium 4 - Code-named Nehalem, the chip will embody a new architecture that will substantially differ from the current Pentium 4, according to sources. Concepts in the current chip line will be found in Nehalem, but it will contain new, and largely unknown, features such as improved power management that will mark it as a distinct evolutionary step, similar to the changeover from the Pentium II to the Pentium III.
DDR RAM Guide Updated - Overclockers New Zealand has updated their DDR RAM Guide.
Intel I845GE Chipset Review - With DDR-333 and 400 being more suited to Intel platforms than AMD, it is a wonder why Intel has taken so long to introduce its own DDR-333 offering, now it seems the time is right, DDR-333 modules are more mature and ready for Intel's quality testing procedures. Intel now introduces to us the I845EP and I845GE chipsets. Let's have a look at them now
ATI RADEON 9000 and RADEON 9000 PRO: 64MB vs. 128MB - In this review we are going to compare the performance of all the four mentioned variants with one another and with the most dangerous rivals: ATI RADEON 8500 LE based cards with 128MB graphics memory and NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti200 based cards.
Unlocking The Athlon XP Processor - In order to unlock the new Athlon XP 1600+ processor I had just received, I chose to use a Windshield De-Fogger Repair kit found at my local Pep-Boys Automotive shop. The kit includes a bottle of conductive paint, a small applicator brush, and a paper-guide, which will not be used for this application. Additional parts included a razor and a bright orange crayon to fill the pits.
How to recover from a bad flash on a LiteOn CD Writer using MTKFlash & Litefirm - There's step by step guide how your once dead CD drive can come alive again, with these two little DOS programs MTKFlash & Litefirm.
NVIDIA Detonator Comparison - All in all, I thought the 27 series were not awe inspiring and possibly have some orientation towards the GF4 architecture, which I hope to confirm in the near future. Taking the league tables as a guide, I would say that the UT 2003 Demo results are a pretty fair reflection of my present system. Definitely check it out, they tested 22 different Detonator driver sets from 27.00 through to the latest build 40.72.
Unreal 2003 - Locks up on some systems - possible fixes - There's a few methods that were written by the authors take a read here.
DirectX 9 Beta 3 - Seems that DirectX 9 Beta 3 has been released to Beta Testers. Do not install the DirectX 9.0 beta on a machine that you need run the shader debugger for DirectX 8.1 code. There is a known issue in Beta 3 that prevents correct operation on DirectX 8.1 shaders. This will be fixed in the near future.
Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 4.20.1006 - The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility installs specific Windows INF files. The INF files inform the operating system how to properly configure the chipset for specific functionality, such as AGP, USB, Core PCI, and ISA PnP services.
TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - This is the second edition of this guide! More performance tweaks, broadband tweaks, other useful tweaks, cool tweaks, plus tools and downloads.
HWiNFO32 v1.21 - HardwareInfo32 is a powerful system information utility designed especially for detection of hardware. It's able to identify a large scale of system components and supports the latest technologies and standards.
Gainward ExperTool v3.02 - Gainward have released a new version of their ExperTool v3.02.
XtraWarp 1.2 Final - XtraWarp is specifically designed to optimize your applications, tuning time in real-time. XtraWarp monitors your running processes and optimize them for your specific needs - Media , Games, Graphics applications...
CuteFTP Pro 3.0 Beta - CuteFTP (what's new / download) Pro integrates state-of-the-art security standards including SSL via FTP and HTTP, SSH2 and advanced S/KEY password encryption to ensure that confidential business data stays that way.
HyperSnap-DX 4.52.02 - HyperSnap-DX 4 is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games.

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,08 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:25 AM CEST - Oct,08 2002 - Post a comment

800-Mile-Wide "Object" Found in Solar System - Astronomers announced today the discovery of the largest object in the solar system since Pluto was named the ninth planet in 1930. The object is half the size of Pluto, composed primarily of rock and ice, and circles the sun once every 288 years.
Chess Champion Kramnik Beats 'Deep Fritz' Computer - World human chess champion Vladimir Kramnik took the lead on Sunday over Deep Fritz, the latest computer star, by winning the second game in a match billed as the "Brains of Bahrain" contest. Kramnik, playing white, exposed flaws in Deep Fritz's technique with a win in 57 moves. Kramnick now leads the eight-game competition 1.5-0.5 after drawing the opening game on Friday. Kramnik, a 27-year-old Russian, will get $1 million if he wins, $800,000 if the match is drawn, and $600,000 if he loses. German-developed Deep Fritz is capable of evaluating 3.5 million moves per second, but once again it was unable break through Kramnik's rock-solid shield.
Palm launches $99 PDA - At the low-end, Palm currently offers the m105 model which is typically discounted to $99, but this is more full featured than the Zire. The m105 has a greyscale screen to the Zire's mono display, 8MB of memory instead of the 2MB; and takes standard AAA batteries rather than the Zire's built-in rechargeable battery. Neither model is expandable.
Sony folds all-in-one PC into U.S. lineup - The desktop will include a 1.6GHz Intel Celeron chip manufactured specifically for the new PC, along with 512MB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive and a combination CD-rewritable/DVD-ROM drive. It also includes IEEE 1394 ports for connecting digital cameras and other multimedia devices, as well as slots for Sony's Memory Stick data cards. The new Vaio will sell for about $1,600, Sony said, close to its price in Japan.
Intel enters DDR-333 arena with new PC chip sets - Intel today announced four new chip sets for desktop PCs - a move that represents the company's entry into the DDR-333 memory arena. The chip sets from Intel include the 850E, 845GE, 845PE and 845GV. All devices support the company's Hyper-Threading (HT) Technology, which enables software programs to run a single microprocessor as though there are two processors in place.
Micron Demonstrates Multiple DDR/DDR-II Platforms - Micron Technology, Inc., today announced it is demonstrating multiple internally-developed DDR platforms, including DDR-II, DDR400, and DDR333 systems, at the VIA Technical Forum (VTF).
ATI speeds up memory chips - The new ATI version, dubbed GDDR3, promises to be substantially faster, capable of handling data at speeds up to 800MHz, compared with the limit of 400MHz for current DDR. The new memory format is intended for use on graphics cards, the circuit boards that connect a graphics processor to a PC and typically contain up to 128MB of dedicated memory.
Dell Inspiron 2600 Notebook Review - Laptops are becoming more and more viable options for users. Even the "value" $1000 laptop's can handle many of the common applications like word processing, the Internet etc. Today, I am going to take a look at one of these "value" laptops, the Dell Inspiron 2600.
Configuring a Dual-Homed Microsoft Exchange 2000 To Act as a Gateway Server - This article presents a recommended configuration for deploying a supported configuration of a dual-homed Microsoft Exchange server to act as a gateway server for the Exchange organization. This server can process mail individually or act as a bridgehead for other servers in an Exchange organization.
Linux From Scratch 4.0 - The most important reason for LFS's existence is teaching people how a Linux system works internally. Building an LFS system teaches you about all that makes Linux tick, how things work together, and depend on each other. And most importantly, how to customize it to your own taste and needs.
Banned Online Books - There's special exhibit of books that have been the objects of censorship or censorship attempts.
Windows XP SP1 Russian - Russian SP1 for Microsoft Windows XP has been released today.
Specrem v6.2 (free) - Specrem is a feature packed remote control package. It is free of charge, open source, and used in homes, schools and companies. Many unique features along with complete multi-controlling have made it popular around the world.
DirectX Eradicator 1.08 for Win9x and Win2k - This utility is designed to safely remove the DirectX runtime core component from Windows 9X, Millennium and Windows 2000 operating systems.
PowerStrip v3.29 beta build 344 - PowerStrip provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards.
WindowBlinds v3.41 - WindowBlinds (download) lets users completely customize the Windows user interface. It can change your title bars, push buttons, scroll bars, borders, radio buttons, Start bar, and virtually every other part of Windows
Nero CD Speed v1.01.3 - With CD Speed you can perform various tests with your CD-recorder varying from a standard read/write test to a full advanced DAE quality test.
DVD Region-Free 1.15 - You don't need to flash any firmware which is dangerous or unavailable. DVD Region-Free also disables region check for popular software-based DVD players such as PowerDVD, WinDVD and CinePlayer. Other features include Region-Free for RCE DVDs, Macrovision-Free, Operation-Free and run self at DVD players startup automatically.
CopyToCD: version 1.0.0.13 - This first public version features: checked compatibility with Windows 95 OSR2 (With MSIE 4.0), 98,0 Me, NT 4.0 SP3, 2000, XP, full compatibility with Unicode file systems such as Win2k, WinXP, many issues fixed about "preserve path name" option, and "Multisession" and faster operation.
BadCopy Pro 3.31 Build 0925 - BadCopy Pro is a fully automatic & professional corrupted floppy disk or CD-ROM files and data recovery tool working under Windows. It can rescue all kinds of files like documents, images, applications and other data from damaged disks.
Asus Tweaking Utility 3.65 - This utility is provided for fine tuning your ASUS display card to make maximum stablility to your system.
ASUS Detonator Drivers v31.40 Final - Asus have released their own version of Nvidia's Detonator Drivers v31.40 Final drivers. Download: ASUS Detonator Drivers v31.40 Final for Win2k/XP (ASUS V9xx0 / V8xx0), ASUS Detonator Drivers v31.40 Final for Win9x/ME (ASUS V9xx0 / V8xx0), ASUS Detonator Drivers v31.40 Beta for windows 2000/XPfor ASUS V7x00 / V6x00 / V34/38), ASUS Detonator Drivers v31.40 Beta for windows 9X/ME (ASUS V7x00 / V6x00 / V34/38).
SUMA PLATINUM GeForce4 Ti 4200 VIVO BIOS - SUMA has released a new BIOS for the SUMA PLATINUM GeForce4 Ti 4200 VIVO video card.
Vivid!XS Drivers v1.06.16.55.- VideoLogis's FTP has some new drivers (Win9x/ME ~ WinXP ~ Win2k) for their Vivid!/XS/Elite video cards.

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,07 2002 - tech

P5 Glove Controller Interview - tech
(hx) 10:44 AM CEST - Oct,07 2002 - Post a comment / read (1)

HomeLAN has posted an interview with Essential Reality's David Devor as he talks about the P5 Glove, their upcoming and unique PC game controller. Here is a snip:

HomeLAN - In addition to games, what other PC applications are available for the controller?
David Devor - The P5 can be used on a pc as a mouse out of the box. we will be releasing our SDK at the same time as the release allowing for full development into other applications taking advantage of the P5's full capabilities (x/y/z/yaw/pitch/roll) Some of the other markets that we are touching upon are cad design, animation, disability, medical, educational and music

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,06 2002 - tech

Sunday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 02:39 PM CEST - Oct,06 2002 - Post a comment / read (2)

Xbox Live Impressions - HomeLAN gets hands-on with the beta version of Xbox Live, Microsoft's upcoming online gaming service for its Xbox console.
Bugbear email steals card data - A devastating new computer virus is causing havoc around the world as it crashes computers, distributes confidential e-mails and steals credit card details. The Bugbear virus is seen by computer safety firms as the most serious bug yet. It began spreading last week and has now reached hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 100 countries. It targets computers used at home that lack updated anti-virus protection. In some instances, the virus activates printers to churn out pages of meaningless text.
Russian hacker gets 3-year sentence - Russian hacker, lured to the United States by the FBI under the ruse of a job interview in a case that prompted a sharp rebuke from Moscow, was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for computer crime. It is also the first time a U.S. agency has been formally accused of hacking into a foreign computer network, as the bureau downloaded evidence off suspects' computer networks in Russia, they added.
Graphic IC makers eye new memory technology - Trying to take the lead in defining next-generation memory technology, graphics chip vendor ATI Technologies Inc. said it has worked with DRAM vendors to define GDDR-3, an alternative to DDR-2 that should hit the market next year with speeds starting at 500-MHz.
Audigy 2 Ships - Creative Labs Harvey Fong (Technical Marketing Specialist, Audio Products) made the following post in the Audigy newsgroup on Friday Audigy 2 started shipping this morning in the Americas region. They should start appearing on store shelves within the next couple of weeks.
Lite-On LTR-52246S Specs Online - Lite-On's new 52/24/52 CD-RW showed up on their firmware page including the drive's specs and features. Here are a few of them: Speed : 52x Write CD-R, 24x Rewrite CD-RW, 52x Read CD-ROM Speed, Interface : ATAPI / E-IDE, support up to Ultra-DMA Mode2 (33.3MB/sec), Access Time : 80ms (typical), Buffer Size : 2MB.
AGP 8X Performance - Tom's Hardware takes a look at the performance of AGP 8X graphics cards based on NVIDIA's GeForce4 MX 440 and GeForce4 Ti 4200.
Radio Shack Indoor/Outdoor Digital Thermometer Mod - PC systems temperature monitoring has been a necessity, if not an obsession for us case modders. That's why we spend a lot on the ability to keep track of our systems' performance and temperature. This helps keep a stable, high-performing PC system running smoothly. With all the fans, we slap in our cases, the pricey CPU heat sinks we get for our processors, or even the water cooling setups we conjure in our backyards, we want them to be able to do their job. So, we monitor the temperatures in our cases.
UT 2003 Server Setup - Check out this thread...
AMD Overclocking Guide - Tweakers at TweakTown have posted an updated AMD Overclocking Guide that cover the process of overclocking the processor, setting the BIOS and even some general troubleshooting tips and hints. Let's revisit just what makes the AMD line of processor so special.
RedHat 8 Professional OS Review - RedHat 8 has made waves with its new interface called Bluecurvet. Bluecurvet is a uniform graphical user interface with convenient and logical access to applications and settings. RedHat 8 Pro also integrates OpenOffice.org an office suite that is compatible with the well known Microsoft Office.
Antivirus Database Feed - Since new viruses sucks, I strongly recommend you to update your antivirus as soon as possible - Kaspersky AVP / Norton Antivirus
HyperSnap-DX 5.00 Beta 5 - HyperSnap-DX 5 is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games. This new beta features: Free Hand Capture" is more polished, the help screens that appear now show correct keys etc, a few small bugs fixed, now "feature ready", we will concentrate from now on on fixing bugs and writing documentation/help files only.
Webcam XP Pro 1.00 RC1 - WebcamXP Pro is a powerful webcam utility that allows you to share your webcam with everyone without having to set a web server on your computer. The web server is integrated to the software and needs only a few configuration parameters such as server port and local directory.
Easy CD-DA Extractor 5.04 XP - Easy CD-DA Extractor, copies audio tracks from music CDs to sound files, supports many different output formats including MP3,Windows Media Audio, and Ogg Vorbis.
BlindWrite Suite 4.1 beta - Blindwrite Suite is a set of tools to reproduce or clone any CD even protected ones. This new beta offers at least 6 bugfixes.
StyleXP 1.01M - Style XP is theming software that helps customize the way your XP system looks. Style XP can manage and rotate themes, visual styles, backgrounds, and logons, which are freely available at ThemeXP.
MagicTweak 1.94 - This unique software makes it easy to tweak hundreds of hidden settings in Windows, so there is no need to dig through the registry looking for that specific setting (from Start Menu,Desktop,IE skin,System Icon to System Security) that just doesn't seem to be there. With the ability to cutomize almost any aspect of Windows, you can become a Windows expert almost instantly.
WinDVD Tweaker Pro 4.05 - WinDVD Tweaker (download) is designed to allow users of the WinDVD playback software to enable some hidden settings and allow for maximum playback pleasure.
MyIE2 0.50.824 - MyIE (download) is a browser based on the Internet Explorer core. It can open more web pages in one MyIE instance but occupies very little in the way of resources.
SpyBot-Search & Destroy 1.0 - SpyBot-S&D (download) searches your hard drive for so-called spy- or adbots; little modules that are responsible for the ads many programs display. But many of these modules also transmit information about your surfing behaviour and more to the net.
Cinemacraft 2.66 beta - Cinemacraft has released a new build of the 2.66 series. It now has a framerate setting and it fixes bugs in WAV parsing, setting reference frame and timecode and it sets Inverse 3:2 pulldown and pan&scan settings in the template.
DivXManager 1.0 - This nice manager can collect movie information from more than 20 different websites and offers an easy way to publish your movie collection on the web.
kX Project Drivers 5.10.0.3525 BETA - The kX Audio Driver is an independent WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver for all EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcards manufactured by Creative Technology Ltd. and/or E-mu Sytems Inc., including the SoundBlaster Live! series, the E-mu Audio Production Studio (APS) card, and the Audigy series of cards.
Yamaha CRW-F1 - 24x32 firmware 1.0d - A new firmware version has been released for the Yamaha CRW-F1 drive.
Hacked Pioneer 103/A03 firmware allows faster writing - The guys at firmware-flash.com forum have released a firmware that allows the Pioneer 103/A03 DVD-R drive to write Ritek DVD-R discs at 2 speed.
Jester2K Detonator 30.xx To 40.xx Control Panel Fix - Tool for removing the elements of the Detonator 30.xx drivers that conflict with the 40.xx drivers. Usage Tip: Uninstall the current Detonator Drivers first, then reboot, cancel any attempt by Windows to reinstall the drivers and then run this program. Then install the new Detonators.
Kyro Drivers 1.6 (Build 1.06.16.0051) - There are new Kyro drivers available for download -KYRO/KYRO II/SE Win9x/ME Driver 1.06.16.0051 / KYRO/KYRO II/SE Win2k Driver 1.06.16.0051 / KYRO/KYRO II/SE WinXP WHQL Driver 1.06.16.0051
Live 5.1/Audigy drivers from Compaq - Compaq has again released new Windows XP/2000 drivers for the Live 5.1/Audigy. It's still the same driver core (5.12.2.252) as the previous release in late August but I guess some other updates have been done.
Hardware Reviews

Hardware Reviews - tech
(hx) 02:35 PM CEST - Oct,06 2002 - Post a comment

CPU - AMD’s Athlon MP 2200+ / AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Motherboard - AOpen AX4B-533 Tube / ASUS A7V8X KT400 / ASUS P4S8X / EPoX 8K5A2+ / EPoX 8K5A3+ / Gigabyte 8SG667 SIS 648 / Shuttle AS45GTR SiS 648 / Gigabyte 7VAXP KT400
RAM - Corsair XMS3200 DDR400 / TwinMOS 256MB DDR400 RAM / Kingmax PC2700 256MB CAS 2.5 RAM
Storage - 3ware Escalade 7850 Controller / Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD-RW

Video - Asus AGP-V8460 Ultra GeForce4 Ti4600 / Sparkle Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4600 / ABIT Siluro GeForce4 Ti4600 / Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 PRO / ATI Radeon 9700 Pro / ATI Radeon 9700 Pro / Pro Card Roundup / Integrated Video Shootout / Albatron MX480 Featuring AGP 8X / AGP 8 + NV18 & NV28

Monitor - Sharp LL-T1820 18.1" LCD Monitor

Cooling - Water Block Round-up / Zalman CNPS6000-Cu Heatsink-Fan / Swiftech MXC462-U CPU Cooler / Coolermaster HSC-V62 Socket A Thermal Sensing Cooler / Titan TTC-CW7TB Cooler / Zalman 6000 AlCu Cooler / Shuttle SS50 Cooling Upgrade Kit / Senfu AC-2668 Cooler / Pentium 4 Cooler roundup / AeroFlow VA4-C7040 Cooler / Xoxide 80mm Fan Shootout
Case - Case-Mod with 160mm Fan / Thermaltake Xaser II 5000 Case / Koolcases Sante Fe Case (videoreview) / Ahanix EX110 Case / Yeong Yang YY-B0221 Cube Case / Avance B030 Black Thunder Case

Sound - Altec Lansing 321 / XA3021 2.1 Speaker / Samsung Yepp-30SH MP3 Player

Peripheral - Act-Labs USB Light Gun / Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse Blue / Logitech MX Mouse roundup / Everglide Optical Mousepads

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,05 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:53 AM CEST - Oct,05 2002 - Post a comment

Network Worms Continue To Attack Linux - Following on the heals of the "Slapper" worm, which only two weeks ago was detected attacking Linux computers, comes the next outbreak, this time the work of the Linux-worm "Mighty". Many features of "Mighty" are taken from its predecessor, the network worm "Slapper". Like "Slapper", "Mighty" infects computers running Linux and the Apache Web-server and also uses the OpenSSL Security System exploit to gain access. Moreover, "Mighty" partly borrows the source code spreading method from "Slapper": to ensure compatibility with all versions of OpenSSL, one of the worm's components (sslx.c, which is responsible for penetration via the security system vulnerability) recompiles itself anew on each computer.
Former DrinkOrDie Member Chris Tresco Answers - Okay, former DrinkOrDie member and convicted warez dude Chris Tresco got his answers to your questions back to SlashDot.org, so here they are.
AOL 8.0 drops satellite subscribers - CNET News.com has learned that AOL will no longer support one-way satellite connections for broadband subscribers who use the forthcoming version of its online service.
Verizon resists music industry's request to identify alleged music pirates - Music companies tried to persuade a judge Friday to let them obtain names of Internet file-swappers without going to court first, a move that could dictate how copyright holders deal with Internet piracy in the future.
Navel gazing wins Doctor Karl an Ig Nobel - An Australian study on bellybutton lint, a dog-to-person translation device and an inquiry into what arouses ostriches have been recognised with Ig Nobel prizes for dubious contributions to science.
US general fears asteroid explosion could trigger nuclear war - At least 30 times a year, asteroids smash into the Earth's atmosphere and explode with the violence of an atomic bomb. Now some officials are worried the natural explosions could trigger a nuclear war.
AMD Barton XP 2800+ - The very limited production run of the "thoroughbred" XP2800+ is sold out. AMD will offer production availability of the "Barton" XP2800+ featuring 512K of L2 cache in Q1 of 2003. I will advise once we have samples and availability of the Barton XP2800+.
Samsung Yepp-30SH MP3 Player Review - Samsung is no stranger to MP3 players - they have been dabbling in the Digital Audio arts for some time now with their Yepp family of players. What differentiates the Samsung Yepp from other MP3 players? Yepp players are traditionally more compact and may contain extra features such as 3-line backlit LCD displays, Voice recording, FM radio tuners, memory card expansions slots, and intuitive interfaces, Perhaps the most surprising feature is that Yepp players are often times the least expensive.
Epox 8K5A2+ Socket A - While the KT400 has been released already, reports are that it isn't the most mature chipset yet, and motherboards with that chipset are neither faster nor more overclock friendly then KT333 based boards. This is why many companies still have new KT333 boards very much worth taking a look at, like Epox's 8K5A2+.
Integrated 3D Graphics Motherboard Shootout - Techware Labs take a look at the current integrated 3D video chipsets on the market and how they perform in the latest 3D software.
ATI Remote Wonder Review - Ah yes!, I called it! It was only time until the proverbial "god box" came the the home and work computing environment. Since the release of the ALL-in-Wonder line of cards from ATI, the introduction of the remote wonder being bundled with already a great package has spurred ATI to release the Remote Wonder as a product all on its own. Has this gamble by ATI's marketing department paid off feature wise, well stay tuned and decide for yourself.....
ABIT Siluro GeForce4 Ti4600 Review - The GPU cooler is also made from aluminium, and is designed to not only look great, but also serve its purpose well. Removing the ramsinks reveals they are adhered to the memory chips with very sticky thermal tape, although thankfully there is a good amount of thermal paste under the GPU cooler. Just like the Ti4400, the Ti4600's PCB has a black/brown finish, contrasting well with the silver heatsinks.
Apache fixes scripting flaw - According to a posting to BugTraq this week, the popular Web server platform is vulnerable due to "SSI error pages of the Web server not being properly sanitised of malicious HTML code". Admins are advised to update their Web server software to either Apache versions 1.3.27 or 2.0.43, which are both resilient to the attack. These versions incorporate a fix, as explained in more depth on Apache's Web site, by security researcher Matthew Murphy, who reported the flaw.
Apache 2.0.43 - The Apache Project (changelog ~ download) is a collaborative software development effort aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server.
MSN Messenger Update for Win9x/Me/2K/NT4 - MSN Messenger for the Windows operating system will not run on Windows XP. If you are using Windows XP, you already have the software you need! Just select "Windows Messenger" from the Start Menu.
Windows XP SP1 Corporate Deployment Tools - The Windows XP Corporate Deployment Tools (deploy.cab) assists system administrators in installing Windows XP on multiple computers. This file contains updates to Setup Manager, the Sysprep utility, and related documentation.
Windows Compact Disk Management Script (WINCDMAN) - The script will handle all the necessary file operations for slipstreaming a Windows 2000 single / multi-boot CD and integrating any hot-fixes in it. The script is written in batch code using a collection of utilities and Windows Command Extensions (won't work under Win 9X).
Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 4.04.1007 - This utility installs INF files that inform the operating system how to properly configure the chipset for specific functionality such as USB and AGP. Download: Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 4.04.1007 10/7/2002 for windows 2000, 98 SE, Me, XP English / Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 4.04.1007 10/7/2002 for windows 2000, 98 SE, Me, XP Multi language.
RAM Idle Professional v3.0 - RAM Idle Pro is a smart memory management program that will keep your computer running more efficiently, faster, and longer. RAM Idle works by freeing up physical RAM wasted by Windows and other applications. RAM Idle also includes a Cache and startup manager program that will give you more power to optimize your Windows.
Sonique v2.0 Alpha Build 10.04.2002 - Pre-release version of Sonique2 is now available for public consumption. It is being called an Alpha release to reflect the fact that Sonique2 still has a ways to go before it will be ready for release. Alpha builds are buggy, unsupported and unfinished. Install them at your own risk.
Asus PCProbe 2.18.02 - Asus PCProbe is a convenient utility to monitor the computer's vital components: fan rotations, voltages and temperatures.
Disk Bench 2.1.1.0 - Disk Bench tests your hard drive speed in a real life situation not in a benchmarking environment. All it does is copies a file from A to B, times the time it took, and deletes the file from B again.
ASUS Detonator Drivers v31.00A WHQL (WinALL) - ASUS have released their own version of Nvidia's Detonator Drivers v31.00A for Windows 9X/ME ~ 2000/XP.

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,04 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:37 AM CEST - Oct,04 2002 - Post a comment

Microsoft Issues Windows Security Warning - Microsoft on Wednesday warned of security flaws in Windows that could allow intruders to take control of PCs. To take advantage of the flaw in HTML Help, the intruder would execute code that's either in a Web page or was sent to the user as HTML mail. The flaw affects systems running Windows XP, 2000, NT 4.0 (and NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition), ME, 98, (and Windows 98 Second Edition). The second flaw affects the Windows implementations of Zip compression. Intruders need to send users a Zip file written to take advantage of the security hole, and then convince the users to open the file. The Zip bug affects Windows 98 with PLUS! Pack, ME, and XP download paches
New Details Covering The Opasoft Worm - Distinguishing "Opasoft" is the way it spreads over the Internet. The worm scans the global network and determines which computers are running Windows 95/98/ME and on which to attempt to gain access to drive C. Next, "Opasoft" goes through access passwords to these resources and if it is successful in gaining access it promptly infects victim machines with copies of itself. To search infected computers "Opasoft" uses communications ports (137 and 139) accepted in Windows networks for exchanging data. It is precisely this fact that these ports are targeted for hacker attack. This together with the circumstance that so many users and system administrators do not follow secure policies for computer resources, predetermined the rapid spread of the Opasoft worm.
Microsoft to upgrade Exchange, Outlook -The company will announce plans to add new features to the Web-based version of the Outlook e-mail program that will make it as comprehensive as the regular PC version.
US trials biometric driving licences - The state of Connecticut is introducing over-the-counter biometric driving licences. Implemented by integrator Viisage, the system uses a PC-based 'image-capture workstation' which records the driver's facial image. The systems will be installed at Department of Motor Vehicle offices across the state, and will cope with 800,000 applications a year. Printers will laminate the licences in a one-step process that produces dual-sided multi-colour cards in as little as 30 seconds. The cards will include security features such as holograms to combat identity fraud and ensure that the correct people are renewing the licences.
What's a W? Sony shows the U.S. - The Japanese company plans to unveil its popular Vaio W all-in-one desktop--previously available only in Japan--to consumers in the United States, according to sources. The machine joins Sony's new lineup of multimedia-oriented Vaio desktops. The Vaio W is a small PC that incorporates a keyboard that flips up to create more desk space, covering half of the W's 15-inch, horizontally mounted screen. The portion of the screen that remains visible can display either a clock or a music menu. Similar to Gateway's new Profile 4, the Vaio W's internal components, such as its processor, are mounted behind the screen.
UD researchers develop revolutionary computer interface technology - University of Delaware researchers have developed a revolutionary computer interface technology that promises to put the bite on the traditional mouse and mechanical keyboard. Elias and Wayne Westerman, UD visiting assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, have been working on the new interface for about five years and are now marketing their iGesture product through a company called FingerWorks. The FingerWorks name fits because the technology uses a touch pad and a range of finger motions to communicate commands and keys to the computer. To open a file, you rotate your hand as if opening a jar; to zoom or de-zoom, you expand or contract your hand.
Microsoft zaps Xbox-hacking chipmaker - The company appears to have shut down one of the largest distributors of "mod chips"--add-ons that allow Xbox and other video game consoles to play pirated games.
Black hole outburst looks 'faster than light' - Resembling cannon shots from a ship at night, one toward shore and the other away, two X-ray jets streaming from a black hole have been observed during their entire trajectories for the first time.
Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 3 - The Creative Jukebox 3 is clearly being targeted at the audiophile market as well as the casual jogger who likes listening to tracks while they exercise. With a Signal to Noise Ratio of >98dB on the line-out (>96dB on headphones), a frequency response of 20Hz - 20kHz, and a Total Harmonic Distortion of...
Socket A Upgrade Potential: Tips, Tricks, and Overclocking - Ever since AMD launched the Socket A platform in the spring of 2000, its been touted as a platform choice that gives customers an open upgrade path months or even years down the road. Given the recent release of AMD's 2800+ and its increased FSB, we've decided to take a look at the major Socket A chipsets that've been released since the launch of the original Thunderbird, and what CPU's they officially (and unofficially) may support.
Developer of DEAMON Tools: forget about 1:1 backups - The developer of DEAMON Tools has posted information on CDFreaks forum regarding the latest SecuROM versions. Here is a bit: Latest version of Securom CANNOT be copied on usual media just like other protections of this style (CDCOPS etc.). PERIOD. Forget about 1:1 copy in a traditional way! The glass master used to produce original SecuROM disc has unsteady physical parameters along the spiral track containing data sectors. Securom loader verifies these parameters and checks that they are indeed changing along the track which is not the case on your '1:1' copy. You cannot copy it on usual media because usual CD-R/RW has consistant chacteristics all over the disc (track pitch etc) and its parameters are different than parameters of the master.
New Microsoft Patches - Cumulative Patch for SQL Server / Unchecked Buffer in Windows Help Facility / Unchecked Buffer in File Decompression
DrvImagerXP 2.0 - DrvImagerXP creates and restores drive images of FAT32 and NTFS partitions for the Windows2000/XP operating systems.
Cool Desk v.3.86 - Cool Desk is a virtual desktop manager. Ever wish to have several screens on your computer? Cool Desk creates up to 9 virtual desktops and allows you to have different windows in each of them. The desktop manager window has a skinnable interface and allows you to switch from one desktop to another with a single mouse click. You can easily minimize, maximize, close, move from one desktop to another and even drop windows to the system tray area (near the clock) using the dockable Windows manager
2xExplorer v1.4.1.12 - Freeware 2xExplorer is an easy to use yet very potent and extremely efficient alternative to the standard windows Explorer. It combines the user-friendliness of the latter with the increased efficiency and advanced features of good-old dual-pane file managers like Norton Commander. It is a package that will appeal to the power user, yet its similarity with Explorer will ensure that less experienced users will not be driven away either.
DVD Region-Free 1.11 - You don't need to flash any firmware which is dangerous or unavailable. DVD Region-Free also disables region check for popular software-based DVD players such as PowerDVD, WinDVD and CinePlayer. Other features include Region-Free for RCE DVDs, Macrovision-Free, Operation-Free and run self at DVD players startup automatically.
Fraps 1.9 - Fraps is a tool that lets you monitor current framerates in a corner of the screen for programs using DirectX or OpenGL technology. It also allows you to easily take screenshots of games, make movies of gameplay, and manually determine the average framerate between two points.
Lite-On CD-RW Firmware - LiteOn have released some new CD-RW Firmware updates for the following drives: Lite-On LTR-48246S ( 48X/24X/48X ), Lite-On LTR-48126S ( 48X/12X/48X ), Lite-On LTR-48125W ( 48X/12X/48X ).
Xabre Performance drivers v3.06.55 - Sillicon Integrated Systems has released a new Performance drivers version 3.06.55 (WinXP/2k/ME/98) for the Xabre 80/200/400 video chips/cards.
Official NVIDIA Detonator Drivers 40.72 (BETA) - NVIDIA have updated their video card drivers to version 40.72 (Win9x/ME ~ WinXP/2000).
HyperSnap-DX 5.00 Beta 4 - HyperSnap-DX 5 is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games. This new version adds a new "Free Hand" capture method, available on "Capture" menu.

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,03 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 05:07 AM CEST - Oct,03 2002 - Post a comment

Keys for deciphering code sent record distance - A team of scientists said on Wednesday they had made a major leap towards developing secure global communications. Encryption breakthrough could secure 'leaky' satellite transmissions
No credit to humans for smaller ozone hole - This year's Antarctic ozone hole is the smallest since 1988, but this has little to do with earthly activities and much to do with weird weather in the stratosphere, say US government scientists.
AMD HyperTransport: The New Era? - AMD HyperTransport technology may be the new era of PC performance and capability. HyperTransport technology isn't a radical new gadget but a new I/O bus that increases the speed in device communication point to point. This may be old news to some but the HyperTransport motherboard is coming...sooner than you think.
VIA KT333 and KT400 Chipsets Fully Support the Athlon XP processors with 333MHz FSB - VIA Technologies announced that the VIA Apollo KT400 and VIA Apollo KT333 chipsets support the new 333MHz FSB AMD Athlon XP processors launched today. The 333MHz Front Side Bus at 2.7GB/s will match the data transfer capacity of the VIA Apollo KT400 and KT333 memory bus using PC2700 memory.
VIA KT400 core-logic product supports Socket A Athlon XP and Duron processors with 200, 266 and 333MHz EV6 system bus, PC2100 and PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory, AGP 8x, 8x V-Link connection between the North and the South Bridges transferring data at 533MB/s. VIA VT8235 South Bridge features integrated support for six USB 2.0 ports, 2 channels of ATA-66/100/133. Additional features include integrated VIA MAC for 10/100Mbps Ethernet, integrated PCI support, 6 Channel Surround Sound AC'97 audio and MC'97 modem.
ASUS Does Hyper Threading - ASUS seems to inadvertently be debuting Hyper Threading Technology. What do I mean? Well, looking at the latest BIOS updates for Intel based motherboards on the ASUS website you can see that the P4T533 now has support for Hyper Threading through the latest BIOS update v.1005. That would mean that if you own an ASUS P4T5333, and possibly other boards with Intel chipsets, you don't have to wait fot the official launch of Hyper Thread enabled boards because you already own one. (thanks HardOCP).
Sanyo Develops HD-Burn - 1.4GB On Normal CD-R - SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. has developed the high density recording technology HD (High Density) -BURN which doubles the recording capacity and data density (1.4GB) of a conventional CD-R media (700MB). This technology enables inexpensive large volume data recording. A recorded disc by "HD-BURN" technology is compatible with a DVD player, and allows, the player to read the disc with some modification of firmware. SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. will disclose the technology used to read the media recorded with "HD-BURN" technology by a DVD player and will propose to other DVD drive makers that they adopt this technology as an industry standard.
Iomega Zip 750MB USB 2.0 Review - Positioned as a reliable backup alternative to CD-RW drives, the Zip 750MB USB 2.0 External now reaches a capacity sweet spot, putting Zip back to the race with optical drive in the removable media market. At $15 apiece, the new 750MB Zip disks sell for the same price as the Zip 250MB before the launch. Technically, the media cost has went down quite substantially, but it's still sky high compared to an average $2 CD-RW disc. It's unfortunate that the media cost hasn't gone down in all these years. While Zip 750MB couldn't compete with its cost, the media hard plastic is less vulnerable to scratches than optical disc.
Athlon XP 2800+ CPU Review - AMD once again reminded of itself as the developer of high-performance processors. Today the company launched two new CPUs: Athlon XP 2700+ and Athlon XP 2800+. We would like to offer you our review of the fastest AMD solution.
ECS AG400 - Xabre 400 Review - The Xabre 400 is looking at competing with the same market segment that the GeForce 4 MX440 occupies. Currently you can pick up an MX440 for about $60 give or take a few bucks. I'm not sure what it would cost to pick up the ECS Xabre 400 card because I haven't found it in stock anywhere yet. I have found a few other Xabre 400 cards that weigh in around $80 at the cheapest. Knowing this, does the Xabre 400 have what it takes to ourperform the MX440? We'll find that out, but first let's take a look at the specifications and the card itself.
Windows XP Tweaking Guide For Nvidia/AMD Systems - For the sake of helping the most people I have based it upon an Nvidia Video card and an AMD processor, the most widely used combination in homebrewed gaming rigs today. If your system does not have one or either of these then please make sure to read any system requirements before installing any of the tweaking programs listed below. If you try to install a tweaking program that is incompatible with your system you may inadvertently cause damage to your Operating System and have to reinstall it.
Console Picture Guide - Some of you may be surprised to read that the PlayStation 2 and TV are not configured for an optimal picture and audio quality straight out of the box. Neither is an Xbox or Gamecube. Some of you may be familiar with upgraded cables, but be unsure about the advantages on a "regular TV" as opposed to an exotic $15,000 plasma. Others may wonder if ultra-high-end cables such as those from Monster Cable are actually better than other cables. In this feature, we'll look at these questions and try to explain some of the concepts behind video quality without being too technical. We'll focus mostly on the PlayStation 2, as it is the most popular console, but by the time you finish reading this, you'll know how to maximize your console's picture and sound performance, whether you have an AV system that's 10 years old or 10 days old. This is a comprehensive article, so make sure you're comfy before you start reading.
Matrix/Xodus programmable mods for Xbox - Check some Matrix/Xodus programmable mods for Xbox.
YahooPOPs! 0.3.7 - YahooPOPs! (download) is an open-source initiative to provide free POP3 access to your Yahoo! Mail account. YahooPOPs! is available on the Windows and Unix platforms.
UltraEdit-32 v9.20 - UltraEdit-32 is a Windows text editor with support for unlimited file sizes, a spell checker, drag and drop, full HEX editing capabilities, user configurable syntax highlighting (pre-configured for HTML, Java, C/C++, VB, Perl), column editing, sorting, and a configurable toolbar.
Nullsoft Vorbis Decoder 1.2.6 - download from here.
Asus Tweaking Utility 3.64b - This utility is provided for fine tuning your ASUS display card to make maximum stablility to your system.
Fresh UI v4.30 - Fresh UI is a fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings in Windows XP/2000/ NT/98/95/Me, this software covers the customizing and optimizing techniques that you'll be glad to know.
phpMyAdmin 2.3.1 - 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.
MySQL 4.0.4 Beta - MySQL 4.0.4-beta (changelog) has been released today.
Nero 5.5.9.14 - Nero (mirror1 / mirror2) is a flexible, reliable, and easy-to-use application designed to write both data and CD audio to CD-R and CD-RW discs. It supports ISO 9660 images as well as ISO mode 1 and XA mode 2, and allows for on-the-fly disc recording in addition to overburning (if supported by hardware). Nero also supports multisession and mixed-mode recording, HFS, ISO/HFS hybrid, UDF, PSX, OFAS (optimal file access speed), track-at-once (TAO) and disc-at-once (DAO) writing, digital audio extraction, and more.
Nero ASPI Driver v2.0.1.50 - This new version solves the problem in not finding any CD-drive after the installation of Virtual CD.

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,02 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:19 AM CEST - Oct,02 2002 - Post a comment

Gamecube Plays DivX - With today’s release of the DivX for Gamecube Software Development Kit (SDK), Nintendo Gamecube developers can now easily create highly compressed DVD-quality DivX video cinematics and seamlessly integrate high performance playback into Gamecube games. DivX for Gamecube was developed by Factor 5, the software development house and Nintendo technology partner behind the multimillion selling "Star Wars: Rogue Squadron" game franchise and the MusyX sound tools for multiple game platforms, and DivXNetworks, Inc., the company that created the revolutionary patent-pending DivX video compression technology.
"Opasoft" Causes The Second Virus Epidemic This Week - Kaspersky Labs announces the emergence of already the second virus epidemic this week. This time, the multi-component program "Opasoft" combines the characteristics of a network worm and a Trojan program designed to gain unauthorized remote control of infected computers. At this time the Kaspersky Labs round-the-clock technical support service has received confirmed reports of "Opasoft" infections in Russia, France, Germany, the UK, Korea among other countries with the amount of events on the increase.
Bugbear virus targets Internet Explorer - Known as W32.Bugbear or I-Worm.Tanatos, the mass-mailing computer virus started infecting computers via e-mail on Sunday. On Tuesday, it accounted for nearly 11,000 infected e-mail messages intercepted by e-mail service provider MessageLabs' gateway servers. That placed it second to Klez.h, which accounted for about 14,000 e-mail messages.
Samsung, Mitsubishi to jointly develop camera CMOS image sensors - Samsung Electronics and Mitsubishi Electric have agreed to jointly develop camera chips for use in mobile phones, personal organizers and mobile PCs, reported the Electronics Times of South Korea.
Nvidia Officially Announces nForce 2 Production - NVIDIA Corporation today announced that its second-generation Nvidia nForce platform processors--nForce2--are now in production.
On AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 333 FSB, nForce2 and VIA - Nvidia has confirmed that the nForce 2 graphics chipset is in production, timing the announcement to coincide with today's big CPU launch, the AMD Athlon XP 2800+ with the 333 frontside bus (FSB). A data throughput improvement of "up to 25 per cent" is promised by AMD for its new CPU. nForce 2-powered mobos should be heading their way in to retail by the end of this month. VIA today also issued a press release pointing out that it already has two chipsets, the VIA Apollo KT400 and VIA Apollo KT333, which support AMD's 333 FSB. So it can provide an upgrade path for gamers who want to install a new 333FSB Athlon - so long as they have the right board of course.
Athlon XP 2800+ and nForce 2 Reviews -Both Hardware-testdk.com and AcesHardware have got their hands on AMD's new XP2800+ FSB of 166/333MHz the XP2800 processor runs at 2.25GHz.
Harddisk Roundup, Heat, Noise and Performance - Wondering what harddisks offer the best combination of performance and low noise? In the following pages we'll evaluate all recent 5400 and 7200-rpm harddisks and focus on noise, heat production and overall performance.
nForce2 Roundup - NVNews / TechReport / HardOCP / HotHardware / Bjorn3D / DigitLife / Ace's Hardware / AnandTech / GamePC / Hexus / Sudhian.
GeForce4 Roundup - OC Addiction have published a GeForce4 Ti4200 Roundup. Here, they test cards from a variety of vendors including MSI, Gainward, Leadtek, Abit, and OCSystems.
Get Full RAID support - Do you own a Asus, Abit, MSI, Gigabyte or some other branded motherboard with onboard RAID controller? Well the thing is that these controllers, typically from Promise are "Lite" versions and only give a minimum of 64kb in block sizes and only one array with max 2 disks. But, if you want the real thing and want to run a RAID system with 4 disks in ONE array and block sizes down to 1kb, you're in luck. Here you can grab a modded bios that replaces the RAID controller bios with a fully functional Promise TX2000 bios.
PHP Master Editor 2.1 - PHP Editor is a powerful tool for writing, editing, and debugging PHP scripts and HTML pages. It has an internal browser, built-in FTP client and browser, Code Explorer, File Explorer, customizable Code Templates, and other PHP-specific features for productive development.
DiVFix 1.091 - This freeware program was created to be able to watch partially downloaded DivX (AVI) movies. It can rebuild or strip the index part of the movie, which is at the end of the file.
CuteFTP 5 XP build 6.10.2 - The World's Favorite FTP Client! Used by millions worldwide, CuteFTP is the easiest way to transfer files between your PC and remote computers.
TVTool 6.8 - The tool helps with the TV ouput of Nvidia graphic cards. The main problem is the black borders around the picture on the TV screen. They are very annoying for most applications like e.G. DVD-playback. This tool helps getting rid of those bars...
Mizo - XP Themer 1.1 - Adds Windows XP's visual enhancements to your applications. It makes your applications follow the current Windows Theme, even if they were not designed to do so.
WindowFX 2.0 - WindowFX is a revolutionary new program that allows you to add an unprecedented number of special effects to Windows. A short listing of its features include.
Nero Burning Rom 5.5.9.14 - Official mirror - Nero Burning ROM (changelog) is the best friend your recorder could ever have. Fast, ultra-stable, powerful, and user-friendly, Nero is the complete answer to your recording needs. New Features Include: DVD-R/-RW and +R/+RW support, Mp3PRO support, Nero Wave Editor, Advanced Nero Cover Designer, Nero Toolkit, Nero MPEG 1 Video Encoder, VCD/SVCD Menu Creator, Video CD (VCD) Picture Slideshows, Embedded NERO API, and more...

Gameguru Mania News - Oct,01 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:05 AM CEST - Oct,01 2002 - Post a comment

Tanatos - A Worm with a "Trojan" In Its Pocket - Kaspersky Labs today announced the detection of a new Internet worm called Tanatos, which is currently spreading via email and is busy hijacking confidential information from infected computers. Presently Kaspersky Labs has already received confirmation Tanatos infections in the UK. Tanatos is a Windows attachment about 50 KB in size (it is packed by the UPX compression utility) and written in Microsoft Visual C++. The worm is spreading via email attachment files with differing headings, body texts and file attachment names. After the worm arrives in the inbox of potential victims, Tanatos waits for its email message to be read (for example, in the preview window), once this occurs, by exploiting the "IFRAME" vulnerability in the Windows Explorer's security system, it secretly infects the machine. While infecting a victim computer the worm registers itself in the system registry auto-run key so that its malicious code will activate each time Windows is booted. Tanatos also sets a keyboard "bug" that records all keyboard actions to a specified file.
Do climate shifts spark ice meteors? - There's another article about climate, this time about ice meteors. A Spanish scientist says global warming may be to blame for giant blocks of ice which fall from clear skies and rip gaping holes in cars and houses. Jesus Martinez-Frias has spent the last two and a half years investigating so-called megacryometeors - ice meteors.
Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Smaller - The ozone hole over Antarctica is markedly smaller this year than in the last few years and has split in two, government scientists reported Monday
BMW M3 SMG - In Europe an acceleration-assist feature is programmed in to automate a 4000-rpm clutch-drop, clutch-slip launch, but an internal counter permits only one such launch per hour, 30 for the life of the clutch. We won't get that, so for best results engage S6, floor the throttle to call for an aggressive clutch drop, then back off to 75 percent to allow the tires to hook up at about 3000 rpm. Then keep your foot down, upshifting at 8000 rpm. This technique can't beat an expert's foot on a clutch, however. Our most recent three-pedal M3 outran the SMG by 0.3 second, with the entire advantage gained in first gear. The SMG hit 60 mph in 4.8 seconds and ran the quarter in 13.4, 0.3 second slower than our long-term M3 at both points, and each crossed the quarter-mile at 107 mph, suggesting they were equally powerful. Running in the A5 mode slowed the SMG by another 0.2 second.
Samsung SGH-T100 Review - The SGH-T100 is a dual band (900/1800) GSM clam-shell phone with a 4,096 color screen (128x160 pixels) on the inside and a second smaller non-color screen on the outside, which shows the time, SMS messages received and who is calling, among other things. The phone weighs 94g with a slim battery and measures 88 x 55 x 23 mm when closed. It comes with a second thicker standard battery for longer standby-by (110 hours) and call time (4 hours). Even though it has a color screen it held up well over a three-day period with good usage with the standard battery, which is good enough for taking it with you on a short trip over the weekend. The slim included battery holds up well, and gives the phone a very nice form factor.
ATI announces the new ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO - Multimedia on the PC rises to a new level with today's announcement from ATI Technologies Inc. of the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO. The world's fastest multimedia graphics card joins the award-winning ALL-IN-WONDER family to offer mulTView for dual TV tuner support and 128MB of Double Data Rate (DDR) memory plus more - powered by the new RADEON 9700 PRO VPU (visual processor unit) graphics chip with cutting edge 2D and 3D graphics performance. ATI's new flagship multimedia video card, ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO, will be available this fall for less than USD$500 and will complement the currently shipping ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500DV at USD$199 and the value-priced ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 7500 at USD$149.
Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP TV Tuner Card Review - The card itself is quite compact and so will not cause any problems due to length. The tuner on the card however is quite bulky so if you were to use it in a computer with all the PCI slots being filled then a little rearrangement of the cards maybe necessary to allow it to fit in properly. Once I had found the right PCI to slot it in the rest was easy. It was a very nice fit into the slot and I didn't have to push overly hard to seat it properly.
Gainward GeForce 4 PowerPack! Ultra/650 TV Golden Sample - Gainward's philosophy towards board making is to, where appropriate, discard the reference board design and get their own engineers to design a new board platform. The primary aim of this redesign is to be more optimal than the reference designs. As a product of this, and careful selection of their graphics cores and memory, Gainward feel that in some cases they can supply boards clocked higher than the nominally suggested by the IHV for a particular chip shipped. Alongside their normally clocked board, Gainward also produce the 'Golden Sample's with increased performance.
Modding the ABIT IT7-MAX2 for Improved Clocking Review - Since Tech PC posted our ABIT IT7-MAX2 DDR Motherboard and ASUS P4T533 RDRAM Motherboard Comparison Review last week, the reviewer Gibbo of OcUK, decided to push the ABIT IT7-MAX2 Motherboard even further by modding it using a volt mod. With these new results, Tech PC are pleased to announce that we have just posted the Modding the ABIT IT7-MAX2 for Improved Clocking Review on the Tech PC Website.
Aqua eye-candy comes to the PC - Stardock has released a small utility that brings several of the dazzling effects seen in Apple's Aqua UI to the PC. WindowFX 2.0, released today, performs Direct3D operations including transparency and transitions on each window - which we think is a first on Windows - although Stardock is shying away from a confrontation with Apple's legal department by not including the hallmark Genie effect, for example.
New Trailer For The Two Towers - Now available is the new 3 minute trailer (.mov) for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers!
Soldier of Fortune map files - Raven Software has released the map source files for the multiplayer maps in Soldier of Fortune, their previous mercenary first-person shooter. The package contains the sources for all Deathmatch, Control, Conquer the Bunker and Capture the Flag maps in the original game and the Gold and Platinum Editions.
Athlon Optimized Quake Arena DLLs - Aaron Gordon has released these Quake Arena optimized DLLs. There is a version for the Thunderbird or non SSE, and the Palomino/Thoroughbred SSE version of the Athlon.
Red Hat Releases Red Hat Linux 8.0 - Red Hat today released Red Hat Linux 8.0 (download), a highly versatile operating system designed for personal and small business computing. Red Hat Linux 8.0 combines leading-edge Linux technologies with a new graphical look and feel that offers users a polished, easy-to-use operating environment.
Mandrake Linux 9.0 First Impressions - Both LinuxOrbit and LinuxHelp have posted a review of Mandrake Linux 9.0.
Nero Burning Rom version 5.5.9.13 - Ahead Software have released a new Nero version 5.5.9.13.
FlashFXP v2.0 RC3 Build 880 - FlashFXP is the most powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market today. It is loaded with features for the power user, but has an intuitive user interface that takes only minutes to master.
PowerDVD 4.0 build 2009 patch file - There is a new patch available for the PowerDVD version 4.0 build 2009.
ACDSee 5.0 PowerPack - ACDSee is an award-winning picture viewer, graphic converter and digital image management tool. The latest version of this digital photo software, ACDSee 5.0, gives you intuitive, professional-quality imaging tools to get, view, organize, enhance, share and print your images quickly.
Radeonator v2.0 Beta 2 - Radeonator (download) is a tweaker developed for Radeon based videocards. The tweaker makes it easy to manipulate driversettings to squeeze out the last bit of performance. But Radeonator offers more, it allows you to use profiles for games and benchmarkes.
Powerstrip 3.29 Final - The final version of Powerstrip 3.29 has been just released.
Gainward Detonator 31.00 WHQL drivers + ExperTool 3.00 - Gainward have released a new set of Nvidia Detonator 31.00 WHQL drivers for Windows9x/ME and 2000/XP and also a new verison of Gainward's ExperTool v3.00.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,30 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 12:34 AM CEST - Sep,30 2002 - Post a comment

China's First Server 'Dragon Chip' Made its Debut - Shuguang Tianyan Information Technology Ltd. announced that China's first Server "Soaring Dragon" of its own intellectual property rights came into the world. The Sever was brought out by using the universally-applied CPU "Dragon Chip" just developed and turned out by the Computer Institution of the Chinese Academy of Science. Aside from that, used in the manufacture of the "Soaring Dragon" Sever is a kind of specific mainboard with the "Dragon Chip" CPU jointly developed by Shuguang Co. and the Computer Institution of the CAS and the Shuguang LINUX operational system developed by Shuguang Co. alone. According to the analysis of persons from the business circle, the debut of the "Soaring Dragon" Sever marks that China has set out on the marketization of its "Dragon Chip".
Can Global Warming Cause an "Ice Age" ? - Global warming could actually lead to a big chill in some parts of the world. If the atmosphere continues to warm, it could soon trigger a dramatic and abrupt cooling throughout the North Atlantic region-where, not incidentally, some 60 percent of the world's economy is based. When I say "dramatic," I mean: Average winter temperatures could drop by 5 degrees Fahrenheit over much of the United States, and by 10 degrees in the northeastern United States and in Europe. That's enough to send mountain glaciers advancing down from the Alps. To freeze rivers and harbors and bind North Atlantic shipping lanes in ice. To disrupt the operation of ground and air transportation. To cause energy needs to soar exponentially. To force wholesale changes in agricultural practices and fisheries. To change the way we feed our populations. In short, the world, and the world economy, would be drastically different.
Akasa Crystal Blue Fan - The Akasa fans can multi-functional use e.g. as case-fan, power supply air fan or as a CPU air fans in connection with a fan adapters. The special at the air fan he has a potentiometer and two blue LEDs. The rotations per minute of the air fan can be regulated thereby manually.
Abit Ti4200 OTES Graphics Board - Even though the nVidia Ti4200 GPU is getting to be old-hat, there are still a few tricks available for it. Come join TweakTown as they take a look at the Abit Ti4200 OTES Graphics Board and see exactly what we're talking about. With an innovative touch and some interesting results, there may just be a reason to look again at the affordable Ti4200 series of video card. Come see for yourself!
ATI 9700 Pro Worth $320? - At the $200+ price point things become much more interesting. You've got reputable online vendors selling GeForce4 Ti 4600 boards at just under $230 while the RADEON 9700 PRO is sitting at roughly $320. Is the extra $90 you'll spend on the RADEON 9700 PRO worth it? It all depends on the type of consumer you are.
Creative Labs Declined to Launch 3Dlabs P10 - A Creative Labs representative told in the interview published at this web-site, that the company currently has no plans to introduce graphics cards for consumer's sector based on the P10 VPU originally developed by 3Dlabs. It was also made clear that Creative Labs Europe has strong relations with NVIDIA and is very confident in their solutions, including the up and coming NV30. European subsidiary even does not want to offer ATI RADEON 9000/9700 based products for its customers since NVIDIA constantly helps to push and promote graphics cards based on their GPUs and is well-recognized on the market.
How to remove Unreal Tournament 2003 NVIDAI logo? - Tired of the nVidia logo at the beginning of the UT 2003 demo? Then change it and customize your UT 2003 demo! The nVidia logo can easily be changed into something a lot more fun. There are lots of different logos to choose from, from the Xabre logo (my favourite ) to 3dfx and matrox. Click on Read More to see the different patches. Extract the patch to your UT2003Demo\Textures folder. The patches are made by Magic sim from the French website 3dfxspirit.
Lycoris Linux (Desktop LX) Review - Lycoris Desktop/LX Update 2 is a familiar, powerful and open alternative to Windows. Put the power back into your hands with this new, affordable operating system.
FreeBSD 4.7-RC2/i386 - FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Bruce Mah announces that FreeBSD 4.7-RC2 (the second release candidate for FreeBSD 4.7) is now available for the i386 architecture from the usual FTP sites. Both an FTP site and a "disc 1" ISO image are available.
WCPUID V3.1 - WCPUID is the program that displays the CPU information of your personal computer. It shows Frequency, Multiplier, Chipset Info, etc. (mirrors: MajorGeeks).
FREE ICQ LITE Updated (September 2002) - ICQ Lite is a new, light and simple version of ICQ. It includes only the ICQ essentials: instant messaging, file transfer, SMS and features for meeting people!
DVD Decrypter 3.1.3.0 - 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.
FLAC 1.0.4 - FLAC is similar to MP3, but lossless. This new version brings many small improvements, notably: Vorbis comment and id3v1/v2 support in the plugins, bug fixes for 24-bit handling, x86 encoder and decoder speedups, reduced memory requirements
RivaTuner 2.0 RC12 - Guru of 3D has released RivaTuner 2.0 RC12, this release has many new features including full Detonator 40.71 support.
Geforce Tweak Utility v3.2 - Geforce Tweak Utility (download) lets you make a lot of modifications to the registry settings of your GeForce. All registy modifications are fully functional, and the only thing that doesn't work at this time is changing the core/memory clocks.
NVidia Detonator 30.87 drivers - NVIDIA has released a new Detonators 30.87 for Windows9x/ME and 2000/XP, and also new 3D Stereo Driver Control Panels version 30.87. Theres no word on WHQL, Performance or anything...
ATI Radeon drivers 6.13.10.6178 - There are some new ATI drivers (win2kxp ~ win98/me) for the Radeon which are available from the ATI website. No words on fixes yet available.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,28 2002 - tech

Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:07 PM CEST - Sep,28 2002 - Post a comment

Windows 2000 running on the Microsoft Xbox - The Xbox Linux Project announced that Microsoft Windows 2000 has been successfully started and run on a Microsoft Xbox gaming console. This has been accomplished by using the Linux operating system, which already works reliably on the Xbox, as host environment. Windows has been run inside Linux with common PC virtualization software. Full networking is supported and Windows 2000 can make use of a keyboard and a mouse connected to the Xbox, as well as of any other devices connected through the USB. The performance of Windows 2000 inside Linux on the Xbox is good enough to play MPEG-4 movies at fullscreen. Common Windows applications like Microsoft Office work without any problems.
Windows XP version 2 mooted for 2003? - Despite earlier suggestions to the contrary (which we didn't believe anyway) Microsoft may be planning an interim version of Windows XP to fill the chasm between last year's rollout of XP itself, and the next big one, Longhorn, which quite possibly won't hit until 2006 or later + ActiveWin has posted a nice editorial - Do we Really Need a New Windows Operating System so Soon?
Red Hat 8.0 Preview - Red Hat 8.0 is scheduled to be formally released on Sept. 30 and many in the Linux user community are watching the development of the new "Bluecurve" desktop design very closely. In the retail edition of Red Hat that's coming out this Monday, the Linux vendor is replacing the traditional GNOME interface with Bluecurve, a Red Hat-created GUI theme combining elements of both GNOME and KDE, the major rival to GNOME.
Windows XP grows Bluetooth - Microsoft releases to manufacturers an update that would allow PCs running Windows XP to connect to peripherals, handhelds and cell phones without wires.
Sharp develops 3D flat screen - Japan's largest maker of liquid-crystal displays says its researchers in Britain have developed a flat-panel display for either 2D or 3D viewing that does not require special glasses. They expect to use the displays in games at first, and expand into PCs and TVs. Production begins in a few months and products using them should be shipping in early 2003. Naturally, I just bought two 2D LCD displays for my home office two weeks ago.
WiNRADiO G303i shortwave receiver - The "G3" stands for "the third generation": As the original, award-winning, first-generation WR-1000i receiver was the world's first commercially available wide-band receiver on a PC card when launched years ago, the newly introduced WR-G303i is the world's first dedicated shortwave receiver on a PC card. It is also the first commercially available receiver where the entire final intermediate frequency stage and an all-mode demodulator are entirely executed in software, running on a personal computer.
Intel and SiS to launch B-version chipsets for Hyper-Threading support in 4Q - Intel and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) have decided to release B-version products for some of their chipsets in the fourth quarter to support the Hyper-Threading technology that will be introduced into the desktop processor market with the upcoming 3.06GHz Pentium 4.
AMD 333MHz-FSB Athlon coming in October - AMD is expected to expand its desktop product lines with the launch of the Athlon XP 2700+ and Athlon XP 2800+ in early October. Gearing up for competition against Intel in the high-end market, AMD has endeavored to extend its product portfolio for the sector. After its roll-out of the Athlon XP 2600+ in August, pushing the product's clock speed to over 2GHz, AMD will soon introduce two new processors, the Athlon XP 2700+ and Athlon XP 2800+, its first 333MHz FSB (front-side bus)-based products.
Leadtek Announces NV18 and NV28 Cards - Leadtek has announced the release of two new vid cards, the A280 (NV28) and the A180 (NV18) cards, both of which are 8x AGP capable. Leadtek's site is showing the A280 as still being clocked at 250MHz although some web reports are claiming it's actually been boosted to 270MHz which, if true, should be good for an additional performance boost.
Trailblazing with CRW-F1 and DiscT@2! - Since the CRW 3200, Yamaha had been sitting on the sidelines of the speed race with no offer of a 32 or 40X recorder, as opposed to the rest of the providers in the market, though they were by no means resting on their laurels. They were actually developing what was to become their last CD-RW recorder before going on to the DVD+RW. And it's some recorder, too, since the CRW-F1 encompasses all of Yamaha's technological know-how, plus a whole host of new features to give the recordings more depth and sureness.
Premodded Xbox X-EcuterV1 Console - Have you ever considered hooking an Xbox up to your Local Area Network and connecting it up to the Internet to play online? Copy mp3s and movies from your PC to it through FTP? TweakTown takes us on a discovery us of the premodded Xbox X-EcuterV1 from Xmodchips.net which enables you do this and much more with it's powerful premodded modchip.
Intel Celeron Working at the Sacred 3GHz - Here a few tests were run, but the performance of the CPU didn't arouse any reproach. Then another round of frequency increase took place. Without raising the core voltage, they increased the FSB frequency up to 150GHz. No problem! Now here is a 3GHz Celeron processor!
Video Card Round-up - Creative 3D Blaster 4 Ti4600 / ASUS 8460 Ultra GeForce4 Ti4600 / ATI and FIC Radeon 9700 (video-review) / Triplex Millennium Silver TX-680
Cooler Round-up - Antec Hard Drive Cooler / Spire SkiveStream CPU Cooler / MIST Silent Twin Fan CPU Cooler
Misc HW Round-up - 5-Way i845E Motherboard Shootout / Epox 4G4A+ Motherboard / Kazan USB 2.0 Drive / ViewSonic VG700 17-inch TFT Display
NVDVD Review - NVDVD is the latest software from NVIDA, although NVIDIA make graphics cards, they also make software for said graphics cards. NVDVD promises to offer the best image quality, along with the lowest CPU utilization. Is NVDVD the best software to go with your GeForce, or are you better off with something such as PowerDVD?
Pavilion and Windows XP Service Pack 1 Incompatibility - If your computer is a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion desktop or Compaq Presario desktop PC with Windows XP pre-installed. After you install Windows XP Service Pack 1, you might encounter an issue with the PC System Recovery utility.
When to re-install WinXP SP1 - Reinstall SP1 for Windows XP in the following situations: 1) After you perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP, 2) After you perform a repair of Windows XP, 3) After you use System Restore to restore your computer to a restore point that was created before you installed Windows XP SP1, 4) After you upgrade from Windows XP Home Edition to Windows XP Professional Edition.
UT2K3 Demo Benchmarking Utility v1.001 - All of the utilities needed to benchmark with the UT2K3 Demo were already in the demo, all we did was create some files that will ease the process of benchmarking to make it easier for the reviewer and end user. Most importantly this scripting utility will allow for people with DX8 compliant VidCards to compare results on a "fair" basis. The creators of UT2K3 explain that vertex and pixel shaders use in the game minimal at best. So comparing cards that are pre-GF3 and pre-8500 might be considered, but we are not going to argue that here and now.
VNC 3.3.4 - VNC (freeware) stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is remote control software which allows you to view and interact with one computer (the "server") using a simple program (the "viewer") on another computer anywhere on the Internet. The two computers don't even have to be the same type, so for example you can use VNC to view an office Linux machine on your Windows PC at home.
Serv-U v4.0.0.6 - Serv-U (download) is a powerful, easy-to-use, award-winning FTP server created by Rob Beckers. An FTP server uses the FTP protocol to share files across the Internet.
DVD Region-Free 1.1 - You don't need to flash any firmware which is dangerous or unavailable. DVD Region-Free also disables region check for popular software-based DVD players such as PowerDVD, WinDVD and CinePlayer. Other features include Region-Free for RCE DVDs, Macrovision-Free, Operation-Free and run self at DVD players startup automatically.
SecureFX v2.1 Beta 6 - SecureFX (download) lets you choose standard FTP or secure data transfer with FTP over an encrypted SSH2 connection
SecureCRT v4.0 Beta 7 - SecureCRT (download) software combines the secure login and data transfer capabilities of Secure Shell (SSH) with the reliability, usability and configurability of a proven Windows terminal emulator.
Trillian Releases Security Patch - Trillian has released a security update for both v0.74 and v1.0. The new patch addresses a security flaw in the IRC and AIM modules.
Zoom Player v2.90 beta 1 - Zoom Player is a robust Media and DVD Front-End Player. Zoom Player was designed to be simple at first glance while being remarkably dynamic and flexible when used to it's full potential.
Windows Media Player 9 beta build 2800 - This is a newer but beta release (WinXP ~ Win9x/ME/2k) of Windows Media Player.
Catalyst 7.77 for all Radeon Cards - Well...after a little while evaluating the files, I have finally put together a working driver set for the entire Radeon line using the 7.77 core driver files. I have installed this set on my XP rig and it works great!

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,27 2002 - tech

Massive Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:57 AM CEST - Sep,27 2002 - Post a comment

Violent games good for kids - A group of academics are urging a US appeals court to strike down a law restricting children's access to violent video games. The 33 scholars, from institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of London, said the law is misguided. "Most studies and experiments on video games containing violent content have not found adverse effects," a brief lodged with the court said.
Scientists Grow Teeth in Lab - The scientists, based at the Forsyth Institute in Boston, reportedly are the first to coax such a complex tooth structure from a collection of individual cells. "This is very exciting, and I don't think it's expected," said R. Bruce Donoff, dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. The Forsyth scientists already have grown batches of very small tooth crowns, and hope the new technique could be used to grow larger, more complete teeth. Researchers said it would be at least a decade before the technique could be used to help patients.
Venus may have bugs, say scientists - Scientists in the United States say clouds high in the atmosphere of the planet Venus contain chemicals that may suggest the presence of life. Space probes have never found any sign of life on Venus, which has an extremely hot surface and an atmosphere that contains a mixture of poisonous chemicals. But Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Louis Irwin, from the University of Texas, say the Venusian atmosphere is "relatively hospitable" and may be home to large numbers of bacteria.
Former Nine Inch Nails Member Talks Britney Ringtones - Chris Vrenna was a founding member of gothic industrial band Nine Inch Nails, but you'll never believe what he has on his cellphone's ringtone -- Britney Spears. According to Vrenna, a self-described "gadget whore," the Britney song is "awesome" because his phone's technology allows the ringtone to have drums and bass so it sounds more like Muzak than a monotone beep.
China implicated in Dalai Lama hack plot - China has repeatedly attempted to crack into the Dalai Lama's computer network, according to its administrators. Over the last month there have been repeated attempts to infect systems used by the exiled spiritual leader with a computer virus which attempts to send information back to China, Jigme Tsering, manager of the Tibetan Computer Resource Centre told AP
Real-Time Testing of Internet Filtering in China - This system is intended for use only to determine whether China is blocking to one or a few specified sites. Those who wish to test a large number of sites should contact Ben Edelman (email) for details.
xDSL overtakes cable in Europe - DSL has overtaken cable as the most popular broadband technology in Europe, according to the latest research from Forrester. Comparing the two technologies, it found that 56 per cent of broadband connections in Europe were based on xDSL, with cable making up the rest. The reserach did not compare other broadband technologies such as satellite or wireless.
Lightning Rods for Nanoelectronics - On a dry winter day, walking on a new carpet can generate a whopping 35,000-volt discharge. We are not harmed by this high voltage, because the amount of charge that flows is puny. Still, it is large enough to destroy sensitive micro-electronic components. Researchers have come up with clever ways to prevent such damage. But as circuits get smaller, they become more sensitive to electrostatic discharge (ESD) and the old tricks no longer work. Can we continue to find new ways to prevent electrostatic damage and thereby maintain the pace of innovation?
The connect-to-everything Nokia 6650 - The 6650 is a tri-band phone, supporting GSM 900/1800 and WCDMA networks. That gives it support for up to 128 kbps transmission, and using WCDMA the phone is able to transmit both voice and data simultaneously. The 6650 also includes a 640x480 still camera that is also capable of capturing up to 20 seconds of video, complete with audio. Pictures and videos can be displayed on the device's 12-bit color display, or transmitted to other users using MMS. For data transfer, the 6650 supports GPRS, WCDMA, Infrared, Bluetooth, and USB. That connection allows for the WAP 1.2.1 browser. The phone also supports MIDP Java 1.0, polyphonic ring tones, and e-wallet functions. It can synchronize with a PC, where the user can also view and edit recorded multimedia content from the camera, and even set up playlists on the device. It packs 7 MB of user-available RAM. And Nokia has managed to fit all of that into 141 grams. (Reuters).
Can a PC run more than 30 operating systems? - There are many points of view on exactly what an operating system is. I have concluded that I have approximately 39 separate, fully functional operating systems on my machine (as well as two that are sick at the moment). If you count my 18 DOS window managers, I have a total of 57 operating systems on my PC.
Microsoft Ponders Windows Upgrade for '04 - Another developer with Redmond ties said signs are pointing toward a Windows release that would hit during Microsoft's fiscal 2004 (July 1, 2003, to June 30, 2004). Originally it was supposed to be Longhorn, said the developer, who asked not to be identified. It will likely be an XP update to ship with the .Net Framework, more managed code used in Windows, and extensive updates to Windows Media technologies. I don't know what they're going to call it though.
Microsoft FrontPage Flaw Found - Microsoft warned Web site administrators on Wednesday that a flaw in its FrontPage extensions could allow an attacker to take control of their servers or cause the computers to seize up. In its 53rd advisory for the year, the software giant said a vulnerability in the SmartHTML interpreter could be exploited to cause a denial-of-service attack on the Web server if the computer had FrontPage Server Extensions 2000 running.
New Mobile AMD Athlon XP Processor 2000+ - AMD today introduced the high-performance mobile AMD Athlon XP processors 2000+ and 1900+. Featuring AMD PowerNow! technology, the new AMD mobile processors give businesses and home consumers a genuine mobile solution which can significantly extend battery life to enable anytime, anywhere productivity.
ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES Review - When ATI released the fully DirectX 8.1-compliant RADEON 9000 Pro, NVIDIA's GeForce4 MX line was instantly relegated to the bargain bin. Who needs a rehashed piece of DirectX 7 hardware when a faster, more modern card can be had for a few dollars more? NVIDIA was quick to remind mainstream gamers that the GeForce4 Ti 4200 easily outperformed the RADEON 9000 Pro at a marginal price difference. Since then, prices on the 9000 Pro have fallen, making the card an exceptional value for well under $100.
Prolink GF4 MX440-8X - Today nVidia announced the latest addition to their budget graphics chipset line, the GeForce4 MX440-8X with full AGP 8x support and other improvements to help speed boast the GPU. TweakTown checks out Prolink's GeForce4 MX440-8X graphics card and tells us what type of performance the extra bandwidth given by the AGP8x bus provides for gamers.
MSI MX440-VTD8X 64MB - The first card featuring NVIDIA's latest NV18 core which is AGP 8X compliant. Based on the same architecture as the previous GeForce4 MX 440 GPU, there's more to this card than just an increased AGP transfer rate.
Tyan Tachyon G9000 Radeon Video Card - Xbit-labs reviewed the so long-awaited RV250 aka RADEON 9000/RADEON PRO represented by TYAN Tachyon G9000.
Motherboard Roundup - MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR KT400 / AOPEN AX4G Pro i845G with P4 2.4/2.8 / Five I845E MB Shootout / Leadtek K7N415DA nForce
How To Configure Your Matrox Parhelia Surround Gaming For UT2003 - Check it out.
MyIE32 Review - MyIE32 is a lightweight browser that still manages to pack a punch. Built around the IE core it adds an impressive feature set, including tabs, a pop-up killer, proxy features, skinning and groups (and in this case these really are features, as opposed to bugs by another name!)
Mandrake 9.0 Dolphin Officially - Mandrake 9.0 is out and it's been certified LSB 1.2-compliant today (ProSuite Edition). It's called + Dolphin. It's a major evolution in the Linux-desktop field, and will also empower your servers like never before. Read the press-release, discover all the great and unique features, pre-order it at MandrakeStore.com. Download is available through the usual mirrors, and Club Members benefit from an extended range of download places.
XPTuneup 3.1 - XPTuneup is the software developed to help you apply many of the tips listed on xptuneup.com via a simple interface. It is implementation of about 50 tips listed on that web site.
Fast Browser Pro 5.21 - Fast Browser Pro is a powerful Web Browser. It can open up to 180 homepages at the same time (though this baby costs 30 bucks).
BeFaster Lite 1.0 Beta - It is light version of BeFaster. Therefore it is smaller and cheaper but nice :) It supports AOL, Symantec PcAnyWhere, IE, Opera, Dial-up modem, Lan, Cable Modem, xDSL, ISDN, T1, DirectPc and Broadband, Cable/DSL running PPPoE. You can optimize your connection automatically. You can awake your suspended modems with built-in Ping Now function. You can prevent connection drops with Super-ping tool.
PortsLock 1.0 Beta 3 - PortsLock (download) is a personal firewall for Windows NT/2000/XP that fully supports user-level security. Once PortsLock is installed, administrators can control which users can access what TCP/IP based protocols (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, Telnet, etc.) on a local computer, depending on the time of day and day of the week. PortsLock lets you set allowed/denied TCP/UDP ports and IP-addresses for incoming and outgoing connections.
Matrox Apptimizer v.1.1.0.12 - For the Matrox Parhelia (download) under Windows 2000/XP. Optimizes games in Surround Gaming and non-Surround Gaming mode.
Realtek v3.30 Driver for AC'97 - Realtek have released a new sound drivers v3.30 for AC'97 (ALC100/P).
S3/VIA Drivers v13.93.58- Download: Logo'd: ProSavageDDR Win2K/XP Drivers (NoIshld) / Logo'd: ProSavageDDR Win2K/XP Drivers (Rotation) / Logo'd: ProSavageDDR Win2K/XP Drivers (w/Util).
Hercules Game Theater XP Drivers - Hercules have posted a new dirvers for their Hercules Game Theater XP soundcard. (thanks Victor).
NVIDIA 40.71 Beta Detonators - NVIDIA has released new version 40.71 Beta Detonator reference drivers (WinXP/2k / Win9x/ME).

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,26 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:52 AM CEST - Sep,26 2002 - Post a comment

Greece lets the games begin again - According to an article in the English language Greek newspaper Kathimerini, the Government has sought to clarify a poorly worded law designed to crack down on electronic gambling. The newspaper quotes a statement from the Economy and Finance Ministry, which said: "There is no problem for any individual or for the tourists visiting Greece to use their private electronic or other games such as Playstation, Gameboy, X-Box et cetera.
Mars climate change is in the stars - Fluctuations in climate on Mars can be traced to variations in the planet's astronomical behaviour. French scientists have found a correlation between layers of ice at the Red Planet's poles and dramatic climate oscillations caused by orbital variation.
Microsoft puts a price on IM features - The software giant is getting ready to launch a new version of MSN Messenger--but there's a twist. Some spiffy new features will be exclusive to people who pay for MSN 8 online service.
Hack-proof Linux on the way? - Guardian Digital releases a version of Linux that's less vulnerable to attack, a niche the company hopes will gain it a foothold in the market for the Unix-like operating system.
New Linux Worm Found in the Wild - The worms, Slapper.B and Slapper.C, which exploits a known buffer overrun vulnerability in the Secure Sockets Layer 2.0 (SSLv2) handshake process has infected thousands of Web servers worldwide, according to Helsinki-based F-Secure Corp., a computer and network security company. "
Intel eases up in race to 10GHz - The onset of Prescott, the next evolution of the P4 due next year, seems to illustrate this gentler approach to speed. Prescott will be built on a 90 nanometer manufacturing process and will feature an enhanced version of the Netburst core which is already at the heart of the Pentium 4. The Pentium 4 has leapfrogged up the speed ramp, from 1.4GHz at launch in the Fall of 2000, and will hit 3GHz by the end of this year. At the P4's launch, Intel put the lifespan of Netburst at up to seven years and said that if Moore's law held true, the company had the headroom to break the 10GHz mark by 2006.
XM, Delphi Unveil Portable Satellite Radio System - XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and auto parts maker Delphi Corp. on Wednesday debuted a pocket-sized portable device that allows listeners to tune into the broadcaster's service using a home stereo or as part of a portable "boombox." The Delphi XM SKYFi Radio receiver, a modular unit about the size of a bar of soap, will sell for around $130, and a kit that connects it to a home or car stereo goes for about $70.
Public Testing of Its Personal Firewall - Kaspersky Anti-Hacker - Kaspersky Labs announces the release of the beta version for its new
product Kaspersky Anti-Hacker and invites all those interested to take part in its public beta testing. Kaspersky Anti-Hacker is an easy-to-use system of defense against hacker attacks, ensuring maximum protection of personal computers running Windows operating systems. Thanks to its control of all network operations on a computer (it tracks all application activity, oversees all Internet access and filters incoming and outgoing data packets and more), Kaspersky Anti-Hacker guarantees the confidentiality of all stored data.
Official Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Website - The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 not only propels PC audio forward; it drives a new standard of quality for all audio. As we have done many times in the past, Creative has established yet another new platform for the PC with Sound Blaster 24-bit ADVANCED HDt audio. With the introduction of the Sound Blaster Audigy 2, we are setting an audio standard for the PC that is currently emerging in consumer electronics." - Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo.
GeForce4 MX gets AGP8X - Prolink GF4 MX440-8X - Today nVidia announces the latest addition to their budget graphics chipset line, the GeForce4 MX440-8X. Based on the NV18 chipset, the MX440-8X is directed at the budget gaming market and is in direct competition with the Radeon 9000 from ATi. The first NV18 based card we have managed to obtain is Prolink's GeForce4 MX440-8X.
Samsung SM-332 32x10x40x CD-RW + 12x DVD - The new Samsung SM-332 32x10x40x + 12xDVD is one of the most versatile CD-Rom drives you can buy. It is a high speed burner, CD-Rom, and DVD drive all-in-one. It features support for Ultra DMA Mode, an 8MB buffer with Buffer Under Run software to prevent your CD's from becoming coasters, and includes a copy of Ahead Software's: Nero Burning Rom.
ABIT IT7-MAX2 DDR vs VS ASUS P4T533 RDRAM - Gibbo of OcUK has written a comparitive review of the ABIT IT7-MAX2 DDR Motherboard and the ASUS P4T533 RDRAM Motherboard for Tech PC and it has just been posted on the Tech PC Website.
GeForce4 Ti/MX and nForce2 Processors All Harness the Power of AGP 8X and the AGP 3.0 - NVIDIA today introduced the industry's first and only comprehensive family of AGP 8X-based products. Based on Intel's AGP 3.0 specification, NVIDIA now offers an extensive range of top-to-bottom graphics processing units (GPUs) and platform processors for next-generation digital media, gaming, and business PC platforms. NVIDIA's AGP 8X product line-up, which includes the NVIDIAR GeForcet4 Ti 4200 with AGP 8X and the GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP 8X desktop GPUs, as well as the new nForce2? platform processors, forms the technology foundation for the world's most advanced PCs.
UT2K3 Demo Benchmarking Utility - All of the utilities needed to benchmark with the UT2K3 Demo were already in the demo, all we did was create some files that will ease the process of benchmarking to make it easier for the reviewer and end user. Most importantly this scripting utility will allow for people with DX8 compliant VidCards to compare results on a "fair" basis. The creators of UT2K3 explain that vertex and pixel shaders use in the game minimal at best. So comparing cards that are pre-GF3 and pre-8500 might be considered, but we are not going to argue that here and now.
Apache 2.0.42 - Apache 2.0 (download 2.0.42) 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. Apache 2.0 also includes support for filtered I/O. This allows modules to modify the output of other modules before it is sent to the client. We have also included support for IPv6 on any platform that supports IPv6.
IRCCrypt, IRC Public Channel Encryption Tool - IRCCrypt is a local IRC Proxy-style utility that provides application-layer encryption for public channels. It is a perfect solution when you need to hold private chats in public areas. Only those people with the right password can see the message. Configurable to encrypt all text being sent to either a channel or nickname also protects sensitive information from the eye's of prying IRCOps.
Theora Alpha One - Theora will be a video codec that builds upon On2's VP3 codec. While Ogg Vorbis has reached 1.0, Theora is currently being integrated into the Ogg multimedia framework, as well as being optimized from the VP3 codebase at its heart. Theora will be released in June of 2003, with three major milestones, the first being released today, September 25th, 2002.
BootXP v2.25 Final - The Final BootXP version 2.25 has been released.
IE Opera 6.5.1 - Freeware IE Opera, an opera of Internet Explorer, is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser. IE Opera allows user to browse multiple Web sites simultaneously and block all unwanted pop-up pages.
kX Project Drivers 5.10.0.3524 BETA - The kX Audio Driver is an independent WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver for all EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcards manufactured by Creative Technology Ltd. and/or E-mu Sytems Inc., including the SoundBlaster Live! series, the E-mu Audio Production Studio (APS) card, and the Audigy series of cards.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,25 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:31 AM CEST - Sep,25 2002 - Post a comment

Despite console market share, all is not lost for PC gaming - Most games are purchased for the living room console rather than the bedroom computer. According to NPD Techworld, a research firm, PC game sales last year hit 65.3 million units, up 3.6 percent from the previous year. But 110 million console games were sold during the same period, and sales for the category rose 9 percent. That means that consoles have already grabbed about two-thirds of the digital gaming market, and are snatching at the rest.
UT2003 Demo Downloaded 1.2 Million Times - Epic is claiming that the UT2003 demo has been downloaded by nearly 1.2 million people! Wow.
Microsoft Buys Rare for $375 Million Cash - Software giant Microsoft on Tuesday said it has acquired British video game developer Rare Ltd. for $375 million in cash to bolster its internal game development.
Miss America Speaks Up - With the there-she-is moment having passed, the new Miss America, ERIKA HAROLD, looked back to an incident that happened when she was in ninth grade and involved racial and sexual harassment and, she said, death threats.
CNN-ABC News Merger? - AOL Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co. have held talks about merging their CNN and ABC News divisions into "a stand-alone news powerhouse," the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday.
Peter Gabriel album preview deployed in MS audio push - Microsoft today announced that Peter Gabriel's new album Up would be the first ever to be made available via digital download.
Microsoft to Pilot Xbox Live in Europe in November - U.S. software giant Microsoft said on Tuesday its highly-touted online gaming platform Xbox Live will begin its pilot in select European countries in November with a commercial launch in March.
Sony Ericsson Points Camera Phone at Fashion Ramps - Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications USA Inc. pushed to capture the limelight near the end of New York fashion week by lending its camera phone to one of the many designers showing their stuff.
HBH-60 BT headset from Sony Ericsson - Sony Ericsson's Bluetooth headset department is at it again; the new 22g HBH-60 headset will be out later this year. Also new is the HPR-20, a portable music player add-on.
Nokia and Ericsson triple the calling capacity - Nokia and Ericsson said Tuesday they've each separately reached milestones for cell phone equipment that uses wideband-CDMA, the cell phone standard expected to dominate its rivals by 2005. Wideband-CDMA (w-CDMA) triples the calling capacity of any cell phone network. It also creates a wireless Web with download speeds that are seven times faster than dial-up Web services such as America Online. It's expected to dominate the world stage because any wireless carrier, regardless of the type of cell phone network it has, can upgrade to w-CDMA, which is not the case for rival cell phone standards like GPRS.
New chip will bring GPS to all - Motorola is unveiling a global positioning system chip it says is the first GPS satellite sensor small enough and cheap enough for practical use in consumer-electronics devices such as cell phones and notebook computers.
AMD notebook chips put heat on Intel - AMD is releasing the Athlon 2000+ and 1900+, two new notebook chips which narrow the performance gap with rival Intel--and are substantially cheaper. Its new mobile CPUs cost $345 and $239 in 1,000 units - Intel's top-of-the line mainstream mobile processor, a 2.2GHz jockey, launched last week, is an eye-watering $562.
LAN Camera Technology Offers New View - Camera technology that can be connected to your network offers a variety of possible applications. While the technology is still some what new, the possible ways that this technology can be used are only limited by your imagination and of course the capablities of the camera. The concept is a good one, but do these cameras deliver the goods?
Hercules Muse 5.1 PCI Soundcard Review - Tweakers Australia have posted their review of the Hercules MUSE 5.1 DVD PCI. This card sits at the bottom end of the price bracket when it comes to soundcards for the PC but that does not mean it is lacking in features. Take a trip with us into the wonderful world of Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound.
Leadtek WinFast K7N415DA nForce Motherboard Review - Tech PC have just posted a review of the Leadtek WinFast K7N415DA nForce Motherboard on the Tech PC Website.
NVIDIA NV28 And NV18 First Review - Darkcrow.co.kr have published the first review for Nvidia's new NV28 and NV18 graphics cards.
Hard Drive Shootout - X-Bit Labs have posted an IDE Hard-Drive Shootout which pits the latest and greatest drives against each other.
TYAN Tachyon G9000 Graphics Card - X-bit labs reviewed the so long-awaited RV250 aka RADEON 9000/RADEON PRO represented by TYAN Tachyon G9000. The chip is based on R200 (RADEON 8500) that has already won very good reputation. However, ATI engineers had to sacrifice a bit of performance for the sake of lowering the product's price. Find out if the game is worth the candle!
Intel's 2.5GHz/400MHz Pentium4 Overclocking - So basically, history has taught us that when a new stepping comes out the chip usually has better potential for quality and is generally more overclockable. Another reason why we were keen to lay our hands on the new 2.50GHz is that is has a 400MHz bus rating, not 533MHz that the 2.53GHz model does.
GeForce FAQ returns from the grave - A popular unofficial Nvidia technical resource which disappeared when cybersquatters pounced on its URL is back from the grave.
DDR RAM Guide (updated) - With the release of KT-400 chipset, DDR-400 modules will be the hot pick of the month. Thus Corsair has release a new wave of XMS modules. From their PDF, the newly released XMS-3200 is in line with JEDEC's DDR-333 speed. (Overclockers do not give a toss about it.) Corsair advertised that the XMS-3200 is guaranteed to run at 400 MHz with 2-3-3 1T setting. Overclockers New Zealand will find out if the claim is true or not in the following benchmark section.
Overclocking DDR Memory: Truths and Misconceptions A Buyers Guide - When purchasing memory you have to find the perfect balance of everything if you want your components to be running at their full potential. This is called the sweet spot. Both AMD and Intel machines have a sweet spot where you have the perfect balance of memory bandwidth as well as CPU speed.
40.52 vs. 40.41 vs 30.82 Denotators comparison - Chaps at SavageNews have manage to test the latest NVIDIA Detonator Driver 40.52 against 40.41 and 30.82 (WindowsXP). The results (3D Marks 2001): v30.82 - 9997, v40.41 - 10316, v40.52 - 10595.
Final Fantasy XI Movie Trailer - Icrontic.com has posted a new trailer out for the opening sequence of Final Fantasy XI.
Ad-aware referencefile 042-24-09-2002 - Latest referencefile for Ad-aware, a free multi spyware removal utility. With this reffile (042-24-09-2002), the detection+removal of Xupiter ToolBar, HuntBar,CoPilot, CnsMin(Chinese Keywords) some new browser Hijackers and some new versions of previous targets have been added to Ad-aware.
Winsonar 2002 Freeware Edition 2.01.12 - Winsonar 2002 (download) is a Freeware program specifically designed for process monitoring purposes: it detects new processes that permanently install into memory while system is working. Windows (Tm) has a built-in task monitor, but the user will not be prompted for new-installed tasks and even using the task monitor he won't able to distinguish normally running modules from new-added ones. The basic idea is that if the user could know a new program permanently installed into memory, he could readily scan it using an updated antivirus program: viruses couldn't really hide for a long time before being detected.
Tiny Personal Firewall 3.08 - Tiny Personal Firewall represents smart, easy-to-use personal security technology that fully protects personal computers against hackers. It is built on the proven WinRoute Pro, ICSA certified security technology.
Mandrake Linux 9.0 Released - Mandrake Linux 9.0 has been released! : Download CD 1 / Download CD 2 / Download CD 3
News Interceptor 1.01 - This version corrects to a major problem of communication with our server which several users had with the preceding versions. A debug option was also added in order to find the problems more easily.
Yahoo! Messenger 5.5.0.1232 - Yahoo! Messenger has been updated to version 5.5.0.1232.
Radeon 9700 PRO 128MB Catalyst Driver Version 7.77 - This issue affects RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB using CATALYST™ 02.2 and CATALYST™ 02.3 under Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. The system may lock up or display corruption in certain scenes when playing the following Direct3D games: Battlefield 1942, Mafia, The Thing. To resolve this issue install the appropriate display driver for your OS.
nVidia Dentonator Drivers 40.52 BETA - Warp2Search has posted new Nvidia Dentonator Drivers 40.52 for Windows 9x and 2000/XP (mirror1 / mirror2).

Updated (Sep 25, 8:30am), sorry I missed a few goodies last night...

Daemon Tools 3.20 - Daemon Tools is an application for advanced copy protection emulation with an implemented virtual DVD ROM drive. Means it helps you to play copies of nearly every CD available. This new version should solve all problems with the latest version of ProtectCD 5c used in Port Royalec Patch 1.3 together with the updated MDS-File for Port Royale you can download here. The updated MDS-File is already out for a few days and it seemed to work for most people but as VOB blacklisted DAEMON Tools in the latest ProtectCD 5c version we also needed to update DAEMON Tools again.
KaZaA Lite 2.0.0 - KaZaA Lite will show you how to install KaZaA Lite without all the spyware that comes with KaZaA, no SpyWare, no Adware, and shit like that :)
PHP Nuke 6.0 - This version has too many changes to be mentioned, so I want to recommend you to read CHANGES text file included on the package. PHP-Nuke 6.0 offers a true themeable system with high customization for your site, automatic installation process, broadcast messages, webmail and journal modules added, a lot of cosmetic changes, docens of bugs fixed, more options for registered users, more options on backend file... etc... etc..

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,24 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:45 AM CEST - Sep,24 2002 - Post a comment / read (2)

Microsoft changes Xbox configuration - Word of the changes began spreading on sites devoted Xbox hacking, with some buyers of recently manufactured Xbox units complaining that mod chips designed for the original console won't work now. Microsoft Xbox spokeswoman Molly O'Donnell confirmed that the company had made minor changes to the console's configuration as part of ongoing efforts to "increase security and reduce overall costs." O'Donnell declined to specify the specific changes but said they include measures intended to boost security. "They (Microsoft's Xbox hardware team) know the hacker stuff that's out there, and they're always trying to increase security," she said. The newly configured units were first spotted in Australia, where Xbox hackers spotted slight changes to the main circuit board that likely will make it impossible to use current "mod chips"--add-ons that bypass security measures built into the hardware.
Google to Launch News Search Site - Google, the popular Internet search engine, launched a new site on Monday for searching news from 4,000 English-language sources, from The New York Times to small-town newspapers. The new service, called Google News, will be accessible through a tab on the Google start page (http://www.google.com/) and will pull real-time news from different Web sites around the world. News will be arranged under categories such as world, business, entertainment, technology and sports.
"Jurassic Park" author to create Sega game - Writer Michael Crichton, best known for science-fiction novels like "The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park," on Monday said he would work with Sega to develop a new video game targeted for release in 2004.
Greece enters web Dark Ages again - The Greek government's ban on web-based computer games has been reinstated by an appeals court meaning that two cyber cafe owners and their employee could go to prison. A lower court decision earlier this month rejected the case against two Thessaloniki cyber cafe owners and a member of staff, describing the law as unconstitutional. But the appeals court judge disagreed and ordered a retrial. A date has yet to be set for the new hearing. The decision effectively means that, if the Greek police catch people playing internet games in a cyber cafe, the owner, the player and any employees could face prison or a fine of at least _5,000 (L3,160) each.
Calif. Defies Bush on Stem Cells - Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation Sunday to allow embryonic stem cell research in the state, a direct contradiction of federal limits on the research. Davis has said the legislation is essential to keep California at the forefront of medical research. He was joined by actor Christopher Reeve, who has become a medical research activist since he was paralyzed in a horse riding accident seven years ago.
Third "Door" Found in Great Pyramid - Scientists exploring the Great Pyramid in Egypt sent a robot into the northern shaft in the past few days, discovering another blocking stone. The "door" appears to be identical to the one in the southern shaft that was already known.
Wife hired hitman to kill ex-Apple UK boss - The wife of former Apple UK boss Jon Molyneux today pleaded guilty to soliciting to murder her husband. Shelley Molyneux, 41, hired a hitman to kill Molyneux for his insurance money. Fortunately for her husband, the 'hitman' was an undercover journalist who told the police.
Microsoft spying? Linux is looking better - China thinks Microsoft software contains secretly embedded code that the United States government can manipulate at will. So, in case of war between the two countries, a Pentagon official can hit a switch and--presto!--cripple China's computing infrastructure. A senior Microsoft executive, who often confers with the Chinese (sorry, no names), told me this tale. I thought he was joking. He wasn't. Some people in the Chinese government actually believe it's true.
HP cuts price on DVD-rewritable drives - Hewlett-Packard lowers the cost of its DVD+RW drives by $100 as the holiday selling season approaches.
VIA fills KT333 shortage with remarked KT400 - Responding to recent rising demand for its KT333 chipsets, VIA Technologies has decided to launch a remarked KT400 product to fill up the supply shortage. The major specification difference between the current KT400 and the remarked version lies in their AGP technology support. The present KT400 supports AGP 8x, while the remarked chipset offers only AGP 4x graphics function. VIA said that shipments of the remarked KT400 will begin at the end of this month, or early October. The chipset supplier plans to simplify its product portfolio by gradually reducing the number of its major product lines from three (the KT266A, KT333 and KT400) to two (the KT266A and KT400). However, it stressed that the product life of the KT333 will last until the end of December.
Creative SB Audigy 2 Launch Report - VR-Zone let us know that they has done up a report on the new Creative SB Audigy 2 launch at Creative's HQ at Singapore today. Audigy 2 delivers 106dB SNR with THXR certification, 6.1 surround sound for movies and gaming, 24-bit/96kHz recording, and also provides digital music enthusiasts with the next generation Creative MediaSourcet player. Audigy 2 and Audigy 2 Platinum are both slated for worldwide shipment in October and has an estimated street price of US$129.99 and US$199.99 respectively.
Creative Introduces New PC Audio Standard - The Audigy 2 - Creative Technology Ltd, today announced several key breakthroughs in PC audio with the introduction of the new Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound cards. Millions of PC users who have a DVD-ROM drive on their PC can use the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 to experience Advanced Resolution DVD-Audio with amazing 24-bit/192kHz sound quality. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 delivers 106dB SNR and is the only stand-alone sound card with THX certification, for cinematic 6.1 surround sound from Dolby Digital EX movies and unparalleled realism from the hundreds of existing DirectSound 3D game titles. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 enables 24-bit/96kHz recording, and also provides digital music enthusiasts with the next generation Creative MediaSource player for a variety of digital music enhancements, including up-mix of stereo MP3 music into full 6.1 surround sound. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 and Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum are both slated for worldwide shipment in October.
HighPoint RocketRAID 1520 Serial ATA Controller (video-review) - The HighPoint RocketRAID 1520 Controller supports the latest Serial ATA Hard Drives, all major Operating Systems and RAID 0, 1 and JBOD. This product includes two RocketHead 100 converters just in case you do not have Serial ATA Hard Drives. As with all Highpoint controllers, driver support is excellent and performance is great as well. Watch the Video to find out more...
Seagate Barracuda ATA IV in RAID 0: Truth and Fiction - A year ago Seagate rolled out its revolutionary hard disk drive, Barracuda ATA IV. In another while, the Internet community was ruffled by rumors like Barracuda ATA IV wouldn't work in RAID0! Of course, I didn't believe and decided to find out myself where the truth is. Find out more about this phenomenon in our detailed investigation!
Plextor PleXCombo 8/8/24-8U Review - This drive combines the quality of a Plextor burner, with the ability to read DVDs. If you think any of your readers are in the market for a quality external drive, they may find this product interesting...
IBM Rapid Access II Keyboard - The typing on the keyboard makes really fun. Through the roughened buttons one slips at the type practically never, too the size of the buttons is optimal. The pressure point is very good. First we used a Logitech Cordless keyboard that with the mouse costs almost 150 _ and already, was very good, she must, however, nevertheless, the IBM keyboard beaten give. Although the IBM keyboard costs just once gratifying 19 _. Through the high weight, she lies very well on the desk and do not slip through the gum feet.
Palit Daytona Geforce 4 Ti 4200 Graphics Card Review - Today 3dxtreme takes a look at the Palit Daytona Geforce 4 Ti 4200 graphics card. This card is based on the best selling Geforce 4 GPU chipset by nVidia.
Logitech Quick Cam Roundup - 3dXtreme has published their Logitech Quick Cam Roundup. "If you are in the market for a web camera it can become quite a task. There are many companies offering a wide range of solutions but one company stands out in my mind. The company is called Logitech."
TR's graphics memory size comparison Is 64MB enough? - Do you really need 128MB of graphics memory, or is it all just a lot of hype and hot air? Let's find out.
Windows Media Player 9 Beta Review - I will compare it to WMP8 (which is available only in the Windows XP operating system) and the older WMP7 which is the latest WMP for all pre-XP Windows OS'es. Unlike WMP8/MPXP, WMP9 will be able to be downloaded for free for users of Windows 98 SE and later.
Change the VLK on a Windows XP SP1-Based Computer - This article describes how to change the Windows XP product key in a Volume Licensing installation.
jv16 PowerTools 1.1.0.147 Beta - jv16 PowerTools is the next generation of RegCleaner. A full set of tools to keep your computer and your LAN up and running. jv16 PowerTools is basicly the Tool to control your computer.
KaZaA P2P 2.0.0 - The KaZaa Media Desktop (download) is a second-generation peer-to-peer file-sharing service with which you can search and download media files from other KaZaa users.
Leadtek MyVIVO v5.914 and WDM Driver v1.17 - Leadtek has released new version of MyVIVO Application and WDM 1.17 Driver (Please install this driver before the MyVIVO Application.) for their line of GeForce 4 Ti cards with video-in video-out.
Matrox Drivers - Matrox have released new Certified Drivers for WinALL - Win 98/Me v6.71.011 and Win2K/XP v5.86.032 for the following cards: Millennium G550, Millennium G450, Millennium G400 MAX, Millennium G400, and Matrox G450 MMS accelerators.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,23 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:34 AM CEST - Sep,23 2002 - Post a comment

Physicists create antimatter - At least 50,000 anti-hydrogen atoms have been created since the experiment began in August, said Dr. Jeffrey S. Hangst, from Aarhus University in Denmark, who coordinated efforts by 39 physicists from 10 institutions in a collaboration named Athena. A paper on their results has been accepted for publication in Nature and was posted on its Web site.
Yahoo! to Launch Videogame Service - In its latest move to generate revenue outside online advertising, Internet portal Yahoo! is launching a fee-based service Monday that lets users download and play videogames on demand. The service will offer well-known titles that can be rented for a few days or weeks at a time and run as if the CD-ROM were bought at a store and popped into the personal computer, said Daniel Hart, Yahoo's senior director of games and entertainment. Most of the data required to run each game is streamed to the PC over the Internet before the game is started for the first time. The program then runs off the hard drive, downloading additional files as needed. It expires at the end of the rental period.
QCast Tuner adds DivX support to PS2 - There is pretty interesting scan about it - check it out.
Turtle Beach To Show AudioTron Digital Music Player At CEDIA - Turtle Beach has announced that it will showcase its AudioTron(tm) digital music player at the CEDIA Expo, held September 27 to 29, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Designed to organize and play up to 30,000 digital audio files stored on a networked personal computer -- as well as Internet audio streams through TurtleRadio(tm) - the AudioTron transmits and receives data through an Ethernet 10BaseT or 10/100BaseT network.
TFT-LCD Prices Down - The current trend is that TFT-LCD prices will continue to drop," said Jeff Hsu, a vice president at Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp., Tainan, Taiwan. "Nobody can say if the situation will improve in the December quarter. The visibility is really low."
GF4 4200 Roundup - All GeForce 4 Ti4200 cards produce a high quality image, but we nitpicked and made the table you see above. The judgments are harsher than they should have been, so we recommend that you don't take them for granted. If we would have to pick a card that has the best 2D image, it would be the Leadtek models, followed by Abit Siluro and Prolink. A bit less sharp, but still great were ASUS, Gainward and Microstar, who we would like to commend as they have been known earlier for series that produced a blurry image.
MX440 Shootout - OverclockersClubCanada has published a four way MX440 Shootout to help you choose a decent performance budget card.
Albatron's GeForce4 Ti4200P-Turbo 128MB - Leadtek has done well with its Ti4600 card; the cooling permits significant overclocking by sustaining low temperatures. You also get a decent package of software, including games and DVD software.
Leadtek GeForce4 Ti4600 - It seems that Albatron has taken a liking to the blue PCB's, and I for one say they look pretty awesome! The Albatron GeForce4 Ti4200P-Turbo is a tad pricer then the average Ti4200 at $270 CDN ($185 US) but that's to be expected. After all, the 8-layer PCB is more expensive to produce and it also uses higher quality 3.3ns BGA DDR RAM of which there is 128MB in this version. If looks could kill, the Albatron GeForce4 Ti4200 Turbo would be on FBI's 10 most wanted list! - haha LOL.
Thermaltake VGA Highest Performance Coolers - Would you like to replace you current NVIDIA Geforce4 Ti Cooler?
TwinMOS 512mb PC3200 DDR400 - PC3200 modules have got to have a very good PCB in order to achieve such high speeds, 200MHz DDR, so the TwinMOS PC3200 RAM makes no exception.
EPoX 4G4A+ Review - EPoX have been long time manufacturers of affordable solutions. They have a reputation for creating products that perform exceptionally at an incredibly reasonable price. Usually some extra features (like onboard LAN and Audio) are sacrificed. This however is definitely not the case with the 4G4A+, it is absolutely bursting with added extras..
Monitor Buying Guide - Your eyes are very important, and a small cheap 15 monitor will strain your eyes after a long stint in front of the screen. Good quality monitors are becoming easier to get hold of without spending large amounts of cash, TFT's are still too new and a little out of the general reach of Joe public...
How to install and run an HTTP server on Windows - Well, there are a myriad of reasons someone may want to have a Web server, including: having a private website, hosting a site for yourself or someone else, testing purposes, or just for the fun of fooling around and learning from it.
Windows XP Professional / Home Edition Service Pack 1 Utility - Windows XP Home Edition startup disks will not work for Windows XP Professional installations and vice-versa. Download: WinXP Professional with SP1 Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install / W inXP Home Edition with SP1 Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install.
Tweak-XP v2.0.2 - Tweak-XP (download) was developed to combine both tweaking and optimizing features to increase the speed of your Windows XP system.
Partition Magic v8.0 - PartitionMagic includes BootMagict allowing you to effortlessly switch between multiple operating systems safely and without compatibility problems. You can password protect your boot process as well as change start up options and menu items for all your operating systems. All within a graphical interfacce -- a comfortable and easy-to-use environment.
Zoom Player 2.90 Alpha 3 - Zoom Player (changelog) provides special zooming functions to improve TV-Output quality by eliminating overscan. Zoom Player's scaling system allows you to exactly match the video area to your screen's dimensions in real-time with adjustable background color in order to test for brightness bleeds.
Free BIOS Tool SMBIOS 3.02 - The System Management BIOS/Desktop Management Interface (DOS version) provides a mechanism to display a wide variety of information about the current system including serial numbers of component parts (to the extent that they are machine-readable), BIOS information (capabilities, version, etc.), CPU information (capabilities, version, etc.), Slot information, Physical memory and Cache information, Port connectors, Motherboard information, and numerous other information.
IsoBuster v1.1 - Freeware IsoBuster lets you explore a CD's File System while by-passing Windows This way you get better Error handling and several retry-mechanisms to aid you in getting the data anyway (or at least partially), more CDs stay 'readable' after problems (such as Buffer Underrun), read and extraction from CD-i, VCD, SVCD, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, DVD, DVCD, mpg (*.dat) Extraction and dat2mpg 'in one', Short File-names <-> Long File-names, recursive directory extracting, and more.
PowerStrip 3.28 Beta Build 339 - PowerStrip 3.28 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest SiS Xabre and Radeon 9700.
Fantom CD 1.2.1 Build 1860 - Fantom CD is a program for reading CDs and running CD programs without a CD by creating a virtual CD-ROM drive on the hard disk using software methods. This emulator allows you to run CD-ROM applications from your hard drive or network server.
Flash your Lite-On 24103S/32123S to a 40125S - An user of our forum called Maik has posted a firmware on his site that allows you to flash your Lite-On 24103S/32123S to a 40125S. Several people (also two of our moderators/experts) have already confirmed that it works.
VIA Audio drivers - VIA Tech has released new drivers for the internal AC97 sound in their chipsets i.e. south bridges VT686A, VT686B, VT8231, VT8233, VT8233A, VT8233C and VT8235. The version carries the 3.11c number and works on Windows 9x/ME/2K/XP and Linux.
NVIDIA Detonator drivers 31.40 - I just noticed 31.40 driver for Windows 2000/XP has appeared online. This one is dated 30/08/02, so only 3 days newer then the 40.41 driver.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,21 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:01 AM CEST - Sep,21 2002 - Post a comment

Microsoft buys game developer Rare - Nintendo said in a statement that it has sold its 49 percent interest in Rare--developer of games based on popular Nintendo franchises such as Donkey Kong--but declined to name the buyer or price. But Peter MacDougall, executive vice president at Nintendo of America, confirmed to CNET News.com that the sale was part of Rare's acquisition by Microsoft, which now owns Nintendo's 49 percent stake and Rare's majority share.
Lawmaker wants 2006 digital TV deadline - A proposal released Thursday by Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, would require broadcasters to transmit digital signals by the beginning of 2006, and require them to cease standard, analog broadcasts by the end of that year. The new, high-definition signals could only be picked up by digital TVs and recording devices that included built-in anti-piracy features, according to the Louisiana Republican's draft bill.
U.S. Busts 'Date Rape' Internet Drug Traffickers - U.S. and Canadian authorities arrested 115 people and broke up four distribution rings in the first crackdown on Internet traffickers of "date rape" drugs, officials said on Thursday. Asa Hutchinson, director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said DEA agents and law enforcement officials began "Operation Webslinger" on Wednesday and were following up on Thursday. It has resulted in 115 arrests in 84 cities across the United States and in Quebec City, Canada. "We have dismantled four nationwide drug distribution rings in this first-ever operation that targets Internet traffickers of the date-rape drugs called GHB, GBL and 1,4 Butanediol or BD," Hutchinson said. "These criminals are leaders and mid-level brokers of Internet drug-trafficking rings.
Rings around Earth shaped past climate: study - Resembling the rocky halos that encircle Saturn, one such terrestrial ring might have chilled the globe considerably about 35 million years ago. The geologic record indicates that Earth endured a brutal cold spell at the time, possibly sparked by a debris ring that persisted from 100,000 to several million years, the New Mexico researchers said.
UK firm creates GPS tracker for kids - Parents in the UK will soon be able to track the whereabouts of their children using a GPS device that can be partly disguised as a badge. The product, called Kidcontact, is due to be released before Christmas and uses both GPS and mobile technology to monitor the location of the child wearing it. Kids can also alert their parents in an emergency with the click of a button, its makers have claimed. When released, it will cost L495 plus VAT.
Spider-Man to spin game on Web - Marvel Enterprises Inc. has licensed its universe of 4,700 comic book characters to Vivendi Universal Publishing for 10 years, the two companies said Thursday. Vivendi Universal will develop the characters into games that can be played by thousands of people at a time over the Internet.
Sun reveals open source PC plans - Sun Microsystems has announced plans to provide an open source PC to companies seeking a lower cost alternative to Microsoft-based desktops. Chief executive Scott McNealy unveiled the initiative - called Project Mad Hatter - at the vendor's SunNetwork user conference in San Francisco. Sun is not planning to sell the product as a general-purpose PC in direct competition to existing suppliers. McNealy said it would provide a "compelling but limited-use environment" for users whose main need from a desktop is for web browser access plus local productivity tools such as word processing and email.
Nokia 3650 Symbian phone unveiled - Like the Nokia 7650, the 3650 sports an integrated digital camera capable of taking pictures in VGA resolution, 4 MB RAM a 12-bit color display, GSM, GPRS, HSCSD and Bluetooth - but there are some subtle differences as well. Apart from the updated looks of the 3650, which sports a rotary style keypad, the phone has tri-band and not dual-band GSM, its Bluetooth is likely to support Bluetooth headsets and car kits - meaning it's v1.1, and there is also an integrated MMC card expansion slot. (read announcement).
Nvidia to launch NV18 and NV28 chips on September 25 - Nvidia's long-awaited NV18 and NV28 graphics chips will finally be launched worldwide on September 25, formally leading the company into the AGP 8x market. The NV18 and NV28 in fact differ little from the former NV17 and NV25 chips in core structures, except that the two new products are able to support the latest AGP 8x graphics technology. According to sources, the NV18 and NV28 will be named the GeForce4 MX440 8x and GeForce4 Ti 4200 8x, respectively, following Nvidia's two better-selling products, and will be priced only slightly higher than the current chips + X-bitlabs.com have the latest Info and screenshots.
GeForce 4 Ti: Which Version Delivers The Most Bang For Buck? - NV18 and NV28 are imminent, which will add AGP 8X support to GeForce 4 MX and Ti, and of course, the next flagship GPU, NV30 is also headed toward final production. But in the meanwhile, board makers of nVidia-based products have begun to aggressively cut prices in an effort to stimulate demand for the GeForce 4 Ti-based offerings. A recent search on PriceWatch found 128MB Ti 4600 boards for as little as $235, a far cry from the $399 premium nVidia and its board partners could command a short while ago. But with NV30 just around the corner, and a little tsunami named Radeon 9700 soon becoming widely available, boards using GeForce 4 Ti GPUs are going at near fire sale prices.
Error With Add/Remove Programs Using Service Pack 1 - I've noticed quite a few people asking questions about getting errors when using Add/Remove Programs, when Windows XP Service Pack 1 is installed, so I've decided to do a quick "How-To" on fixing the problem.
XtraWarp 1.1 Final - XtraWarp (download) is specifically designed to optimize your application tuning time in real-time. It is monitoring your all running processes and Optimize them for your specific needs (Media, Games, Graphics applications).
Fresh Diagnose 5.0 - Fresh Diagnose - your FREE System Information & PC Benchmarking software - just got better with the release of version 5.0.
Pioneer DVD-R/W Firmware Update (Important) - As the DVD Forum releases the specifications for high-speed media, Pioneer Europe NV announces that a number of its DVD-R/RW computer drives and DVD-R/RW recorders will require a firmware update in order to use the new media and avoid potential damage to the units and media. This problem is caused by a "bug" in the unit's firmware. The firmware update corrects internal code in the recorders and drives, which would otherwise malfunction when attempting to record to blank new high-speed media. The update process is simple and it is extremely important that consumers make sure it is completed prior to using the new high-speed media.
Leadtek Detonator Drivers 31.00 + WinFox - Leadtek has released a new version of Nvidia Detonator driver 31.00 for Win9x/ME / Win2K/XP / WinNT4, and also a new version of Winfox Tool 5.13.01.2002-2.27

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,20 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:39 AM CEST - Sep,20 2002 - Post a comment

Online gaming makes room for Hulk - Media conglomerate Vivendi Universal announced an agreement Thursday with Marvel Enterprises to create a massive multiplayer online game based on Marvel comics characters. Vivendi said in a statement that it expects to have the game ready by 2005. The Hulk and the X-Men will have to fight for attention in an increasingly crowded market. Almost every major game publisher is planning huge virtual universes they hope will draw new customers into the small but lucrative online-gaming market, currently dominated by fantasy games such as "EverQuest."
Creator defends Gulf War game - A computer games maker has denied that its new title is cashing in on threats of a war with Iraq. Launched this month, SCi's Conflict: Desert Storm is set during the 1991 Gulf War. Rob Murphy, the company's finance director, told news website Ananova that the timing was purely coincidental, and that the game has been in development for three years. But the current situation with Iraq has had a huge impact on sales, with the game selling out within five hours at one central London games retailer on launch day.
Linux rootkit hacker suspect arrested in UK - A 21-year old from UK man has been arrested on suspicion of writing and distributing the T0rn rootkit, which dumbs down the process of hacking Linux servers. Officers from Scotland Yard's Computer Crime Unit arrested the man for alleged offences under Computer Misuse Act 1990 earlier this week, as part of a joint FBI/Scotland Yard investigation into the creation of the T0rn rootkit. A search warrant was served and computer equipment seized from his house. Today the man was released on police bail until October pending further inquiries.
Programmer faces terror charge - A computer programmer is due to appear in court today charged with allegedly collecting information that could be used by terrorists. Mohammed Abdullah Azam will appear at Bow Street Magistrates' Court under the Terrorism Act 2000. The 32 year-old from Luton is one of four people arrested under the Act. Three men, two aged 21 and one aged 23, were released yesterday with the police taking no further action.
Motorola mega-leak: the agony lingers on - Moto told CNET yesterday that it wouldn't be taking legal action against the Czech site mobil manilmania.cz which has portions of the presentation, including some details not seen before. (For example, the TA02.7, a dual-band 900/1800 phone).
Self-Cleaning Glass - Self-cleaning glass has been the dream of flat-glass manufacturers such as Pilkington for some time. But having cracked the mystery last year, the company initially launched the product in Ireland, Austria and the US. Today, the bandwagon has rolled into the UK en-route across Europe. "The key to Activ glass is an ultra-thin coating only 40 nm thick," Philip Webb a spokesperson for Pilkington told Optics.org. "It is applied to the glass surface during the manufacturing process."
Creative Presents Audigy 2 - The Spanish site meristation.com is reporting that Creative gave a presentation about the card, even though it has not been announced here in the US yet. Some specs: DVD Audio, Dolby Digital EX 6.1 o THX de Lucasfilm and backwards standards compatible, Playback in 24 bits y 192 kHz, 106dB Signal to noise level (6 dB more than old generation), Recording in 24 bit/96 KHz, Frequency response from 10 Hz to 46 kHz.
Backing Up Your Copy Protected Games & CD's - The software that I have settled on, after trying CloneCD, BlindWrite and many others is a very good, very easy to use package called CD-MATE (homepage). This software has a wide range of capabilities and offers a free 30 day trial. If you choose to keep it, they ask you pay the $30 registration fee, which is well worth it, IMHO. The hardware that works best is far and away the Lite-On 24102B drive. I have read that the 32x, 40x and 48x models have the same amazing ability to copy just about everything you can come up with, so you should have no worries at all. Still, if you can find a Lite-On 24102B, more power to you.
Security Update for MS Java VM - An attacker could exploit the flaws by getting the victim to view a certain Web site with the code embedded in page. HTML e-mail could also be a danger, unless the recipient uses Outlook 2002, Outlook Express 6.0 or has installed the Outlook E-mail Security Update. Finally, those who used the Internet Explorer security settings to disable Java applets won't be affected by the vulnerabilities.
WinDVD Tweaker 4.03 - WinDVD Tweaker is designed to allow users of the WinDVD playback software to enable some hidden settings and allow for maximum playback pleasure.
IE Opera 6.5 - Freeware IE Opera, an opera of Internet Explorer, is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser. IE Opera allows user to browse multiple Web sites simultaneously and block all unwanted pop-up pages. All opened pages can be easily stopped, refreshed, closed or arranged with one click. The integrated cleaner helps user to clear all traces and keep privacy. Built-in Google search engine enables user to search for web pages and images in Internet.
Win .NET 2003 Server, Standard and Enterprise Build 3681 Leaked - New builds of .NET 2003 Server, Standard and Enterprise are now available.
Pentium 4 utility - The utility will switch on and off some Pentium 4 configuration flags such as prefetch, fast strings and the like, so you can maybe play with the software and see how it works.
Unreal Convertor - This program allows you to convert UT 2nd CD Texture Packages to Unreal = compatible packages!
UT2003 Weapons Guide - PlanetUnreal have updated their UT2003 weapons guide with the latest info, tips, and tactics. I can almost guarantee you'll learn something!
GoldenHawk CDRWIN 3.9B - CDRWIN is a CD recording program supporting binary (.BIN), cue sheets (.CUE), overburning, MP3 burning, disc copy, track ripping, and much more. There is no change-log what is new.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,19 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:53 AM CEST - Sep,19 2002 - Post a comment

Signs of water found on distant planets - Italian astronomers have found signs of water, a necessary ingredient for life, in the atmosphere of planets orbiting distant stars.
Indian center plans teraflop supercomputer - The Bhabha Atomic Research Center (Barc), India's leading atomic research organization, said it has developed a supercomputer with a sustained speed of 43 gigaflops. According to news reports, the supercomputer, dubbed Anupam-PIV, uses 64 Pentium 4 processors each running at 1.7 GHz with 256 Mbits of memory each.
Motorola 2003 Phone Plan Leaked on Internet - Motorola on Wednesday said a preliminary plan for the phones it expects to launch in 2003 leaked onto the Internet earlier this week. According to the plan, posted by a member of online mobile phone discussion Web site Howard Forums, Motorola is planning to introduce phones with more multimedia features such as high-resolution color screens, musical ring tones, two-way video conferencing and photo downloading capabilities. The phones are expected to be released throughout 2003, the posting said.
Test equipment precedes demand for 40-Gbit networks - Test equipment for 40-Gbit/second networking continues to emerge, as vendors at the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference announced products illustrating that the technology is ready even if the market isn't. Spirent Communications announced 43-Gbit/s optical interfaces for its OTA-4400 bit-error-rate tester, complementing the system's previously announced ability to test electronics at that speed.
Warchalking is theft, says Nokia - Warchalking, the technique of highlighting areas where wireless networks can be accessed freely, has been blasted as theft. And the practitioners of warchalking are being slammed as bandwidth thieves in an advisory issued by mobile and wireless vendor Nokia.
Creative Interview Interview - Guru3D has conducted an interview with Creative Labs Europe as they discuss the recent switch back to NVIDIA chipsets and also cover the reason why Europe will never see the Creative-branded 9700.
Image-projection keyboard eyes mobile gear - Canesta Inc. has launched its first product, a projectable keyboard that could help solve the problem of how to get lots of text into pocket-sized devices. The Integrated Canesta Keyboard is based on a controller and two optical components that project the image of a keyboard onto any flat surface and use a light source to track the movement of fingers on that image.
Corrupt CDs List - There's a list of the music CDs that 1. Prevent you from copying it for personal use or from playing it on computerized devices (computers, DVD players, game consoles like PlayStation, MP3 players, consumer CD duplicators, high-end stereo equipment and car CD players). 2. In the United States, Canada and the UK, these "copy-protected" CDs are often unmarked. Once you buy it, you can only exchange it and hope that the replacement isn't garbage too.
MS silently fixes password sniffing bug with XP SP1 - Keystrokes, including passwords, can be sniffed when using Windows Terminal Server or the XP remote control feature. MS has rolled a fix silently into SP1 without making any public statement on this serious problem.
Lindows v2.0 - Version 2.0 offers networking features for connecting with Windows-based PCs, support for more printers and a streamlined interface similar to the Windows desktop (announcement / ISO release notes / screenshots).
ABIT system brings high performance to budget GeForce4 - ABIT is making a play for the high performance graphics market with a new cooling system that it claims will allow you to push performance of a GeForce4 Ti4200 chip up to the level of a Ti4600. The company has just completed a European tour extolling the virtues of the Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES, which will be available on 23rd September, and expects a UK street price for the card below L150, so you get Ti4600 for about half the price.
2GHz Celeron Introduced - Intel today introduced the Intel Celeron processor at 2 GHz. Intel Celeron processors provide consumers with a great way to get on the Internet. The Intel Celeron processor at 2 GHz delivers the right combination of features and frequency at an appropriate price point for the value desktop consumer market segment. Based on the 0.13-micron process technology, the processor utilizes the 478-pin packaging, and features a 400 MHz system bus. In 1,000-unit quantities, the desktop Intel Celeron processor at 2 GHz is priced at $103.
ATI 9000 Round-Up - In general, the RADEON 9000 Pro beats the GeForce4 MX 440 by a small margin and often lags behind the MX 460 (being cheaper). Therefore, we can say that this solution takes a middle position on the market. In spite of some performance inferiority the RADEON 9000 Pro has better prospects than the GeForce4 MX 460 because the latter lacks both for shaders (except half-hardware vertex shaders) and normal high-level anisotropy.
The Satellite Pro 6100 Review (Toshiba's high performance notebook) - As you might have guessed it the addition of the NVIDIA Geforce4 420 GO chip and S-Video out makes a great necessity for presenting business orientated presentations on large monitors or projectors. With its integrated P4 1.7Gig mobile chipset the Satellite Pro 6100 delivers a new dimension to modern day mobile computing for the business user. The aspect able performance enables consumers to run today's modern business based applications at maximum efficiency. Working with word, excel, PowerPoint and even advanced programs such as 3D studio max shouldn't be a problem with this notebook
CDRW Round-Up - LiteOn LTR-48125W CD-RW / Lite-on LTR-40125S CD-RW / Samsung 40x12x40 CD-RW / Yamaha CRW-F1 CD-RW
Self Booting Linux CD with UT2003 Demo - Epic Games' much-anticipated Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo is now available on a self-booting Gentoo Linux-based LiveCD, allowing you to play the Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo using any modern PC with an NVIDIA GeForce 2 or greater graphics card and a CD-ROM drive. Full networking, OSS sound and Creative Soundblaster Live! and Audigy support included, allowing for the full gaming experience including LAN/Internet play, EAX environmental audio and of course 3D accelerated OpenGL graphics. The CD also serves as a fully-functional Gentoo Linux installation CD. You can download the CD using this link.
Sonique2 Alpha 2.1.9.18 - An updated build of the second alpha of Sonique2 has been released.
Windows Commander 5.11 - A new version of Windows Commander (download ~ mirror) has been just released. This new version 5.11 fixed: 1) Copying to device with trailing colon (e.g. prn:) was no longer possible; 2) Searching on multiple drives was not working if space after ";", e.g. c:\; d:\; e:\ ; 3) Packing with ARJ no longer packed recursively (folders in subfolders were not packed); 4) Files in subdirs may be copied in reverse order; 5) WinXP: Some associations stopped working.
GNOME 2.0.2 - GNOME project has built a complete free and easy-to-use desktop environment for the user, as well as a powerful application framework for the software developer. GNOME is included in pretty much every BSD and GNU/Linux distribution and works on many other Unix systems.
Windows XP SP1 International versions - Download WinXP SP1 Brazilian / Dutch / English / French / German / Italian / Japanese / Spanish / Swedish.
Hardware Sensors Monitor v4.1.1.1. - Hardware Sensors Monitor has been updated to version 4.1.1.1. This new version adds support for Winbond W83791D, W83637HF, W83L784R, W83L785R.
MSN Messenger 5 Build 527 Leaked - There is a new leaked build the MSN Messenger 5.0.
HyperSnap-DX 5.00 Beta 3 - HyperSnap-DX 5 is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games. This new beta features 2 new functions added to "Image" menu - "Shadow..." - adds a drop shadow to the image, and "Frame..." - adds a flat or 3D frame. They add the shadow or frame around the current selection, or around the entire image if selection is not visible or re-set to entire image. They also have an option to auto-add a frame and a shadow to all screen captures you make.
VIA Audio Drivers Pack v3.11c - VIA released a new audio drivers pack version 3.11c.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,18 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:03 AM CEST - Sep,18 2002 - Post a comment

Negotiations Under Way for Seat on Russian Space Shuttle - Pepsi-Cola Co. is negotiating a deal for what could be one of the highest-profile promotions in marketing history: an unprecedented $35 million program that would award the winner a ticket to ride on the Russian Soyuz space shuttle. Should it reach agreement on buying a seat on the rocket, the soft-drink giant would back the program with a powerhouse marketing budget. Among its plans: a reality TV show with contestants competing to win a trip to space. Executives working on Pepsi-Cola's behalf are fashioning a program around the concept and are negotiating with at least one undisclosed network, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Pioneer DVD drives too hot to handle - The consumer-electronics maker says its DVD-rewritable drives overheat when recording on certain high-speed disks.
Cheap PCs boosted by DVD burners - PCs with recordable DVD drives, a feature once found only on high end machines earlier this year, will likely be seen for $1,000, analysts and executives predict.
PlayStation 2 gets TiVo-like functions - Sony's PlayStation 2 video game console will gain TiVo-like video functions with software to be announced Monday by two start-ups.
CD pirates add blow-torches to arsenal - US record company is battling pirates by issuing reviewers with portable CD players that are glued shut so that the disc cannot be removed. Epic Records is sealing CD players and gluing headphones onto them to stop digital copies being made from promotional albums. Many in the record industry believe that the leak in security comes from journalists handing music to pirates, or simply leaving pre-release CDs on their desks.
Talk To a Convicted Warez Guy - Chris Tresco is one of those evil "software pirates" cybermoms warn you about. He was a sysadmin at MIT, and also a member of "the secretive Internet software trading ring known as 'DrinkOrDie'" who got caught by the DoJ's Operation Buccaneer, got convicted, and was sentenced to 33 months in prison on August 16. Chris has a little time left on the outside before he goes away and has agreed to spend some of it answering your questions, so ask away.
Atari Jaguar Interview - Toxic Mag has posted an interview with John Mathieson, creator of the short-lived Atari Jaguar 64-bit game system - the system we can thank for such awesome games as the original Alien vs. Predator, Iron Soldier, and the gorgeously psychedelic Tempest 2000.
Razer Boomslang 2000dpi Review - The first thing you notice with this mouse is its sheer size and shape. The Razer is much flatter or lower than current mice out on the market. This makes long gaming periods more "natural" feeling and reduces tension on the wrist. Once you have it in your hand you will notice its weight. The Boomslang weighs much more than current popular mouse. Most likely because of it's "old school" track ball. Some say that the Razer Boomslang actually reminds them of, *bites tongue*, a Star Trek phaser.
Quadband DDR Article - Currently, DDR SDRAM cannot keep pace with the demands of these new CPU's and high performance system components. The PC industry has been planning for this eventuality by developing a new specification for DDR memory enabling it to scale to higher frequencies. This successor named DDR II is still a few years away with samples expected in 2004.
WinXP + SP1 = 56% CPU Usage @ Idle? - Shortly after installing SP1 on WinXP Pro I noticed a few games were running a bit choppier, also a slight keyboard lag. I checked my CPU Usage and sure enough, 56% and my computer was idle. I did some service tweaks, and no help. I noticed my IDE HDD Controller reverted back to a MS version. Previously I had the Via 4-1 Controlling this. I reinstalled the 4.43 4in1's manually. Removed the SB Audigy Drivers (suspected component) and updated my Nvidia Drivers (Surely not related to the problem) And now my cpu usage is back below 5% when idle.
NetCaptor 7.0.2 Beta 2 - The small IE based browser NetCaptor has been updated to version 7.0.2 Beta 2.
News Interceptor 1.0 - If you have not installed it yet, visit the official News Interceptor site to download this new version.
WindowBlinds 3.41 - WindowBlinds is the first utility of its kind. It extends Windows XP, Windows 98, ME, NT, and 2000 to have a fully skinnable user interface. You can change the style of title bars, buttons, toolbars and much more. It gives you total control over your graphical user interface.
Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility v4.61 - The Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility was developed by Intel Corporation to enable consumers the ability to identify and, in some circumstances, determine if their Intel processor is operating at the correct and rated frequency intended by Intel Corporation. Beginning with the PentiumR processor, this utility provides consumers with the ability to determine standard CPU identification of Intel processors. In addition, supported processors can utilize the Frequency Test feature of the utility to help determine if a processor has been overclocked.
Realtek's RTL8139(A/B/C/D/8130)/810X WinXP Drivers - Realtek have released Windows XP driver v5.04 for Realtek's RTL8139(A/B/C/D/8130)/810X network card series.
KYRO Drivers v1.06.16.0051 - A new WHQL drivers for the KYRO line of cards has been released.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,17 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:50 AM CEST - Sep,17 2002 - Post a comment

Remote Security Monitoring Over Pocket PC 2002 Devices - Axis Communications announced last week the launch of AXIS Camera Explorer (ACE) for Pocket PC, a software package that allows Pocket PC 2002 users to receive video from Axis network video equipment so that they can remotely monitor secure areas.
SonyEricsson P800 slips to 2003? - The briefest of reports at French website Mobilmag suggests that the much-hyped SonyEricsson P800, which integrates PDA and a 2.5G cameraphone, has been delayed until January 2003. The story doesn't cite any sources, but says that stability concerns are the reason for the delay. A spokesman for SonyEricsson told us this morning that "we will start shipping the P800 to operators in a few weeks, with availability in selected markets during Q4." Which suggests that some markets won't see it until 2003.
New AES crypto standard broken already? - Theoretical attacks against AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) winner Rijndael and runner-up Serpent have been published. They might work in the practical world; they might not.
Speed of light broken with basic lab kit - Electric signals can be transmitted at least four times faster than the speed of light using only basic equipment that would be found in virtually any college science department. Scientists have sent light signals at faster-than-light speeds over the distances of a few metres for the last two decades - but only with the aid of complicated, expensive equipment. Now physicists at Middle Tennessee State University have broken that speed limit over distances of nearly 120 metres, using off-the-shelf equipment costing just $500.
Designing AUTOnomy - It had to have four wheels, but pretty much everything else was open for consideration. When General Motors decided to develop an all-new fuel-cell vehicle with electronic (rather than mechanical), drive-by-wire controls, our team started with a clean sheet. The early result was our first concept vehicle, AUTOnomy. The working demonstration model, named Hy-wire, is being introduced officially to the world on September 26, 2002, during the Paris Auto Show.
Sony shows its first Blu-Ray disc recorder for consumers - Sony showed to the public its next-generation, optical disc video recorder for consumers that is based on the "Blu-ray Disc" format leveraging blue-violet laser beam technology. The company showed the product during the press pre-view session on Sept. 11, 2002 at the "Sony Dream World 2002" exhibition held at Pacifico Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture. The new recording format can accommodate a single-sided single layer media with a capacity of 23.3GB, 25GB or 27GB, with a data transfer rate of 36Mbps, or x1 speed of the specification. In the exhibition hall, four units of the optical disc recorders were displayed to appeal as post-DVD products.
HW Round-Up - Radeon 9700 / MSI GeForce4 Ti4600-VTD MS-8872 / round-up of five GeForce4 Ti4600's /Corsair 256MB PC2700 DDR / Seagate Barracuda SATA V (Serial ATA and the 7 Deadly Sins Of Parallel ATA)
Confirmed 9700 Bug - In certain cases, after installing the RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB in an AGP 8x capable motherboard, the system will not post, or boot up. Not all AGP 8x motherboards are affected. Some Customer's have reported that lowering the AGP transfer speed in some instances, will allow the system to then post. ATI Engineering has been advised of this issue and is investigating. Any updates will appear on this page when they become available.
Sharky's Tweak Guide - Today's video cards become increasingly advanced, the sheer number of options and tweaks that go unseen to the average user seems to increase. Sometimes these remain unseen because ATI and NVIDIA will often neglect, or outright refuse, to make these tweaks available with their standard driver package. While many of these configurable items can be relatively benign, there are still a healthy number of extremely rewarding (we're talking extra performance and image quality here) options that can greatly enhance the visual quality and speed of modern ATI and NVIDIA video cards.
Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo Tweak Guides - Both Techspot and TweakTown have posted an Unreal Tournament 2003 demo tweak guides.
Netscape and Mozilla Bug - The bug reveals the URL of the page a user is viewing to the Web server of the site visited last. This allows a Web server to track where users go after they leave the site, even if the next Web address comes from a bookmark or is manually typed into the browser.
Outlook Express Lets Attackers Skirt Filters - A feature in Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook Express mail client that enables users to send large e-mails in several parts can also be used by virus writers and attackers to sneak malicious code past filters and anti-virus software.
The feature is disabled by default but can be enabled with a few mouse clicks from the Tools drop-down menu. The tool is meant mainly for users on slow, dial-up connections who need to send large e-mails. When enabled, it breaks messages into two or more parts, sends them to the recipient, whose mail client then automatically reassembles them into one message before delivery.
Windows Media Player Series 9 Fix - Blistering-Games is the first to release a fix for the Media Player Series 9 bug whereby Media Player errors when playing certain MP3-encoded files." Certainly worth checking out if you've got the new Media Player 9.
Detonator re-jig for Win 98 "on the way" - Allaying the fears of many gamers that graphics company Nvidia may be dropping support for Windows 98 operating systems in its Detonator driver series, the company says a new version of the driver is on the way for this favoured relic. UK Public relations spinster Andrew Humber assured the INQUIRER that a version of the 40.41 Detonator driver that includes support for Windows 98 is in the pipeline.
VMWare 3.20 - VMware Workstation 3.2 has been released! Workstation 3.2 is available as a free update to all registered customers of Workstation 3.0 and 3.1; you can download the updated binary packages below. Existing Workstation 3.0 and 3.1 serial numbers will work with VMware Workstation 3.2.
jv16 PowerTools 1.1.0.146 Beta - jv16 PowerTools is basically the Tool to control your computer. Until now your computer might had been the one who is in charge, but with jv16 PowerTools you can take the control. The program contains all the tools needed for monitoring, cleaning and controlling the registry, the file system and your Local Area Network.
FlashFXP v2.0 RC3 Build 878 - FlashFXP is the most powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market today. This new build fixed some random crashes on exit and the transfer complete status message wasn't always displaying the exact file size.
BeSweet v1.4RC8 - With BeSweet, you can backup your DVD's audio into MP3 / MP2 / OGG / AIFF / WAV & CD.
BootXP v2.25 RC1 - A new version of Boot XP has been released.
Powerstrip 3.28 Final - The final version of Powerstrip 3.28 has been just released.
nVHardPage NVIDIA Tweaker v1.01.9b - This program serves on enabling/disabling hidden features in NVIDIA control panel and tweaking NVIDIA Direct3D & OpenGL settings.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,15 2002 - tech

Sunday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:51 PM CEST - Sep,15 2002 - Post a comment

Keanu Tapped for Superman's New 'Excellent Adventure'? - According to FoxNews.com, Keanu Reeves, star of Warner Bros.'s very successful The Matrix has been tapped by director Brett Ratner, to play the Man of Steel in Superman: Last Son of Krypton. Jeffrey Abrams, who wrote the feature Regarding Henry and invented TV's "Felicity" series, wrote the final, accepted script.
The "Slapper" worm successfully uses the 14-year old technology - Kaspersky Labs warns about the detection of a new dangerous "Slapper"
Internet-worm that infects computers running Linux operating system and uses the source code spreading technology, which was used in the notorious Morris Worm in 1988.
Massive credit card heist suspected - A Los Angeles-based Internet company said that 140,000 fake credit card charges, worth $5.07 each, were processed through its transaction system Thursday, in a computer scam that may have affected as many as 25 companies. The apparent fraud suggests that a computer criminal may have obtained a sizable list of stolen credit card numbers and was testing them for validity, credit card fraud expert Dan Clements said.
Security vulnerabilities persist after IE 6 patch - The patch release, known as "Service Pack 1" was posted Monday on Microsoft's Web site and contains fixes for more than 300 issues with Internet Explorer 6, which was first released with the Windows XP operating system in October of 2001. Despite the fixes, however, security experts warn that significant vulnerabilities remain even after applying the patch.
USC to Students: No Sharing Files - Napster started in a college kid's dorm room. Now, students at USC face the prospect of campus life without Net access if they're caught swapping MP3s and other files on the school's network.
Nevada May Legalize Marijuana - A measure on the ballot November 5 would make Nevada the first state to allow adults to possess marijuana -- up to 3 ounces, enough for maybe 100 joints. People over 21 would be allowed to smoke it in their homes but not in cars or public places. Pot would be sold in state-licensed smoke shops and taxed like cigarettes.
Motherboard Round-Up - MSI KT3 ULTRA Non RAID (MS-6380E) / AOpen AX4B-533 Tube Motherboard / 533MHz FSB P4 Chipset Shootout
Video HW Round-Up - ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro / Hercules Prophet 9000 PRO 128Mb / Abit's 64MB Siluro GeForce 4 Ti 4200 / Albatron GeForce4 MX440 64MB / GeForce4 4200TI 128MB DDR / GeForce4 based TV-Out chips + comparison / Matrox Parhelia-512 / 3DForce Xabre400Q 128MB (videoreview) /
Miscelanous HW Round-Up - Vantec 520W Stealth Power Supply (videoreview) / Plextor External USB 2.0 PlexWriter / Highpoint RocketRAID 404 / Samsung SP8004H 80G and SP4002H 40G HD / Yamaha CRW-F1 44/24/44 CDRW
ATI Shop - Trade-up Program - ATI's trade-up program allows you to upgrade your existing graphic card, no matter who made it, to a new ATI product at an awesome discounted price. ATI will provide a substantial cash credit to your purchase, when you turn-in your current graphics card. ATI eliminates the down-time involved in online graphic card purchasing by sending you your new board in advance to install and try out. Once you're satisfied with it, return your old card for a substantial trade-in cash credit (applied to your credit card purchase).
W2K SP3 Fix For Windows Update - Warp2Search has posted solution on the W2K SP3/Windows Update issue.
UT 2003 Demo Benchmarking Information - Here are all the ways I have found out to benchmark in UT2003 Demo.
UT 2003 Voodoo FIX ASAP - They're fixing it and there will be a patch that addresses that plus a few other major bugs they discovered. Keep watching the Official Unreal Tournament 2003 Site for news of its release.
Norton LiveUpdate v1.80.19.0 - Norton have released a new version of LiveUpdate v1.80.19.0.
Return Recycle Bin back to normal after installing NAV2003 Pro - This article shows you how to return the Recycle Bin back to normal after installing Norton AntiVirus 2003 Professional Edition with Win2k/Win XP and Win9x.
Problems with 40.41 drivers and UT2003 demo - The NVIDIA 40.41 drivers are known to have visual flaws and performance problems (hitching) with the Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo which are not present in the 30.82 drivers. The issue has been addressed by NVIDIA and future drivers released by NVIDIA will contain the appropriate fixes.If you are currently running the 40.41 drivers please either downgrade to 30.82 or install newer drivers when available.
DAEMON TOOLS MDS File - In the latest ProtectCD 5c version our vendor name 'V386' has been blacklisted (e.g. Port Royale Patch 1.20). Please change it to another value by right-clicking the DAEMON Tools tray icon and selecting 'Virtual CD-/DVDROM' -> 'Set device parameters'. We also added the MDS-File for Industry Giant 2c (english version).
Morpheus v2.0.1.8 - Morpheus (freeware) provides a full-featured and easy-to-use P2P application that allows users to share content across the Morpheus Users Network.
WinDVD Tweaker 4.02 - WinDVD Tweaker is designed to allow users of the WinDVD playback software to enable some hidden settings and allow for maximum playback pleasure. Now the tweaker supports WinDVD v4.0.
MagicTweak 1.93 - MagicTweak (download) is a special program designed to optimize and personalize Microsoft Windows. This unique software makes it easy to tweak hundreds of hidden settings in Windows, so there is no need to dig through the registry looking for that specific setting (from Start Menu,Desktop,IE skin,System Icon to System Security) that just doesn't seem to be there.
Tweak-XP v2.0.1 - Tweak-XP bundles more than 22 different utilities in one: it was developed to combine both tweaking and optimizing features to increase the speed of your Windows XP system.
Disable Windows Messenger In XP - A freeware, small file to prevent Windows Messenger from running on Windows XP. This file should save you the trouble of manually tinkering with your registry to disable Messenger. We have tested and verified this file, but do suggest you backup your registry before applying.
Easy CD-DA Extractor 5.02 - Easy CD-DA Extractor is a powerful and easy digital audio extraction utility that makes digital copies from audio CDs and saves as audio files such as MP3, Windows Media Audio and Windows Wave. You may use built-in encoders, get plug-ins for other free encoders, or use any Windows audio compression codec.
Real7ime Converter (R7C) v1.1 - Real7ime Converter (R7C) is a converter of any RealPlayer(tm) streaming medias (video and sound) to AVI/WAV/MP3 format. This new version 1.1 adds "Add Audio" compression in AVI with DirectShow filters, fixes VideoSurface problem (crash), and more.
Fujitsu-Siemens Detonators 31.00 WHQL - Fujitsu Siemens Computers have released Nvidia Detonator 31.00 WHQL for WinXP/2k / Win9x/ME.
Realtek AC97 Audio Driver v3.29 - There are new Realtek AC97 Audio drivers version 2.39 for ALC 1xx 2xx and 6xx Audio chipsets.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,14 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:43 AM CEST - Sep,14 2002 - Post a comment / read (1)

Chip implants--game plan for Sony? - Sony ads predict a surgically-implanted game controller by 2075--and what about other devices, too? Will medical experts replace hardware engineers in product development?
Robotic Indiana Jones to penetrate pyramid - The National Geographic Society, using the same kind of robot used to search for survivors in the ruins of the World Trade Center, is trying to solve a mystery that lies deep in the bowels of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza. A mini-robot, dubbed the pyramid rover, has been called in. This modern marvel is about 5.5 inches wide and 1 foot long. Its four sets of treads, two above and two below, engage the bottom and the top of the tunnel to give it traction.
PlayStation 2 gamers claim foul play - While Sony's online gaming experiment is only a few weeks old, PlayStation 2 gamers are already finding some people don't play fair.
Radeon 9700 AGP 8x Problem - According to ATI, they are now receiving and testing these 8X AGP boards. They are ALSO finding the 9700 does not work at all or works intermittently at best on these boards. Engineering indicated most of the boards already shipped have this problem. Solution: A new BIOS and some board revisions are now available that fix this problem. Call ATI Customer Service for help with the issue. At present, they will ship a replacement board that WILL work in SiS and VIA 8X, but they are also considering a BIOS flash solution for problem boards. Customer Service and Engineering deserve a 10-1/2 for their wonderful handling of this issue. They are very concerned that it be corrected quickly. They also shared that most of their 8X validation testing was done with Intel's unreleased 8X chipset and that they are just now receiving shipping versions of the SiS and VIA 8X chipsets.
Fujitsu May Replace 300,000 Faulty Disk Drives - Fujitsu Ltd., Japan's biggest business computer maker, said it may replace as many as 300,000 hard disk drives after discovering a fault. Its shares declined 4.9 percent, their biggest one-day decline in almost two months. The flaw may affect between 2 percent to 3 percent of the 10 million hard disk drives it produced between September 2000 and September 2001, spokeswoman Emi Watanabe said. The disk drives are found in Fujitsu's own computers, as well as those of Fujitsu customers NEC Corp. and International Business Machines Corp.
Akasa ShinEtsu Thermal Interface Pads - Akasa has been manufacturing coolers and PC Cooling related products for a while now. But recently they have introduced a new heat exchange material called Thermal Interface Material or for short T.I.M. Akasa put their thinking caps on for this product and ease of use must have been high on their list because this stuff is as easy to apply as applying tape to paper. No more messy guessing games with T.I.M. s. Akasa developed the perfect chemical balance for excellent heat exchange and solid material for a more precise and easy application.
NOLF 2 Lithtech Movie - Watch the charming secret agent, Kate Archer, get ambushed and take a sword to the sholder by an assassin.
PGP Corporate Desktop Version 7.1.x for Windows Fix - While PGP supports long file names, it encounters problems when it tries to encrypt or decrypt files that have names longer than 200 characters. When PGP tries to encrypt or decrypt these files, it suffers an overflow and crashes. An attacker could theoretically take advantage of this vulnerability to temporarily disable PGP, obtain a user's passphrase, or run malicious code on the user's computer! The bug affects PGP Corporate Desktop, PGP Personal Security, and PGP Freeware. Network Associates. Download FIX.
Plextor PX Info v1.16 & CDR Info v1.16 - Plextor PX Info is a program to display all information about your Plextor drive and CDR Info will tell you information about the manufacturer of your CDR media. ~ download
Freshui 4.20 - Fresh UI is a fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings in Windows XP/2000/NT/ 98/95/Me (thanks Bob).
Movie DB v1.22 build 58 - A new version of Movie DB is out! Movie DB is a catalog software for DivX, DVD, VCD and VHS.
Official VIA 4-in-1 v4.43 - VIA Tech has posted new, updated set of VIA 4-in-1 set of chipset drivers.
kX Project Drivers 5.10.0.3523 - The kX Audio Driver is an independent WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver for all EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcards manufactured by Creative Technology Ltd. and/or E-mu Sytems Inc., including the SoundBlaster Live! series, the E-mu Audio Production Studio (APS) card, and the Audigy series of cards.
Matrox Parhelia drivers & technical support utility - Matrox has released new Parhelia drivers for Win2K/XP (v1.01.00.080) / WinNT4 (v1.01.00.080) / BETA Linux Driver (v0.1.8) and also new version of their Technical Support Tweak Utility v 5.01.008.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,13 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:21 AM CEST - Sep,13 2002 - Post a comment / read (2)

AMD delays Hammer for desktops - Advanced Micro Devices says it has pushed back the release of its highly anticipated Hammer (details) chip for desktops by almost a quarter. It's also delaying the release of another Athlon chip.
Windows Media Player 9 tough to shake - Microsoft's latest media software doesn't include a mechanism for uninstalling the software on Windows Millennium Edition (Me) or Windows XP operating system. Typically software makers like Microsoft provide a simple means of uninstalling software--particularly software such as Media Player 9 Series that has yet to be officially released.
3GHz Pentium 4 Requires New Motherboards - One of the more interesting sessions at Intel's Fall Developer Forum 2002 covered the requirements for thermal management of the upcoming 3.06GHz Pentium 4. Pushing the clock rate that high really pushes the power envelope of the P4 to heights not seen since the original 0.18 micron Willamette, as the following chart demonstrates.
Intel Doubles Bandwidth with AGP 8x - Designed to satisfy the performance and scalability needs of today's workstation class graphics applications, Intel Corporation released the final AGP 3.0 specification. (AGP stands for Accelerated Graphics Port). The corresponding AGP 3.0 Design Guide (Rev. 2.0) will also be available this month.
Serial ATA Poised For Market Ramp - Serial ATA, the next-generation storage interconnect, is gaining steam within the computing industry. Serial ATA will be used to connect such internal storage devices as hard disks, DVDs and CD-R/Ws to the motherboard in desktop and mobile PCs, cost-sensitive servers and networked storage.
eBlitz Shuttle MP3 Player - This particular MP3 player was only $30 to begin with but was on special with a $10 instant rebate and a $20 mail in rebate that made the thing free other than a couple of bucks in sales tax! The Shuttle SHB3108 came packaged in a box that more resembled a software box than one for an MP3 player. In fact both my wife and I looked past it on the shelf a couple of times before we realized that it was the item we were looking for. After doing a bit of research I found out why: The Shuttle MP3 player was marketed as more of a freebie when you buy Magix Music Maker and MP3 Maker software than it was a standalone MP3 player! It was a promotional package from the software company although CompUSA advertises it as the other way around, as an MP3 player with free music software.
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ vs Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz - "I hear it almost every time I am out consulting a job, someone will say is that AMD 2100+ a 2.1GHz CPU or a 1.53Ghz CPU with a complete blank stare on their face. This time we see AMD coming at us with a new .13 Micron solution called the 2600+ (actual clock speed 2.13GHz). AMD has slated this chip to be the killer of the Intel 2.53GHz P4, which is the current affordable high end CPU that dominates the market."
KT333 Motherboard Roundup - The VIA KT333 chipset obviously supports DDR333 (PC2700) memory and can reach a peak bandwidth of 2.7GB/sec, 25% greater than the KT266A. Other key features include AGP4X, ATA-100 (ATA-133 in the VT8233A), integrated six channel advanced audio through the C-Media 8738 chip, six USB ports, LPC bus, and integrated 10/100Mbps ethernet and home PNA, AC-97 audio.
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB & 128MB - The Radeon 9000 comes in two flavours. The Standard and Pro version (refers to speed only). The standard uses a 250Mhz core with 200Mhz memory and the Pro uses a 275Mhz/275Mhz configuration. We are going to have a look at both cards to see is it better to have a 128MB Standard or a 64MB Pro card. We are also going to compare them to the Xabre 400 and the Geforce4MX.
First Watercooling Experiences - "OK. Installed board, cpu, mem and vid card. Water block and tubing. I was going for a closed loop system but got the bright idea to use a reservoir. I found a $1.99 Rubbermaid container that had a snug fitting lid. Made two 3/8 holes for the tubing. Added a mix of antifreeze(3oz), H2o(10oz). I again ran this over night before powering up the mobo" Read more...
BIOS Arcana: description and translation - The BIOS is that dark, cavernous pathway to your computer's very soul that both beckons and repels the would-be performance seeker. The BIOS can open up major performance pleasure for you, or it can hide that one little pesky setting that's causing your daily bluescreen, and you just don't know why. If you royally jack your BIOS, you can toast your system to the point which you may need a system reinstall or some new hardware. Don't get me wrong--it's not as though it's all that easy to do major damage to your system via the BIOS. It's just a good idea to know what you're playing with and not change things around willy-nilly.
Americas Army Tweak Guide - If you're a fan of America's Army, why not check out this guide to get the most out of the game.
Star Wars Episode II DVD trailer - Check it out!
Customizer XP v1.8.5 - Customizer XP is a comprehensive and easy-to-use Windows 95 OSR2, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP utility that lets you fine-tune Windows and Internet Explorer. Whether you want to tweak your Windows registry, clean up your hard drive, or increase your multimedia and game performance, Customizer XP's integrated suite of programs can get your system running at peak performance levels.
XtraWarp 1.1 Alpha - XtraWarp is monitoring your all running processes and Optimize them for your specific needs (Media ,Games, Graphics applications), and the results.
MSN Messenger 5.0.0515 Ad Removal Tool - Betas.intercom.net has posted a new MSN Messenger 5.0.0515 Ad Removal Tool.
Nero Mpeg2 Svcd for Nero v5.5.9.9 - This small baby will add unlimited MPEG-2/SVCD Encoding to your Nero.
XP-Antispy 3.61 - XP-AntiSpy is a little utility that let's you disable some built-in update and authetication 'features' in WindowsXP.
ATI Catalyst Drivers v02.3 - ATi has officially released a new non-beta driver set CATALYST 02.3 for their RADEON series of video cards: ATi RADEON WinXP Drivers 6.13.10.6166 /

ATi RADEON Win2k Drivers 5.13.01.6166

ATi RADEON Win98/ME Drivers 4.13.01.9062

Control Panel Driver

Release Notes

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,12 2002 - tech

Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:11 AM CEST - Sep,12 2002 - Post a comment

Win-XP Help Center request wipes your HD - A malicious Win-XP Help Center request can easily and silently delete the contents of any directory on your Windows machine, we've learned. Worse, MS has rolled the fix silently into SP1 without making a public announcement. A good sketch of the problem in English, along with a harmless self-test, can be found here, thanks to Mike at http://unity.skankhouse.org, who did some tinkering after noticing a tip on a BBS
New 'moon' found around Earth - An amateur astronomer may have found another moon of the Earth. Experts say it may have only just arrived. Much uncertainty surrounds the mysterious object, designated J002E2. It could be a passing chunk of rock captured by the Earth's gravity, or it could be a discarded rocket casing coming back to our region of space. It was discovered by Bill Yeung from his observatory in Arizona and reported as a passing Near-Earth Object. It was soon realised however that far from passing us it was in a 50-day orbit around the Earth. Paul Chodas of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California says it must have just arrived or it would have been easily detected long ago. Calculations suggest it may have been captured earlier this year.
Intel plans secure microprocessors - New computer hardware designed to keep sensitive information locked in a "virtual vault" has been announced by the world's largest microchip maker, Intel. The new hardware will not only protect data against hackers but also stop PC users copying and distributing copyright-protected digital files via the internet, the company claims. However, Intel has not provided details of how the anti-copying feature would work.
Dense Pixel LCD delivers 200 dpi - This 22.2-inch LCD panel being sold by Viewsonic uses the same panel developed and marketed by IBM last year. The difference is that IBM charged nearly $20,000 for their its version; Viewsonic plans on selling theirs this one for around $8,000. That's still pretty pricey -- what makes this panel so special? Try 9.2 million pixels, for one thing. This 16x9 aspect ration panel has a native resolution of 3840x2400 pixels.
Quake 3: Adventure Mod - Ever wonder what it would be like to explore the Kingdom of Adventure in a fully 3D environment? Well, maybe you'd be interested in Quake 3: Adventure. DownlK the Deathmatch map now!
Mozilla 1.0.1 Final - Mozilla 1.0.1 (win32 download) contains over 650 bugfixes including approximately 25 security fixes, and over 130 stability and dataloss fixes. In addition to these important security and crash fixes, 1.0.1 has many more fixes for standards support, UI correctness and polish, performance, and site compatibility.
Trillian 0.74 and Trillian Pro 1.0 - This program (download) can communicate through ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, IRC, Yahoo! Messenger. This new version features Trillian Bar Interface, DirectIM Upgrades, IRC Vulnerability Fix and more..
FlashFXP v2.0 RC3 Build 876 - FlashFXP is the most powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market today. It is loaded with features for the power user, but has an intuitive user interface that takes only minutes to master. This updated RC3 fixed: FlashFXP failed to start on Win95 if HTML Help was not installed (hhctrl.ocx was not found.), overflow in Hidden Nibbles game, Integer Overflow/Range in MD4/MD5 units and some Access Violation.
NVIDIA WDM 1.19 - ASUS have posted WDM driver 1.19. This file is required for VIVO and Personal Cinema functionality.
Nvidia Linux Drivers v1.0-3123 - Nvidia have released a new set of Linux Drivers Version: 1.0-3123! Dated: 9/10/2002.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,11 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:42 AM CEST - Sep,11 2002 - Post a comment / read (3)

Photo with Trojan - Kaspersky Labs reports the detection of a Trojan horse, FireAnvil, embedded in a commercial product from US company, Firehand Technologies Corporation."Firehand Ember Millennium" is a software program for viewing and editing graphic files and is sold via Internet on the site www.firehand.com. Trojan subprograms have been detected in two files of the product: Ember32.exe - the main file of the product fireutil.dll -library.
AMD floods the transistor gates - Like Intel and IBM, AMD says it's has developed a new multiple-gate transistor, which will create more-powerful, energy-efficient processors.
Maxtor Announces 320GB HDD - I already mentioned this new HDD, but yesterday I missed the press release... :) Maxtor announced Maxtor MaXLine, its newest generation of ATA drives designed specifically for rapidly emerging enterprise storage applications including near-line, media storage and network storage. The MaXLine family features two critical differentiators: huge capacities up to 320 GB for corporate archiving and media recording; and unique manufacturing and quality for 24/7 operations with mean time to failure (MTTF) rates exceeding one million hours.
Java flaws burn Internet Explorer - Security experts have issued warnings about vulnerabilities in the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) contained in the latest versions of Internet Explorer (IE). The flaws allow an attacker to deliver and execute arbitrary code on a victim's system when a hostile website or message is viewed in either IE or Outlook. Finnish security firm Online Solutions claims that it has found 10 different vulnerabilities in the JVM which it has reported to Microsoft.
Lighting Up Fetal Brain Activity - A device called SARA can detect and record fetal brain activity. That is a milestone for pediatrics, but the machine's most valuable feature lies in its potential to help reduce the number of children born with brain damage. SARA, which stands for SQUID Array for Reproductive Assessment (SQUID, in turn, is shorthand for Superconducting Quantum Interference Device), uses a superconductor and pick-up coils cooled by liquid helium to detect tiny fluctuations in magnetic fields.
Microsoft Office 11 Beta Sign-up - The Microsoft Office Product Team would like to invite you to participate in their upcoming beta program for Office 11. The beta program will get underway this Fall. As part of the program you will receive a beta kit with Office 11 and Office Family applications, along with a hosted SharePoint Team Services subweb site for exploration and use during the beta time period. (Guest Beta ID: GEXTSU / Guest Password: B15LIMK). (thanks Warp2Search).
DirectX 9.1 to appear in Spring 2003 - DirectX 9.1 will not bring the new shaders that should be implemented in hardware that will be launched at the end of next year. Just to remind you, Microsoft decided at the last minute to accept Pixel Shader 1.1 as a standard for DirectX 8. This was a win for Nvidia since ATI's Radeon, later called Radeon 7200, had support for pixel shader 1.0 but not for 1.1. ATI did a similar thing as Nvidia with DirectX 8.1, when it introduced Pixel shader 1.4 with more instructions and improvements meaning the Nvidia Geforce 3 card supported just DirectX 8.0 but not DirectX 8.1.
This time DirectX 9 hardware will have full support for all DirectX 9.1 feature. To clarify things for you, Radeon 9700 Pro and NV30 when it comes out will be DirectX 9.1 hardware. You won't see any new pixel shader supported in hardware than version 2.0, which is used by Radeon 9700 PRO.
Radeon 9700 vmod - This mod pushes your Radeon 9700 to 430/800...check it out.
TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - The last few Windows XP tweaking guides to hit the net left a lot to be desired. In an effort to present a better guide I have put together a collection of tweaks in a step-by-step guide. The registry tweaks come with a downloadable file if you desire.
Internet Explorer Administration Kit 6 SP1 - IEAK 6 SP1 includes the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard and the IEAK Profile Manager, which enable you to build and maintain custom browser packages that are tailored to meet the needs of your users. You can easily specify user setup options and control most browser and component features.
WinXP Pro SP1 Recommended Update - This update provides new information about security and privacy. Download now to learn what steps you can take to keep your personal information private and how to make your computer more secure. This update applies to Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 (SP1).
BenchMarX 4.1 - Freeware BenchMarX is Compact, fast, sysinfo tool based on MiTeC System Information Component with benchmarks for CPU, FPU, OpenGL, memory, HDD and has a Website to add/view benchmark results.
Seismovision Demo Player v2.10 - Seismovision is a versatile demo player for Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Star Trek Voyager Elite Force and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The AVA (Auto-Version Adaptation) 'technology' makes Seismovision the best demo player for Quake 3 Arena, Half-Life (Counter-Strike) Star Trek Voyager Elite Force and Return to Castle Wolfenstein players and its 'Demodiversity' makes it a must for every professional gamer.
Visual Boy Advance v1.1 - Visual Boy Advance is a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy emulator that runs with Windows system. This is the DirectX version of Visual Boy Advance.
Rage3D Tweak 3.6 - Rage3D Tweak v3.6 (download) has been just released. What is the Rage3D Tweaker? Rage3D Tweaker is a Radeon Tweaker program designed to fit right in with the other ATi option tabs in the Advanced Display Properties accessed through the Control Panel. It allows easy access to registry tweak options, custom display modes, and overclocking all through an easy to use interface.
RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB - Direct3D Fix - This issue affects RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB using CATALYST 02.2 under Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. The system may lock up or display corruption in certain scenes when playing the following Direct3D games: Battlefield 1942, Mafia and The Thing. To workaround this issue using CATALYST 02.2 drivers, obtain and install the appropriate Direct3D component update for your OS - WinXP-3DUAG-0121-PATCH.EXE / W2K-3DUAG-0121-PATCH.EXE / Win98ME-3DUAG-0121-PATCH.EXE.

Gameguru Mania News - Sep,10 2002 - tech

Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:37 AM CEST - Sep,10 2002 - Post a comment

Microsoft wants to hire Xbox hacker - The software giant is seeking an engineer charged with "collecting, evaluating and conducting analysis of modification chips" as part of security research on Xbox hardware and software.
Greek geeks fight gaming ban - Greek gamers are preparing to fight legislation banning them from playing any electronic game in public.
New laws barring PC and console games in places like internet cafes came into force at the beginning of August, as part of a policy to clamp down on illegal gambling in the country. The first case of its kind will come before the Greek courts next week following the arrest of two people who allowed users to play the popular online game, Counter-Strike. They face fines of L95,000 and up to a year in jail.
Sony takes sides in DVD war--both - Battling formats are keeping rewritable DVDs from taking off, but Sony's new drive offers a simple answer: When asked if it prefers this format or that, the drive replies "yes."
Kodak Recalls 75,000 Digital Cameras - Kodak has recalled some 75,000 heavy-duty digital cameras worldwide to repair a manufacturing defect that can result in users suffering an electrical shock, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Monday. Kodak's DC5000 Zoom Digital Camera, a rugged model geared to users in fields such as real estate, construction and insurance, can shock users changing the batteries, installing or removing the memory card, or connecting a computer cable, the agency said.
Scientists Develop Computer Mouse for the Blind - Scientists looking for ways to help blind people get more out of computers have developed a mouse that goes bump and combined it with sound representations of graphs that would otherwise be inaccessible. Mike Burton of Glasgow University told reporters at the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual festival the mouse vibrated every time it met a line on a graph, giving a blind operator a tactile tip-off.
The hidden data in your driver's license - It seems not too long ago that the highest tech device that a bouncer may have had was a flashlight to check out a driver's license. But these days, more and more bars and night clubs, convenience stores and liquor stores are using high-tech ID scanners in order to look at the information that's actually embedded in many driver's licenses.
MS "solves" cause of hacking spree - MS "solves" cause of hacking spree Microsoft claims new information in a mysterious mass hack shows the problem isn't faulty Windows 2000 server software--it's your bad passwords.
VIA debuts two Media Player 9-supporting audio chips - VIA Technologies on September 5 launched two new audio controller chips, the VIA Envy24 and VIA Envy24HT, which support the Windows Media Audio 9 technology used in Microsoft's latest Windows Media Player 9 program.
AMD K8-core Opteron shows up in China - Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) displayed samples of K8-core processors at the recent CeBIT Shanghai exhibition. It reportedly unveiled server-use SledgeHammer and workstation-use ClawHammer processors. The processors, part of the Opteron-brand family, will not officially hit the market until January or sometime later in 2003. K8 Athlon-brand desktop versions should be released in the fourth quarter of 2002, according to AMD's roadmap.
P4 With 3.6 GHz And 3.33 GHz - The test comparisons show the performance values of the P4 processors that won't become officially available until the middle of 2003. The improvement on the P4/2800 is somewhere between 7% and 29%, depending on the application used. .
Samsung ML-1440 Laser Printer Review - Imagine, you are a university student, working on your 500 page thesis to graduate at Harvard and all you need to do is print it. You have two options, the inkjet that prints at about 4ppm and prints it in about 2 hours and runs out of ink half way through, or upgrading to a laser printer and have the same document done in half an hour with sharper text. I think the choice is pretty clear.
GF4 Ti 4200 Shootout - As newer games like Unreal Tournament: 2003 and Doom 3, that use upwards of 80MB of textures in some scenes ship, the extra memory on the 128MB cards will yield higher performance, making them the better choice if you plan to get any mileage out of your investment. The X-Micro card in particular was less expensive than VisionTek's offering, shipped with DVD playback software and a full version game. The MSI 128MB G4Ti4200 overclocked better than the Impact T4200, but was lacking ViVo capabilities. In the end though, whatever is more important to you is what is important. If you're going to use the Video In on the Impact T4200, go for it, but if you'd rather have the three full version games, MSI's card is the better choice.
SiS Xabre 400 Review - The Xabre in all it's (non) glory. Am I disappointed? A little. I was hoping this would be the card to get SIS in the graphics ballgame... I hoped the same thing for the 315. Is this card an improvement from the 315? Hell ya. At least hardware-wise. Driver-wise there are still a *few* (many...ahem) issues to be worked out. The drivers desperately need an option to disable the Turbo Texture mode, without demanding that the user mess around with the registry.
Radeon 9700 Review - Now let's draw a conclusion on the performance in general. Before testing on the new platform and with the old NVIDIA's driver 30.82 we wrote: According to our previous tests the RADEON 9700 Pro outscores the GeForce4 Ti 4600 without AA by 24.2%, with AA by 105%, with anisotropy by 103%, and with AA and anisotropy by 108%. Well, the average price difference of 37% is overlapped by the performance boost. The new results are: the RADEON 9700 Pro outperforms the GeForce4 Ti 4600 without AA or anisotropy by 15.8% ON AVERAGE, with AA by 94.2%, with anisotropy by 62.8%, with AA and anisotropy by 64.4%. Although the gap is smaller, the figures still look astounding. Again the average price difference of 37% between the RADEON 9700 Pro and the GeForce4 Ti 4600 (on the US market) is made up for by the might of the ATI's card. Moreover, we still don't know what new ATI's drivers are going to offer us.
Microsoft Offers Major Update to Windows XP - Service Pack 1, Microsoft's first major update to Windows XP since the launch of its "trustworthy computing" initiative and consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department, is now available on the software giant's Web site /(Windows XP Service Pack 1 Express / Windows XP Service Pack 1 Full (133MB)/
or on a CD that can be ordered for $9.95.
Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 Released - MSIE 6 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available for WinXP, WinME, Win2k, Win98 and WinNT 4.0 SP6a. This critical update includes a well-tested collection of updates that focuses on a variety of customer-reported concerns with Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 6 SP1 includes all prior patches and updates as well as enhancements to security and reliability. This is not needed for XP users who have installed the Windows XP SP1. IE 6.0 SP1 in included
EPoX 8K3A/+ 2829 Beta BIOS - EPoX Tech UK has posted a new beta version of the BIOS for the popular EpoX 8KA/+ motherboards.

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