• This hacker's got the gummy touch - A Japanese researcher finds that fingerprint detectors can be fooled 80 percent of the time by a fake finger made of gelatin. Will "Jello" be the new hacking tool?
• New Worm likes Outlook - A malicious Javascript worm adds a link to a porn site on emails coming from infected users' machines, AV firms have warned. JS.Fortnight drops a file on a victim's Windows PC which is then inserted into the default signature for Outlook Express. Every time the infected computer sends an email message, the message will contain the malicious code.
• Gone in 60 seconds (mobile phones) - Scientists have found a way to copy vital information inside a mobile phone in 60 seconds. When used to make calls with another handset, this identifying information would mean the bill being charged to the phone from which it was stolen.
• Intel Introduces Celeron Processor At 1.7 GHz - Intel Corporation today raised the bar for value PCs with two new Intel Celeronr processors. The Intel Celeron processors at 1.7 and 1.4 GHz deliver the right combination of features and frequency at a variety of price points for the value desktop market segment. The Intel Celeron processor at 1.7 GHz is based on the 0.18-micron process technology and features a 400 MHz front side bus. The Intel Celeron processor at 1.4 GHz is based on the 0.13-micron process technology and features a 100 MHz front side bus. In 1,000-unit quantities, the desktop Intel Celeron processor at 1.7 GHz is priced at $83 and the 1.4 GHz is priced at $89.
• CPU/MB Rondup - Intel Celeron 1.8GHz (production sample) / Intel Celeron 1.7GHz / Intel Celeron 1.7GHz / Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz (533FSB) / Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra / Soyo KT333 Dragon / AOpen AX4B Max i845D / ABIT KX7-333R KT333 / ABIT NV7-133R nForce / MSI 845E Max2  / Gigabyte GA-7VTXH / ECS K7S6A
• Video Roundup - ASUS GeForce 4 Ti 4600 / NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 / Creative 3D Blaster GeForce4 Ti4400 / Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack Ultra-650TV / Gigabyte GV-AR64S RADEON 7500 / ATi RADEON IGP320M Chipset
• Misc HW Roundup - Creative Inspire 5300 Speakers / IBM Ultrastar 36Z15 HDD / Samsung SW-224 CD-RW / Philips 180P1L 18.0" LCD
• Powerstrip v3.16 Build 281 -  PowerStrip 3.16 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 8500DV and GeForce4 Ti4600
• WinDVD Tweaker 3.3 Beta 1 - WinDVD Tweaker is designed to allow users of the WinDVD playback software to enable some hidden settings and allow for maximum playback pleasure.
• RegionKiller v2.5.0.1 - RegionKiller 2 takes care of the proper functioning of your (Region Code free) DVD drive - from now on you'll be able to watch foreign DVDs on your home theater PC without being hassled by possibly non-working DVDs.
• Inno3D Detonator 28.90 Beta Drivers  - Inno3D have released their own version of Nvidia's Detonator 28.90 driver for Windows 9x/ME and Win2K/XP.
• Hercules Kyro Drivers - Hercules has released a new 3DProphet Kyro Drivers 15.084 (Win9x/ME / Win2K / WinXP).
• 3DProphet FDX 8500 LE BIOS - Hercules has released a new BIOS for the ATI based 3DProphet FDX 8500 LE.
• Abit KR7 BIOS - Download an updated BIOS for KR7A / KR7A-RAID / KR7A-133 / KR7A-133R

• Fake XBox Emulator Gets A Stinging Update - Like an earlier version of the hoax, the program, uploaded to three Angelfire.com Web sites on May 12, does not deliver on its promise to give users the ability to turn their PCs into XBox consoles. Instead, the Trojan, a file called EMU_xbox.exe, installs a small "dialer" program named StealthXP.exe, according to an analysis by Newsbytes.
• Deceptive Duo Suspects Netted In FBI Raids -  Teenager Robert Lyttle, notorious more than a year ago as the pro-Napster hacker Pimpshiz, has been linked to another round of high-profile Web-site defacements following FBI raids targeting a pair known as the Deceptive Duo.
• Pentagon hires anti-terror sniffer bees - The Pentagon is all a-buzz about recruiting networked bees to sniff out bombs. The US government is hoping to use the wired up insects to sniff out minute residues of explosives and lead them to bomb factories and landmines. Each bee will carry a tiny wireless transmitter which can be tracked using a wireless connection to an army laptop computer. The bees are trained to think that TNT contains sugar so that they make a beeline for it.
• Feds Out-Hack Russian Hackers - With the help of some new computer spying software, FBI agents were able to out-hack a pair of Russian hackers who had stolen thousands of credit card numbers and broken into Web sites like Pay Pal, the leading online bill payer, and online auctioneer eBay.
• Napster Bankrupt? - Napster's chief executive resigned Tuesday, after founders of the troubled song-swap company refused to be bought out by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG. Further cost-cutting moves were also announced. The company is rapidly running out of cash and may soon file for bankruptcy protection, according to a source close to Napster who spoke on condition of anonymity.
• GeForce4 Ti4600 Grouptest  - TechNation taken the top five Ti4600s available on the market today to pick the fastest, most feature-packed 3d accelerator money can buy...
• Dungeon Siege to Serve as a Benchmark  - Microsoft today announced that ExtremeTech, the technology enthusiast's web site launched last year by Ziff Davis Media, will use the critically acclaimed action fantasy game Dungeon Siege as a key part of their benchmark suite to test the performance of the computer systems, processors, and graphics cards they review.  Gamers can also benchmark their own systems by downloading the utility at here. (thanks ActiveWin)
• 15 May 2002 Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer - This is a cumulative patch that includes the functionality of all previously released patches for IE 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0. In addition, it eliminates the following six newly discovered vulnerabilities.
• HFNetChk-FE 2.10 - Hfnetchk.exe, is a command-line tool from Microsoft that administrators can use to centrally assess a computer or group of computers for the absence of security patches. You can use the Hfnetchk tool to assess patch status for computers that are running Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, as well as hotfixes for Internet Information Server 4.0 (IIS), Internet Information Services 5.0 (IIS), SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000 (including Microsoft Data Engine [MSDE]), and Internet Explorer 5.01 or later.
• Opera v6.0 for Linux /v6.2 Windows FINAL - Opera released version 6.0 for Linux and version 6.02 for Windows today - It's finally the promised final version :) (changelog)
• WinAmp 2.80b - A new version of WinAmp is out!
• Zoom Player 2.60 RC1 - Zoom Player is a robust Media and DVD Front-End Player. It was designed to be simple at first glance while being remarkably dynamic and flexible when used to its full potential
• Abit BIOSes - KG7-Lite / KG7 / KG7-RAID Version: 8S / KT7A / KT7A-RAID Revision 1.3 Version: 8T
• Suma Detonator v28.84 beta XP/Win2k - Suma have released their own version of Nvidia's Detonator 28.84 driver for Windows 2K/XP.

• Crackers deface Ferrari - Defacers turned motor sport fans yesterday in a protest against the controversial decision to gift Michael Schumacher victory at the Austrian Grand Prix. Ferrari-group.com was defaced by a group called S4t4n1c_Souls after the race with a profane message criticising Ferrari's management for ordering Rubens Barichello, who dominated the race, the make way for Schumacher on the last corner, handing him an undeserved victory. "BARRICHELO ROX FERRARI SUX," the message reads, in part. 
• Youth Says Video Games Led Him to Shoot Friend -  Jury selection started on Monday in the trial of a 13-year-old Dallas-area youth charged with shooting his friend twice in a deadly attack the suspect's lawyer said was prompted by a day-long binge on violent video games.  The boy's attorney is arguing the shooting occurred when his client cut school with his friend to spend a day playing video games. The suspect mimicked the actions of violent games the pair had been playing, and used his mother's gun to shoot his friend to death as he acted out the video game action, he said. Police say the suspect knew the difference between video games and reality and have joined law enforcement authorities in charging the boy with juvenile murder. If convicted, he could face up to 40 years in jail.
• Firm sheds new light on keyboard design - Start-up Virtual Devices has developed a flashlight-size gadget that projects an image of a keyboard on any surface and lets people input data by typing on the image. The company's Virtual Keyboard is designed for anyone who's become frustrated with trying to peck information into a handheld but doesn't want to schlepp a notebook computer around. It uses cameras to track the location of a person's fingers in relation to a map of a full-sized keyboard.
• Pipex gives away free ADSL modem - Pipex is getting even more aggressive in the broadband marketplace with yet another tempting offer designed to get people to sign-up to its ADSL service. Until June 13 the broadband ISP is offering new customers a new Fujitsu FDX310 ADSL modem worth £94 in return for an old external dial-up modem.
• Video HW Roundup - Gainward Ultra/750XP Golden Sample / Gigabyte Radeon 8500 / Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE / Leadtek K7N420DA nForce 420D / Unitech Radeon 7500 / Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 500 GeForce Ti 500
• Matrox Parhelia Coverage - You can read a full coverage at HotHardware, HardOCP / AnandTech / Digit-Life / Tech Report / HardwareZone / GamePC and SimHQ. Also, you can check the Matrox page.
• Matrox Storms Back into 3D  - Tim Sweeney, Epic's chief 3D guru working on next-generation Unreal engine technology had this to say about it: "We've had our hands on a Parhelia for the past few days, and have Unreal Tournament 2003 up and running in triple-monitor mode -- it's very immersive, and surprisingly fast (rendering at 1280*3 x 1024)." The UT engine has had adjustable FOV for quite some time now, and UT 2003 obviously does too, so when that title ships this summer, it will in all likelihood support Surround Gaming. Today, 17" CRT monitors can be had for under $200, and some time in the future a three flat-panel setup will become pretty affordable too. This is by far the coolest application I've seen to date for multi-monitor technology, and Matrox deserves kudos for bringing this to market.
• Misc HW Roundup - Athlon XP 2000+ vs. Pentium 4 Northwood / AOpen AX4B / ABIT NV7-133R nForce / AK77-333 KT333 / FIC AN11 Stealth KT266A / MSI 645E Max2-LRU SiS 645DX / Crucial PC2700 DDR333 RAM / Peltier Coolers / CopperKing II Cooler / GlobalWin TAK68 and CAK-II 16 Coolers / IBM Ultrastar 73LZX (Discovery 2) HDDs, Liteon External USB 2.0 CD-RW / Samsung 955DF 19" Flat Screen Monitor / Compaq iPAQ 3650 Pocket PC
• Office 2000 CD1 And CD2 Utility: File & Registry Eraser - The MS utility that helps you completely remove Microsoft Office 2000 is available from Microsoft. The Office 2000 CD1 and CD2 File and Registry Eraser Utility removes most of the files and Windows registry settings that remain on the computer after you remove Office. This utility is designed to be used on stand-alone computers or workstations. You should not use this utility to completely clean a working copy of Office from a computer. You should only run this utility after you run the Setup program for Office 2000 and click Remove Office.
• PHP 4.2.1 - This latest release contains several bug fixes as found in PHP 4.2.0. These include fixes for the session, com and mbstring extensions, as well as a major upgrade of the DomXML extension. Also a few extra checks for safe_mode were added (changelog)
• SkinStudio XP 2.0 -  With SkinStudio XP, you can add thousands of WindowBlinds visual styles to your system. SkinStudio XP also makes it easy to create your own visual styles; just load it up, choose NewàBlank Skin, start with Luna blue, and go from there.
• WinMX 3.1 Final - WinMX is a FREE file-sharing program like no other. It allows you to simultaneously connect through the decentralized WinMX Peer Networking Protocol AND to many networks based on the OpenNap and Napster protocols.
• Napster 3.1.3.47 Beta - Napster is a completely new way of thinking about music online. Imagine...an application that takes the hassle out of searching for MP3s. No more broken links, no more slow downloads, and no more busy, disorganized FTP sites. With Napster, you can locate and download your favorite music in MP3 format from one convenient, easy-to-use interface.
• FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 851 - This new version features several minor bug fixes, found and fixed a small memory leak when using SSL on Win9x, fixed problem where performing the following steps did not work correctly, Site Manager, New Site, Rename Site, Add Details, Click Apply, Fixed bug where using the "reconnect to" FlashFXP jumped to the default local path instead of remaining in the current folder.
• Netscape v6.2.3 - Netscape Communicator combines Netscape Navigator, a popular browser, with a suite of Internet tools for high-performance Internet mail, web page creation, and instant messaging.
• Crazy Browser 1.05 - Crazy Browser is a powerful Web browser. It has the ability to open multiple sites and windows inside a single browser task. This has full support for Windows XP Theme and P3P privacy policy (requires IE6) and JavaScript error suppression.... It can handle multiple monitors and has tab status indicators.
• Opera 6.02 External Beta Build 1090  - A new version of Opera 6.02 is available
• miTweak-XP 2.3.5 - The primary goal of miTweak-XP (freeware) is to help the end-users who are running windows XP to discover the hidden features of Windows XP that would boost your system performance.
• WinRAR v3.00 Final - A version 3.0 Final of the best Compression Utility - "Winrar" has been released today.
• HyperSnap-DX Pro v4.50.02 - HyperSnap-DX 4 is a screen capture tool for Windows. Captures screens from standard desktop programs and hard-to-grab DirectX/Direct3D, 3dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games
• PowerStrip v3.16 build 280 - A new version of PowerStrip is out! PowerStrip 3.16 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 8500DV and GeForce4 Ti4600. It is in fact the only program of its type to support multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors, simultaneously, under every Windows operating system from Windows 95 to XP.
• Daemon Tools 3.11 - DAEMON Tools is an advanced application for multiprotection emulation. It is further development of Generic Safedisc emulator and incorporates all its features. This program allows running BACKUP copies of SafeDisc (C-Dilla), Securom or Laserlock protected games. The only thing changed is a small bugfix regarding Blindread (*.BWT) images. This bug was introduced in version 3.10.
• NVIDIA Beta Detonator 29.4x  - Download this new beta detonators from here.

Parhelia-512 is an 80 million transistor, 0.15µ, 2D, 3D and DVD/video GPU with a true 256-bit DDR memory interface providing over 20 gigabytes per second (GB/s) of raw memory bandwidth. This AGP device supports unified frame buffers up to 256MB in size and integrates two RAMDACs, a TV encoder and support for dual TMDS transmitters. Designed to surpass the expectations of the most demanding professional users and PC enthusiasts, Parhelia-512 has three major goals: to dramatically increase the quality of all aspects of visualization, to sustain extremely high performance for the most complex and demanding graphics rendering and to deliver a number of innovative and substantive features.

• Intel cuts Celeron prices - Intel sliced the price of its 1.2GHz Celeron the most, lowering it $10, to bring the price to $69--a 13 percent drop. Meanwhile, Intel reduced the price of its 1.3GHz Celeron by $10, bringing it to $74, a 12 percent price cut. It also shaved $5 off the price of its 1.1GHz Celeron. The chip now lists for $64, 7 percent lower than before.
• Big Xbox price cut expected soon - Microsoft has a press conference scheduled for May 20, the first night of the E3 in Los Angeles, the game industry's most important event of the year. The price cut will be announced then, the sources said.
• DVD player contract prices for new Xbox machines may drop by 30% - Taiwanese DVD-ROM makers are eyeing outsourcing opportunities as Microsoft is planning the launch of second-generation Xbox game consoles this summer. The new game machine's cut-rate price, however, is likely to drive down contract prices of its DVD drive by as much as 30%, local manufacturers reported.
• Nintendo to Launch Online for GameCube This Fall - Nintendo will introduce an online element for its GameCube this fall, executives for its U.S. subsidiary said on Monday, marking the company's cautious entry into the fledgling market for online console games. Nintendo said it will offer dial-up and high-speed Internet adapters for the GameCube in the fall at a suggested retail price of $34.95.
• The pen is mightier than copy-protection - According to one German geek who sent the tip to technical magazine Chip.de, a variety of copy-protection systems, including Cactus Data Shield and KeyAudio, which also stop music CDs being played in CDRom drives, can be circumvented with a felt-tip pen.
• Vulnerability Is Discovered in Security for Smart Cards - Two University of Cambridge computer security researchers plan to describe on Monday an ingenious and inexpensive attack that employs a $30 camera flashgun and a microscope to extract secret information contained in widely used smart cards.
• Kansas Teen Sentenced After Hackings  - Kansas teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking the official Web site of Stockton, Calif. and telling city officials he would secure it if they gave him a laptop computer. Matthew Kroeker, 18, was sentenced to serve two years probation and pay at least $18,000 restitution, his attorney Kevin Moriarty told Newsbytes. Kroeker pleaded guilty to four felony counts of computer crime in Johnson County District Court last week.
• Organic polymers would connect prosthesis to nerves - Researcher Tobias Nyberg  at Linköping University in Sweden is developing organic polymer components structured to allow severed nerves to grow into them, enabling a connection with electrodes in a prosthetic limb. Hehe it's scary ;)
• 3D Ultrasound Lets Parents 'Touch' Unborn Child - The e-Touch software, developed by Novint Technologies Inc., a private Albuquerque, New Mexico-based company, replicates the sensation of touch through a special stylus traced over the ultrasound image of the unborn child. The software also helps enhance the 3D picture, said Novint founder Tom Anderson.
• Nvidia and ATI to showcase new NV18 and RV250 chips at Computex Taipei in June - According to the companies' roadmaps, both Nvidia and ATI said that they will showcase NV18 and RV250-based chips at Computex Taipei early next month, and the chips will replace the current GeForce4 MX440 and Radeon 7500 as the companies' mainstream products. Their top-end products, the DirectX 9-supporting NV30 and R300 graphics cores, will not be launched until the end of the third quarter at the earliest.
• Matrox Parhelia-512 pictures - Some pictures from the presentation are available from this japanese website.
• Hard Drive ATA100 vs. ATA133 - Tweakers Australia have posted a brief but direct comparison between ATA100 and ATA133 (Ultra DMA modes 5 and 6) with one of the original ATA133 drives - the Maxtor D740X-6L.
• Intel 845D tweaking guide - Using the usual chipset registers that you always get from us. We bring you all the memory and AGP tweaks that we can for all of you who don't have the options in your BIOS.
• Creative Audigy Testing Guide - Audigy testing guide (129kb) from Creative for setup details of the soundcard. This guide shows you how to configure the Audigy for a test run in Rightmark.
• CPUCooL 7.1.0 -  CPUCooL version 7.1.0 has been released. What is CPUCool? CPUCooL is a program that monitors temperature, fan speed, and voltages for many motherboards.
• WinAMP 3 Build 472 - A new build of the third beta version (changelog) of the most famous mp3 player WinAMP3 has been released.
• Scout 2.0 RC2 - There is a new beta of CD- copy protection detector.
• Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility 4.6 - The Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility was developed 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.
• Adaptec USB 2.0 Driver v2.3 - Adaptec's USB 2.0 drivers allow your Adaptec USB2connect and DuoConnect products to work with USB 2.0 devices at speeds up to 480 megabits per second. Supported operating systems: Adaptec's USB 2.0 drivers support Microsoft Windows® 98 Second Edition,Windows 2000, Windows Millennium Edition and Windows XP operating systems.
• Omega Drivers For Win9x/ME v2.4.31 - This are Omega's "optimized" drivers for the ATI Radeon family of video cards, optimized for games and not benchmarks. Install them only @ your own risk.
• NVIDIA Detonators v29.40 and 29.41 leaked -  Warp2Search have posted some new Nvidia Detonator beta drivers for Windows 9x/ME and 2000/XP.

• Nintendo Game Cube [PAL] - The GameCube internals essentially consist of just two main chips - the IBM "Gekko" CPU, and the "Flipper" co-processor. Gekko is a pretty much standard G3 PowerPC chip, running at a respectable 485MHz. Whilst this pales to today's 2.4GHz Pentium 4 rigs, this is only about 50% behind the Xbox's 733MHz Pentium III, and PowerPC chips tend to give much better performance-per-MHz. The chip is manufactured using IBM's 0.18 micron Copper Wire Technology.
• Redesigned Celerons - Intel plans to release 1.7HGz and 1.8GHz Celerons for desktop computers next Wednesday, according to sources. Some new PCs containing the chip will appear next week, but most major PC manufacturers will unfurl budget computers containing the chips for the consumer and corporate markets the following week. That's when a chipset with integrated graphics comes out, which will eliminate the need for a separate graphics chip.
• Video Card Roundup - eVGA GeForce 4 MX440   / NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 440 / GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB / Creative 3D Blaster GeForce4 Ti 4400 / X-Micro Impact T4600 / ASUS V8460 Ultra GeForce4 Ti4600 /  Hercules Radeon 8500LE / ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 128 MB / HIS Excalibur ATI RADEON 7500LE
• NVIDIA Comparison: Clash of the Titans - This review will illustrate the benefits, or lack thereof, of upgrading from a GeForce2 Ultra or GeForce3 to a brand spanking new GeForce4 Ti4600.
• Misc. HW Roundup - VIA P4PA-UL P4X266A / ASUS A7M266-D / Shuttle SS50 Mini Intel P4 Barebones System (videoreview) / Stealth Card Cooler / Coolermaster ATC-600-VX2 Aluminum Desktop Case / Dr. Thermal EXTREME Cooler / Zalman CNPS Cu5005+ Cooler / Alpha PAL8045 Heatsink / Shuttle SS50 System / VIA P4PA / Logitech Z-560 Speakers / Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad N50 / Logitech Mouseman Dual Optical / SonicBlue RioVolt SP100 / Black Lite-on 24x CD-RW / Vantec EZ Swap Removable Hard Drive Racks / Blaupunkt MDP-01 Compact Drive MP3 System / NVIDIA Personal Cinema Named 'Best PVR PC Card / Olympus Introduces C-720 Ultra Zoom / PDA Screen Protectors.
• Windows XP Pre-SP1 Hotfixes - This document is a cumulative list of the articles that have been written to discuss hotfixes that have been released since the release of Windows XP. Click the Q# of the Knowledge Base article below to view the article.
• Removing Windows XP Services - Instead of just disabling all those unnecessary services in XP, why not remove them altogether? Of the 70+ services only 4 are required for a standalone machine. A typical TCP/IP dial-up networking system requires around 7 or maybe 8.
• GNOME 2.0 Desktop Snapshot 20020509: ''Cominagetcha'' - The GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout GNOME's highly regarded user interface
• Daemon Tools 3.10 - 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.
• Easy CD-DA Extractor v4.7.2 - 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.
• FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 850 - This new beta has several minor bug fixes. This build addresses some minor issues with Int64 file sizes both locally and remotely. SSL now works correctly under win95/98/ME.
• Opera 6.02 build 1101 - The guys over at Opera Software have released the next beta version of Opera 6.02 (Build 1101 to be exact).
• Mozilla 1.0 RC2  - A new version 1.0 RC2 of Mozzila is out!
• Leadtek WinFast TV Drivers - Leadtek has released new Windows 2000/XP drivers for the WinFast TV series: WinFast TV 2000 / WinFast TV USB.

• Star Wars film clones invade the Net - Bootleg copies of "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones" have appeared on the Internet a week before the film's premiere in cinemas, according to a report in the LA Times.
• New Web spyware eschews cookies - The Scottish Enterprise called the technology being developed by Petropoulakis' team a "breakthrough," outpacing any other technology on the market by allowing a more detailed profile of a Web user's activity.  According to a statement, the technology traces Internet use via "sensors" rather than cookies, or bits of code that sit on computer hard drives that have long been used by Web sites to monitor people's travels on the Web.
• Stopping the cyber-criminals - One of the most important tools used by computer forensic experts at NHTCU and at 2,000 other law enforcement agencies around the world is EnCase, a piece of software developed by US firm Guidance Software.   Investigators place a suspect's hard drive in their forensic computer. EnCase creates a mirror image of the drive which will be used as evidence in court and has safety features built in to ensure that the original cannot be tampered with. Then EnCase sets about reading the drive's file structure scouting for evidence of criminal activity.
• First Humans to Receive ID Chips - Eight people will be injected with silicon chips Friday, making them scannable just like a jar of peanut butter in the supermarket checkout line. The miniature devices, about the size of a grain of rice, were developed by a Florida company. They will be targeted to families of Alzheimer's patients--one of the fastest growing groups in American society--as well as others who have complicated medical histories.
• NV30: Info straight from Nvidia - You might think this is just rumors, but this is straight from Nvidia who held a Seminar to some top end developers. So if these end up being wrong, blame Nvidia as they are the ones who held the seminar. Here is the info: I caught a couple of NV30 specs for you. First the RAM will be running at 900Mhz. Secondly, they are claiming at this point 200 million polys per second.
• Fujitsu Develops Record-Breaking 300Gb/in² HDD Technology - Fujitsu has developed revolutionary new read head and media technologies that will enable hard disk drive (HDD) recording densities of up to 300 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in²). The new technologies are expected to lead to the commercial introduction within two to four years of 2.5" hard disk drives with capacities up to six times the recording density available today.
• Previewing Windows .NET Servers - If you have just finally finished figuring out the relationship between the various versions of operating systems coming out from Microsoft over the past couple of years, get ready to be challenged once again. The successor line to the server versions of the Windows 2000 operating system is called .NET Server and is currently available as a Beta 3 release to MSDN subscribers and other beta testers. It was originally called Whistler Server, but after the Beta 2 release it acquired a new name (despite an interim announcement that Whistler Server would be released as Windows 2002 Server). In this article I'll try to summarize what is new and exciting in this new release.
• Sonique2 Alpha 2.1.5.09 - An updated build of the second alpha of Sonique2 has been released.
• VIA 4-In-1 v4.39 beta 1- This driver addresses some issues with the previous release and incorporates drivers and support for current and future chipsets.
• GeForce Tweak 3.2 - Johannes Tuemler has just released version 3.2 final of his extremely popular GeForce overclocker/tweaker - GeForce Tweak Utility.

• Xbox 'Emulator' Front For Online Money-Making Scam - A new fraud by Internet scam artists attempts to tap into video game aficionados' burning desire to play Microsoft Xbox games on their personal computers.  An "Xbox emulator" currently being offered for free on the Web is actually a Trojan horse designed to covertly rack up money for its authors using pay-for-click and other schemes, malicious code experts said.  Instead of enabling users to run popular Xbox games such as "Halo" on their PCs, executing the fake emulator's installation program, "EMU_xbox.exe", merely produces error messages.
• GSM Phone Cloning Possible - IBM has created a safeguard against a new technique to exploit an old vulnerability in some cellular telephones, but the best protection, Big Blue says, is for consumers to keep track of their phones.
  In the unlikely event that such a scenario plays out, unauthorized calls and transactions - such as banking and stock trades - could be made on certain GSM (global system for mobile communications) phones.  The hole in subscriber identification module (SIM) cards used in GSM phones was discovered several years ago, but a new method to extract key data from the cards is far less involved, said Charles Golvin, a senior analyst with Forrester Research.
• Kill the MSN Messenger - Microsoft has issued a 'critical' security update after the discovery of a buffer overflow vulnerability which may allow an attacker to execute malicious code against the majority of MSN Messenger users.
• Pirate bots seek ports to hide plunder - Internet Security Systems, which monitors networks around the world from seven points of presence, including a "war room" in Atlanta, has seen an increase in IRC traffic in the last month, according to Grant Slender, principal ISS consultant for Australasia. The traffic surge relates to an increase in the use of IRC bots by the file-sharing community to swap files and pirated software across the Internet.
• Big Blue's grid guns for gamers - IBM launched the backbone for what may well be the next-generation internet late last year, setting up a grid computing data centre in Oxford. Grid computing works on the same principle as distributed computing programs like SETI@home, except that enormously powerful data centres are linked up around the globe instead of desktop machines.
• Waterproof Keyboard - This waterproof accessory is far superior to those awkward keyboard covers that slow you down and cause you to make errors. Get your work done quickly without frustrating typing errors with this completely sealed computer keyboard! Use the Waterproof Flexible Keyboard in your kitchen, and surf for recipes on the Internet without worrying about flour on your fingertips or work tops.
• Video Cards Roundup - Visiontek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4400 / Gainward Ultra 650/XP GeForce 4 / eVGA e-GeForce4 Ti4600 / ASUS V8440/DVI GeForce 4 Ti4400  / Gainward GeForce 4 PowerPack GS Ultra / VisionTek Xtasy Ti4400 / Sapphire ATi Radeon 8500LE / Hercules 3D Prophet 8500 / Sapphire 8500le / Professionally Modified Cases by Northwood Graphics / ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 128MB
• Miscelanous HW Roundup -Intel Pentium 4/2533 vs. Athlon XP 2100+ / Pentium 4-2.53 CPU / Intel 2.4 GHz & 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 CPUs /  SOYO KT333 Dragon Ultra / ASUS P4T533 / AOpen AK77-333  / ABIT IT7 MAX / Zalman CNPS-5100 cooler / Thermaltake Hardcano 2 & 5 HDD coolers /AGP Airlift Cooler /  Card Cooler Stealth Cooler / MAGNUM 390 Water Set  / Arkua 6149 Cooler /  Samsung SW232 32-10-40 CDRW / Plextor PlexCombo PX-320A 20/10/40-12A CD-RW/DVD-ROM / Logitech MouseMan Dual Optical
• How to UNcap your modem  - Step by Step with Pictures!
• Windows XP Shutdown Hack  - Another small news item, but well worth it. A member in our forums found a little hack, actually a registry edit that is supposed to speed up the Windows XP shutdown command by altering the WaitToKillServiceTimeout key. I tried it and it certainly shows some improvement - Visit the link to find out how to do it...
• How to Optimize Game Performance - This article tells you how to configure Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 and your computer for optimal game performance.
• AbiWord 1.0.1 - AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoftr Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, and so forth.
• WinMX 3 Beta 10 - WinMX is a free file-sharing program like no other. It allows you to simultaneously connect through the decentralized WinMX Peer Networking Protocol AND to many networks based on the OpenNap and Napster protocols.
• CDex 1.50 Beta 3 - CDex is a freeware application, which is able to extract audio tracks from a CD-ROM digitally, and save those files to disk as either regular WAV file or MP3 files.
• Zoom Player 2.60 Beta 3 - Zoom Player is a robust Media and DVD Front-End Player. It was designed to be simple at first glance while being remarkably dynamic and flexible when used to its full potential.
• CubicEye - CubicEye Tools allow webmasters and software developers to organize their content, functions, and interfaces into single or multiple cubes, taking advantage of not only the surfaces of the cubes, but the space inside as well, for the display and manipulation of both content and data.
• RefreshLock 2.01 - Fed up of getting 60Hz or 75Hz in your favourite OpenGL/Direct3D/DirectX games (e.g. Quake 1/2/3, Half-Life, Unreal, or Deus Ex) instead of the 120Hz your display adapter & monitor are capable of? Yes? Then download this FREE program, and enjoy higher display frequencies without the hassle of installing special drivers.
• TVTool 6.0e Beta - 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.
• S3/VIA Drivers - Download:  ProSavage Win2K/XP Drivers v13.93.32 with Ishld / ProSavageDDR Win2K/XP Drivers v13.93.34 NoIshld / ProSavageDDR Win2K/XP Drivers v13.93.34 Util / Twister/TwisterK Win2K/XP Drivers v13.93.35 w/Hotkey / Twister/TwisterK Win2K/XP Drivers v13.93.35 NoHotkey / SavageIX WinXP Drivers v7.90.36 AGP / SavageIX WinXP Drivers v7.90.36 PCI.
• Official ATI  RADEON Drivers - ATi has officially released an official driver set for their RADEON series of video cards: ATi RADEON WinXP v6.13.10.6071 / ATi RADEON Win2k v5.13.01.6071 / ATi RADEON Win98/ME v4.13.9031 / ATi RADEON WinNT4 v4.3.4013.
• OEM Intellipoint Software 4.01 - Microsoft has released some new OEM drivers for their Intellipoint series of mouses.
• nForce Driver Package 1.03 (Certified Beta) - Download the package #1 (audio drivers not included), download package #2 (audio drivers for W9x/ME & W2K/XP)

• GameCube Modchips - According to Dutch geek news website Headliner, there are four hacking teams developing mod chips, which will allow imported and copied games to be played on the Xbox.  One team, Neo Tech, has already said that it will not be marketing its 'Neox' mod chip for fear of going into the ring with Microsoft's legal department. Neo Tech created a mod chip for the PlayStation 2 but was forced to pull out after legal murmurings from Sony.
• Xbox Modchips - Again, according to Headliner, seems there are now 3 modchips available all trying to get the retail modchip on the streets first. The first - Messiah X - Created by the Messiah (the first full no-swap modchip for PS2) development team. Comming from China and working on their Xbox Mod Chip which will be called MX (Messiah X). The developers are currently implementing the DVD features and a real demonstration should be available soon according to some sources, the second ENIGMA-X - 30 wires and boots everything including import originals (also macrovision off) and the last one -   Xtender - It boots backups, and will be released shortly. The chip is made up of a lattice chip and an eeprom. Spec: 31 wires, plays imports and backups, no DVD feature, and works on all consoles.
• Mobile security cards "cloned in minutes" - Mobile phone security cards can be cloned in minutes allowing hackers to make calls charged to their victim's account, according to research from IBM. In a paper to be presented at a major security symposium next week, Big Blue will reveal that hackers can discover the security number of a GSM phone in minutes. The process, known as a 'partitioning attack', involves the analysis of power flows in the phone's SIM card, which can determine the codes inside.
• Video games to help you relax - Gary McDarby and his MindGames team at MediaLab Europe are looking at using gaming technology to aid people suffering from depression or trauma. In their latest project, called Brainchild, you try to unlock a door simply through your brain waves. "You are playing a video game but hopefully over time you would learn what is it that helps you relax," explained Dr McDarby.
• Domain Registry Will Charge Premium for Privilege of a ".pro" Address - Lawyers, physicians and accountants soon will be able to register Web addresses in a worldwide Internet domain reserved exclusively for certified professionals, but they will have to pay nearly 10 times the cost of ordinary domain names. The new .pro domain will cost you  ~ $250-$300 per year.
• Microsoft winds up on both ends of software piracy stick - Did you know Microsoft was convicted of software piracy last year by a French court? Not many people do. The Commercial Court of Nanterre fined Microsoft 3 million francs because it illegally included another company's proprietary source code in SoftImage 3D, a top-of-the-line animation package.
• "Cute" Trojan Could Take Over Your PC - According to Symantec and McAfee, the e-mail in question has the subject line: "Thoughts..." with a message that reads, "I just found this program, and, I don't know why...but it reminded me of you. Check it out."  If the user is tricked into double-clicking the attachment, which carries the file name "cute.exe," the Trojan is installed on their PC.
• Super-thin Color Display Unveiled - Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands yesterday unveiled advances in color LCD display technology designed for PDAs and phones. Specifically, the company announced a 3.5-inch QVGA thin-film-transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) color module that is 3.5mm thick.
• Home Networking in Windows XP Guide Updated - Micorosoft have Updated the Network Troubleshooting page. It contains a lot of useful information if you have a Home Network
• MPEGed 1.00 RC2.1 - FreeWare MPEGed allows you to easily modify MPEG file properties without re-encoding and without sacrificing quality.
• WinDVD 4 Trial - Intervideo have now released a WinDVD 4 trial for users to evaluate as well as shipping both versions of the retail product.
• MS Messenger v4.60079 - Microsoft has updated its MSN and Windows Messenger client, it now upto build v4.6.0079.
• Googlesearchtool v1.5.5 - This software application (Freeware) is a handy tool for people like me who are spending lot's of time searching the various newsgroups posts, images, links, news and stocks in googlec.
• Spider v1.16 - I discovered a privacy 'bug/feature' in Internet Explorer3/4/5 (for important informatio about IE6, see history): IE stores the visited URLs in some hidden files and whenyou clean your cache and history, this information is notdeleted! I wrote a software program to scan these hidden filesfor URLs and to put those URLs in a file. So the user's privacy is at stake because anyone with this program, can go to the PC ofsomebody else and see the URLs he has visited!
• NVRefreshTool 0.75b - A new version of the NVRefreshTool is now available. Brings simplicity back to fixing the refresh rate problem. You must only run this program after each new installation of Detonator XP drivers that use the compressed mode format. The program is not designed to be memory resident.
• ATI Radeon Glide Wrapper - A Glide Wrapper is a driver that lets non 3dfx-cards play glide-only-games.
• Aureal Vortex Control Panel v2.10 Beta - This is the first version to support all sound cards in one single file. Please uninstall all previous versions of the control panel first because otherwise they will conflict with each other.

• XBox hacked part II - There is a new movie released by the apparently original crew that released the 1st movie (see above). The 2nd movie can be downloaded here (37MB). The following information is spread together with the movie:
  quote: "Xtender crew are forced to release another video to confirm that the chip isn’t fake We also want to point out that we are in no way affiliated to raptor or neo-x Look out for the Xtender chip coming very soon from your local chip supplier".
• Judge wants demo of "modular" Windows - Over Microsoft's objections, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says she'll let a computer expert demonstrate a version of Windows with removable features.
• China censors web access - Chinese authorities have conducted a purge of more than 200 internet cafes located in the suburbs of the country's second largest city, Shanghai.
• Sony plays ball with Aibo hackers - Sony has made a U-turn in allowing owners of its Aibo robotic dog to modify the software, and will now offer free kits so that owners can teach it new tricks.
• Virus Hoax Making The Rounds - 'JDBGMGR.EXE'  - A virus warning is making the rounds urging people to search for a purported virus on their hard drives - a file named JDBGMGR.EXE. Chances are, they will find it, because the "warning" is a hoax.
• McDonald's serves WLAN broadband in Japan - Fast-food diners in Japan could soon be able to get broadband with their burgers. According to reports, Internet investment outfit Softbank and McDonald's are to create almost 4,000 "hotspots" in McDonald's restaurants in Japan to give punters wireless broadband access to the Net.
• Intel sleepwalks through Nvidia PR - Nvidia today issued a press release confirming that mobos incorporating its GeForce 4 graphics chip work very well indeed with the new Intel/Rambus 533MHz FSB- supporting i850E chipset. And curious reading it makes too.
• Intel to support DDR 333 - The chip giants will roll out the 845PE and the 845GE but show them off at next month's Taiwanese Computex show, according to a report in Digitimes. The chipsets will otherwise be quite similar to the 845G and the 845E, which are the next introductions in this quarter. If the reports are correct, it gives a further impetus to the DDR 333 push. Both Via and SIS, which also make chipsets, are already shipping chipsets which use DDR 333.
• AMD & NVIDIA Website - AMD and NVIDIA worked together to develop the NVIDIA nForce Platform Processors to help ensure that both the chipset and the AMD AthlonT XP processor make the most of each other's architectural features. Two key AMD-backed initiatives are fully integrated into the NVIDIA nForce chipset: DDR Memory and HyperTransportT technology.
• Video Card Roundup -  Visiontek GeForce 4 Xtasy Ti4400 / ABIT Siluro GF4 MX440 /  MSI GF4Ti4400-VTD / Chaintech A-GT61 GeForce 4 Ti4600 / ASUS V8460 GeForce 4 4600 / Chaintech GeForce 4 Ti4600  / Palit Daytona/Visual Magic GF4 MX440 /  eVGA GF4 Ti4600 / 3DLabs Eyes PC Graphics Comeback / Gigabyte MAYA AP64D-H (RADEON 8500) / ATI Radeon 8500 vs. NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti500 /  Matrox Rumors and Facts
• Misc HW Roundup - Intel 533MHz P4 2.4B & 2.53GHz / Overclocking the XP1600+ / MSI 845 Ultra-ARU / VIA P4PA / DFI NB70-SC / OCZ PC2400 DDR / Logitech Z-560 THX Certified 4.1 Speakers / OCZ Goliath SE / Belkin N50 Speedpad  / Compaq Fingerprint Scanner / Liteon 24X external CDRW / Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD-RW / Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD-RW / Samsung Syncmaster 151B 15 inch TFT Monitor / Thermal Compound round-up / MAGNUM 390 Water cooling Set.
• Microsoft's Hidden Files in Windows XP -  MSIE is known to store your entire history inside a HIDDEN file somewhere in your comp for unknown reasons (or should I say, Unproven reasons). OK, then we just click on "clear history" and "delete files" no? NO! it might seem like it erased the history, but it didnt.
  It is stored inside a file called "Index.DAT", which is Hidden. But not hidden in the regular way, even if you enalbe the "view hidden files" option, you will still not be able to see it or even search for it.
• Blindwrite Suite Version 4.0.0.24 - if you want to test it against CloneCD you can download the new version here.
• Active Network Monitor 1.0 Beta 5  - ANM is a FREE tool for the day-to-day monitoring of computers on a network. ANM runs under Windows NT/2000/XP. It lets Systems Administrators gather information from every computer on the network.
• Customizer XP 1.8.2 - Customizer XP is an integrated suite of programs that can help you to tweak your Windows NT/2000/XP to its fullest potential performance or just keep it running like new.
• Apache 2.0.36 - For full changelog, please visit this page. Download Apache 2.0.36 from here.
• Soundblaster Live! Audigy driver 5.12 WinXP - Gateway has released a new Soundblaster Live! Audigy driver version 5.12 (25MB) for Windows XP.
• VIA Motherboard Beta Drivers - VIA has released some new beta drivers preparing for the next release of their 4-in-1 driver. Well, there is no info on what they fixed - AGP driver 4.11 beta for Win98/Me/W2K/XP / Inf driver beta 1.50 for Win95/98/Me/2000/XP.
• Realtek Network Card Drivers v5.03 - Realtek has released WHQL certified drivers v5.03, with a new automated installer for their RTL8139(A/B/C/D/8130)/810X family of cards.
• MSI Nvidia Detonator 28.90 Drivers - MSI have released their Nvidia's Detonator Drivers 28.90 (WinALL): I have read a note that these drivers aren't recommended to be used for VIA KT133/ KT266/ KT266A/ KM266 boards. Well, if you have a different board, you can leech: MSI Nvidia Detonator 28.90 Drivers For Win9x/ME / MSI Nvidia Detonator 28.90 Drivers For Win2K/XP / MSI Nvidia Detonator 28.90 Drivers For WinNT 4.0.

• Midwest Express Airlines hacked - The Deceptive Duo" hacked into the Midwest Express server that is used to test new features for the airline's Web site and then posted evidence of their break-in on their own Web site and the Web site of the U. S. Space & Naval War Systems Command.
• 'Spidey' Already Being Swapped By Online Pirates - While Columbia Picture's new "Spider-Man" movie was breaking box-office records over the weekend, Internet movie pirates were busily downloading free copies of the film on file-trading networks. By Saturday, pirated versions of the comic book inspired movie were showing up in "screener" format on the EDonkey, Kazaa, and Morpheus Internet file-swapping systems.
• Journey to the Farthest Planet - Scientists are finally preparing to send a spacecraft to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, the last unexplored region of our planetary system.
• Domain owners could face the slammer - People who provide false data when registering a domain name on the Web could be thrown into jail for up to five years, if a recently introduced bill becomes law.
• Dell's incredible shrinking notebook - The Latitude mini-notebook, Dell's X200, features a 12.1-inch screen, but weighs only 2.8 pounds and is just under an inch thick. The X200 will sell for $1,899. Dell includes the 12.1-inch screen and 800MHz ultra-low voltage Pentium III-M processor from Intel, 128MB of RAM and a 30GB hard drive.  
• Intel 2.53GHz CPU! - Intel today unveiled the 2.53GHz P4 chip running at an insane 533mhz bus speed on the new i850E chipset. Read coverage at Tom's Hardware / Tech-Report / AnandTech / HardOCP / HotHardware /SimHQ / Extreme Tech / Tweak3D / Hardware Analysis / Tweak Town / OC WB.
• AMD "Thoroughbred" AthlonXP Preview- The long awaited Athlon CPU based on the Thoroughbred core, or Tbred to its mates, has finally arrived (preview). Well, at least some 1900+ Engineering samples have, and yours truly had the opportunity to play with them.
• Asynchronous Bus - Currently the most popular chipset for a single CPU Athlon system is the KT333. It supports things like ATA 133 and DDR333 that have quickly become standards. Most KT333 board manufacturers have opted to use an asynchronous bus to support DDR333 instead of adding in a 1/5 divider and supporting a true 166Mhz bus. I'm not a big fan of this at all. The gains of running an asynchronous bus aren't as big as you'd expect.
• Official MS Guide To Multibooting With Windows 2k/XP - A computer can be configured to let you choose between two or more operating systems each time you restart the computer. For example, you could set up a server to run Windowsr 2000 Server most of the time but allow it to sometimes run Windows NT Server 4.0 in order to support an older application. With multibooting, you can choose which operating system to run or specify a default OS if no selection is made during the restart process.
• Red Hat Unveils Red Hat Linux 7.3 - Red Hat today released Red Hat Linux version 7.3., a highly configurable operating system (OS) designed for deployments ranging from games and personal productivity to file, print and web serving. Red Hat Linux 7.3 adds new productivity tools, personal firewall configuration at installation, and video conferencing software to deliver everything individual users, educational institutions and small businesses need for flexible Internet-based computing.
• XBConnect 1.1 - XBConnect is "Next Generation" Software for Win32 that allows you to play Microsoft XboxT system link games over the internet. No more Single Player Campaign/Career modes. With XBConnect finding players to play against is a breeze and an essential part of the XBox experience. Supported games to date are Halo, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2x, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and Nascar Heat 2002. And all with no ads.....no hidden fees. FREEWARE.
• NetCaptor v7.0 Final -  The small IE based browser NetCaptor has been updated to version 7.0 Final.
• Swat It 1.0 - SwatIT is a free Trojan scanner to detect and remove Tojans, Worms & IRC DDOS & GT Bots (scripts). All software and signature updates for this program are ulutely free. The most effective solution to Trojan and Bot removal and for free.
• BootXP updated to v2.1 - This update fixes some bugs found in the new release and add some new features requested by the users.
• Exclusive Windows based overclocking utility - EasyTuneT 4 a stylish exclusive Windows based overclocking utility, which totally changes the traditional way for "Overclocking". It provides 2 modes, "Easy Mode" for the novice users and "Advance Mode" to fulfill the power-users. Want to reach the highest performance for your computer? EasyTuneT 4 will be your best partner. Download beta.
• Beta nForce Drivers WinXP/2k - download here.
• ATI Omega/Plutonium X1.0.71 Co-Developed Driver - Omegadrive (Angel) and Cyborg (Jeff) have released their first co developed driver set for the community.
• Gainward GeForce4 Power Pack BIOSes -  Gainward have released new BIOS files for their GeForce4 Power Pack series of cards (see links bellow) and ExperTool v2.85. Download: PowerPack! Ultra/750 XP 128MB Golden Sample BIOS V4.25.00.26 Ti4600 / PowerPack! Ultra/700 XP 128MB Golden Sample BIOS V4.25.00.26 Ti4400 / PowerPack! Ultra/650 TV 64MB Golden Sample BIOS V4.25.00.30 Ti4200 / Nvidia Drivers V28.32 3D glasses for Win9x/ME/2000/XP english version only.
• ATI Mega CD - Uriel has whipped together a CD (300MB) containing: The latest drivers for all OS's, Latest MMC + DVD,   Latest Hydravision, Latest WDM, All ATI-specific demos, Most of the tweakers, Fixes and other stuff, ATI screensavers+more.

• Project X cracks the Xbox - A team called ProjectX has released around 23 iso games, people have questioned if they work on normal consoles and not the dev units.  People have said that ProjectX is Echelon+Kalisto working together as a team. There’s even a video showing someone loading a burned Xbox game onto a normal unit and not a dev. Here are some screenshots from the video: A man with a mask show's a regular cd-r, A CD-R is being inserted into the Xbox, Blood Wake is loading in the Xbox, Blood Wake is played from the regular CD-R, A man, yet again shows the regular CD-R, WORKING Video Link., Another WORKING OC48 Video Link.(big thanks Ibellite.com & headliner.nl).
• CS 1.4 includes wall hacks! - There are built in wall hacks and a zoom script in CS 1.4. All it takes is a simple 2 line config script and you have yourself a working wall hack. The zoom script also serves as a wall hack if used properly. (thanks ASE Tools)
• Scientists' deaths are under the microscope - Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.
• Matrox G1000 to be announced on the 14th? - Matrox Graphics is really preparing the new chip called G1000 also known as code-named Parhelia. G1000 features rendering pipelines with 4 TMU per each one, DirectX 9 support (it also includes Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders 2.0 as well as all the other features of the new API from Microsoft such as Displacement Mapping and increased to 40-bit color-depth), 512-bit 2D graphics core, 256 MB of DDR SDRAM memory, 3Dlabs` P10, 256-bit bus-width, dual 400 MHz RAMDACs, support AGP 8x.
• Samsung Syncmaster 151B 15 Inch TFT Monitor - Have you had the chance to try an LCD yet? Have you actually ever seen one? Have you ever viewed photos on a LCD? If you have answered yes to any of those questions, you will know just how comfortable these monitors are to use. No eyestrain, lower power bills, more workspace, sharper colours, I just can't see why anyone would WANT a normal monitor.
• eVGA GF4 Ti4600 - This review will deal with a Ti4600 and how it compares to a card two generations behind it, the GeForce2 GTS. People always say to wait two generations before buying a new card anyway. Remember throughout the article that a GF2 GTS performs very closely to a Radeon DDR (32mb and 64mb).
• Morrowind  - Pauses are caused by Safedisc copy protection - I was curious about this so I downloaded a no-cd patch for the game and poof the loading pauses are gone, the ones where you get the loading message remain of course but the one where no message appears are caused by safedisc constantly scanning the cd to make sure the right disc is in there. You will still need to have the cd in the drive for the music and voices i believe and who knows what else but this removes the checks that safedisc does. Boosted performance by a good 15% on my system.
• Nvidia Detonator v29.20 Performance Comparison - X-bios have published a quick performance comparison using 3DMark2001 SE /3DMark2000 and the newly leaked Nvidia Detonator 29.20.
• W32.Klez Removal Tool - Symantec has released their tool to remove infections of W32.Klez.E@mm, W32.Klez.H@mm, W32.ElKern.3587, and W32.ElKern.4926.
• Test your video card for Warcraft 3 - Want to know if your video card will handle Warcraft 3? Blizzard just released a tool to determine that.
• nVHardPage v0.87.7b - This program serves on enabling/disabling hidden features in nVidia control panel and tweaking nVidia Direct3D & OpenGL settings.
• Official NVIDIA Detonators v28.84 W2k/XP & 28.85 WinNT 4.0 - Nvidia released a new Detonators for Windows 2000/XP and NT 4.0.

• Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo Leaked? - I found to the demo was over here (thanks CtrlAltDel.com), it looks like the article was edited though, the whole content pertaining to the demo is erased. Well, instead you can check two  massive movies  (mirror) instead :P 1st video, 25 minutes, 202 megs: Offical presentation (with actors, laser- and lightshow, pyrotechnics) and an interview with Jay Wilbur and players from german clans (e.g. shuuk and Mortal Teamwork). He also introduces the UnrealEditor, weapons and maps.   2nd video, 35 minutes, 292 megs: Unreal Tournament 2003 game action with german top players fighting each other in LAN-matches.
• Intel to announce new P4s and chipset  - The company on Monday plans to announce three new Pentium 4 chips for desktop PCs, along with a new version of its 850 chipset, which could help it up the ante against rival AMD.
• Fire-extinguisher balls - One of the ball's advantages is that it's fast-acting. It bursts into action within three seconds of exposure to heat from flames. Fire-proof powder, monoammonium phosphate and non-chlorofluorocarbon foam spurt out to dampen the flames and suck up the oxygen that keeps fires burning. At the same time, the ball emits a high-pitched alarm, set at 101 decibels--loud enough to signal for help and just tolerable to human ears.
• Sonicblue forced to spy on subscribers? - In response to a lawsuit filed by a slew of heavyweight entertainment companies, a federal magistrate has ordered Sonicblue to monitor customers' activities to find out what TV programming they record, duplicate or send to others--a situation the company says is tantamount to forced spying.
• NV 18 Developed? - According to Darkcrow NVIDIA has developed a new chipset based on the NV17 core. This should be released with the new product range in Autumn and will include AGP 8X and IEEE1394. (thanks warp2search)
• Windows XP Setup Function Keys - During Windows XP Setup, you can use various function keys to activate certain features and commands. The following list details the current functions keys, what they do, and when you can use them.
• Macromedia Flash ActiveX Buffer Overflow - All users of Internet Explorer are potentially affected because this is a Macromedia signed ocx. Could lead to the execution of attacker supplied code via email, web or any other avenue in which Internet Explorer is used to display html that an attacker can supply. This includes software which uses the web browser activex. We advise them to upgrade their flash version immediately to version 6, revision 29!
• Hot CPU Tester Lite 3.3 - Hot CPU Tester Lite is a system health and stability tester. It tests CPU, and virtually all parts of motherboard for errors/bugs and defective parts. It is a burn-in test with uniquely designed state of the art DefectTech engine.
• Zoom Player 2.60 Beta 2.1 - It seems that the file navigator simply doesn't work well under Win98 (probably 95/ME as well). The problem lies in the fact that I was setting the root path as "C:" instead of "C:". Now WinXP ignores the extra "", but Win98 is freaked out and returns an invalid dir, which basically meant that users were not seeing any files, doh!  Download a new beta from here.
• Blindwrite Suite 4.0 - Blindwrite Suite can create CD audio from MP3, and be use with an cd-rom emulator like Daemon Tools.
• Nero Burning Rom 5.5.8.2 Officially - Ahead now officially have released a new version of Nero. This new version fixed bugs and added several new recorders, support for Video DVD documents to the Nero Wizard , Turn on DAO and Fixation for Mixed-Mode and CD-Extra on default, added support dynamic changing of document type (UDF, ISO, UDF/ISO) during multisession, implemented DVD+R multisession support and many more.
• CloneCD 4.0.0.1 -  Elby has now released CloneCD 4.0.0.1 which features Revamped Copy-Kernel: CloneCD 4 copies more, new User Interface: Even easier to use, new technical features: i.e. Automatic Fast Error Skip.
• Logitech Mouse Drivers 9.60 - The new version is 9.60 build 146 (5.9MB).
• Creative WinDVR & WDM Driver - This patch updates the WinDVR application included in 3D Blaster Personal Cinema.

• DrinkOrDie pirate sent to prison - A former security software engineer convicted of providing technology to a piracy group known as DrinkOrDie was sentenced Thursday to nearly three years in prison.
• University systems a haven for hackers - College is supposed to be about learning. But many universities with insecure networks are unwittingly providing a special kind of education: Hacking and Piracy.
• Mobile reprogrammers face five years - Reprogramming a mobile phone could result in five years in prison under a new law being designed by the Home Office to clamp down on mobile-phone crime. The government is expected to unveil the new measure on Friday, after which a bill on mobile phone reprogramming will be published in the House of Lords.
• Chaos as 'Klez cocktails' begin to strike - One of the most hazardous mixtures combines Klez with a newer version of the old CIH virus. Costin Ionescu, a researcher at antivirus firm BitDefender, said: "Older and even forgotten viruses like CIH or MTX now have a modern means of transportation.
• Star Wars sick days will cost $300m  - Star Wars-related absenteeism could cost the US economy more than $300m in wages when Episode II is released on May 16, according to employment experts. Chicago-based recruitment firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas projects as many as 2.6m workers will take the day off work on May 16 to see the latest instalment of George Lucas's sci-fi series.
• Adobe wins Flash patent lawsuit - Adobe filed the suit in August 2000, alleging that the user interface of Macromedia's Flash Web animation tool infringed on Adobe's patent for "tabbed palettes," a feature that allows users of design software to rearrange the work space on the PC screen. A jury in the U.S. District Court of Delaware agreed with Adobe and awarded the company $2.8 million in damages. Adobe said in a statement that it also expects a judicial injunction preventing Macromedia from selling the infringing software.
• Paintable LCDs - photo-enforced stratification - Researchers have devised a way of making them by just painting the raw materials onto almost any kind of surface: walls, sheets of plastic -- or even clothing.  The Philips technique, called "photo-enforced stratification," involves painting a liquid crystal and polymer mixture onto a surface, then exposing it to two doses of ultraviolet radiation.
• Cellphone radiation "trapped" in train carriages - Tsuyoshi Hondou, a physicist from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, who is currently working at the Curie Institute in Paris, says Japanese commuter trains are often packed with people surfing the web on their mobile phones. The trend spurred him to find out what effect this had on the electromagnetic radiation in a train carriage.
• Nintendo hiring 50 people to play games - People who spend too much time playing video games have new hope for gainful employment as Nintendo of America announced plans Tuesday to pay 50 people about $100 a day to play computer games all summer long. Candidates must be at least 18-years-old and must fill out an application and create a two-minute video explaining why they deserve the job. Applications must be in between May 13 and June 14, and can be found on the official Web site at www.nintendostreetteam.com.
• DivX-enabled TI DSC25 chips - DivXNetworks, Inc. has announced the successful integration of the DivX(TM) video codec to the Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) digital signal processor. DivX-enabled TI DSC25 chips will support DivX playback on next-generation consumer electronics devices, including digital set-top boxes, handheld video players, next-generation DVD players and digital video cameras. Over the next six to eighteen months, we will see the roll-out of a variety of hardware devices capable of playing back DivX video, from handheld players to digital set-top boxes.
• Hardware Roundup - Beyond3D GeForce4 Ti 4200, Asus GeForce 2 Pro / Inno3D GF4 Ti 4400 / Chaintech GeForce 4 Ti4600 VGA / HIS Excalibur Radeon 7500LE / Matrox Millennium G550 / MSI PC2PC Bluetooth / EPoX 8K3A / SOYO Dragon KT333 Ultra / EPoX 8K3A+ / Crucial 256MB PC2700 DDR
• Nvidia Detonator 29.11 Performance Comparison - NVchips-fr have done a quick performance comparison using 3DMark2001 SE and the newly leaked Nvidia Detonator 29.11.
• Yet Another Longhorn "Alpha" Video - I have another longhorn Video, it is a 15 sec shot of logon and desktop and some clicks on the new taskbar. Later on friday I hope to receive some screen shots which are more clear then the video's   This is obvously an alpha build, number 277 to be exact. (thanks WindowsXP.nu)
• GammaLaunch - A profile is created for each application, and a gamma value is set. When the profile is launched the gamma level of the monitor is set to the stored value and the application is run.When the pplication ends, GammaLaunch will automatically return the gamma level back to its previous setting.
• ACDSee PowerPack v4.0.1 - ACDSee PowerPack combines three popular software products from ACD Systems: ACDSee, FotoCanvas and FotoAngelo.
• Nero 5.5.8.1 (leaked) - Nero 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). No changelog available yet.
• KaZaA Lite 1.6.1 final - KaZaA Lite will show you how to install KaZaA Lite without all the spyware that comes with KaZaA
• BootXP v2  - A new version of Boot XP has been released.
• XP Antispy 3.5 - A new version of XP Antispy has been released and it's v3.5. This tool allows you to disable most if not all suspicious home call functions in Windows XP.
• ASCII Generator beta13 -  The ASCII Generator (ASCGEN) is a 32-bit Windows text editor that allows anyone to easily convert images into artwork created from text characters.
• NVIDIA Detonators v29.20 (leaked) - Warp2Search offers a new leaked (beta) NVIDIA Detonator drivers version 29.20 for both Win9x/ME and Win2K/XP.
• Dell Nvidia Detonator & Sound Blaster Live Drivers - Dell have released some new Nvidia Detonators and Sound Blaster Live! driver updates for Windows 2000 and XP - nVidia Quadro4 700XGL Precision 340, 530, v. 28.41, A05 / nVidia Quadro4 900XGL Multi Language, Precision 340, 530, v. 28.41, A03 / Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 512V v. SBLV-DLPAT-1-LA, A03 / Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 512V, Patch Dimension 2100, 4200, 8200, v. SBLV-DLPAT-2-LA, A04.
• Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Driver (Win2k/XP) -  This is a full driver installation and does not require any previous installation. This patch also contains AudioHQ and Surround Mixer. PlayCenter 2 and MiniDisc Center will also be patched if these applications are already installed on your system. This release is in English only. The driver version from the "new" release: 3509.1.0.0, so it's older than driver version from the Creative NA Revision 2 driver kit released last November: 3509.2.0.0.  
• ATI Fire GL 8800/GL 8700 Drivers (Win2k/XP) - Download drivers:   ATi Fire GL 8800/GL 8700 (WinXP driver build 6.12.10.3030) / ATi Fire GL 8800/GL 8700 D (Win2k Driver build 5.12.2195.3030) / ATi Fire GL 8800/GL 8700 (WinNT 4.0 Driver build 4.00.1381.3030).

• eMac price tag stuns students - The reason for the shock is twofold. First of all, the less expensive of the two models was not initially available for college students, although Apple says it will be available by the end of the week. Second, the price for college students is $50 more than the pricing announced Monday.The eMac, which Apple introduced Monday, is similar to the original iMac, but is built around a 17-inch monitor and sold only in the education market to schools, teachers and college students. Because it uses a flat-screen version of the traditional monitor, the eMac takes up roughly the same amount of space as the 15-inch iMac.
• Melissa virus creator gets 20 months - The creator of the Melissa computer virus, which hobbled computer systems across the United States three years ago, was sentenced Wednesday to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay $5,000 in fines.
• Scientists create remote-controlled rats - By implanting electrodes in rats' brains, scientists have created remote-controlled rodents they can command to turn left or right, climb trees and navigate piles of rubble -- and maybe someday, with the rats outfitted with tiny video cameras, use to search for disaster survivors.
• USB Port Devices Pose Security Threat - Firewalls and virus checkers are no defense against the latest form of computer attack that comes via open USB ports. Not only can viruses, worms and Trojans get into the corporate network this way, but valuable data can leave the company in huge quantities, according to security experts.
• Netscape flaw exposes hard drives - An Israeli software firm has discovered a flaw in Netscape and Mozilla software that allows code hidden in a Web page to read files from the user's PC. The bug is a more serious variant of one patched in Microsoft's Internet Explorer in February.
• Quantum3D/NVIDIA technology: Military Applications - While we have enjoyed our 3D graphics technology for entertainment over the last few years, NVIDIA and its partner Quantum3D have also been developing embedded graphics technology in the same way ELSA has been producing workstation products. Embedded graphics technology has many applications, including industrial and medical imaging, but perhaps one of the most interesting products are those being developed for the United States’ Department of Defense. We’re not talking about the use of NVIDIA GPUs to run team-building games such as Rogue Spear, but the use of actual NVIDIA/Quantum3D hardware in the field that helps our armed forces “place steel on target” effectively. This partnership is called FARSIGHT nV and the first design win is a Quadro2 Go in the cockpit display of the F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter.
• Unofficial Details on New AMD's CPUs - They were showcasing two servers built with Sledgehammer processors (Opteron) and two workstations connected to them built on ClawHammer processors. They used 64bit Windows Server OS version for both and were running IIS and Terminal Server software. On the client systems they were running 64bit Internet Explorer. Also AMD demonstrated how well these systems coped with 32bit applications.
• Nvidia NV30 In August - According to this article at CNewst, Jen-Hsun Huang CEO of Nvidia stated today that the company will launch a fundamentally new architecture in August.
• Samsung 24X10X40 CDRW Review - In order to burn at higher speeds Samsung choose to implement Zone CLV technology. What this does is divide the CD in 3 Zones. The First zone is burned at 16x, then the drive speeds up to 20x to burn the second zone, and finally speeds up to 24x until the end of the CD. On the SW-224B the first zone ends at 2 min. from the lead in area, and the second zone ends at 12 min. During the zone transitions super-link is used to prevent you from making a coaster.
• MSI G4MX440-T Review - As the name suggests, this card is based on the GeForce4 MX440 graphics solution and is targeted at those who are looking for a good 3D card but are on an even more constrained budget. The MSI card will run you just under $100, and is easier on your wallet than a Ti4400 or Ti4600 card. But what about performance? Will it keep you happy, and is it worth your money?
• ASUS A7V333 KT333 Review - This board we have in our labs comes equipped with ATA133 RAID, Firewire. The board also incorporates USB 2.0 and CMEDIA 6 ch audio. Something unique on this board are some ASUS features e.g. ASUS POST Reporter which is a voice diagnostic feature.
• AMD vs Intel - The lack of any thermal protection is another disadvantage AMD has against Intel. Athlons run hot, and if your cooling isn't up to spec, your CPU will die. The Athlon XP has an internal diode to prevent this, but no manufacturers has a shipping motherboard that makes use of this feature. Asus does have their C.O.P. (CPU Overheat Prevention) feature, but don't expect a working CPU if you forgot to reinstall your heatsink. Intel CPUs on the other hand can slow down on the fly (throttling), and actually shut down (i.e. lock up) before any serious damage is done.
• Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Soon - Betatesters just recieved this message: "The DirectX team would like to thank you for your patience as we prepare to release DirectX 9.0 Beta 1. We are currently working on the final stages of Beta 1 for DirectX 9.0 and plan to release it to you for testing very soon. When the beta has released, you will be sent email with further instructions. We appreciate your willingness to test DirectX and look forward to working with you." (thanks NeoWin.net)
• How to send and receive secure e-mail - One solution is to subscribe to one of the services that protect e-mail in transit. Mailsafe, SecureNym, KeptPrivate, and Swissmail, for example, will protect the conversation between your computer and their servers using SSL (the same encryption technology used by e-commerce Web sites to protect customers' credit card numbers over the Internet). As long as you and your correspondents select the same SSL-based service, your e-mail exchanges are readable only on your computer, your correspondents', and the service's e-mail server.
• Nvidia Brushed Metal Demo - This effect demonstrates a brushed metal effect using DirectX8 pixel shaders. This demo requires the NVEffectsBrowser to run.
• WinDVD 4 Premium Shots - The new version will support all the recent audio technologies such as DTS-ES, Dolby EX and Dolby Dynamic Range Compression. It will also support playback from hard disk, advanced TV-out properties and a new feature called Video Desktop that will allow you to set your wallpaper to act as the DVD screen
• OpenOffice 1.0 - OpenOffice is based on StarOffice code released by Sun and it's major highlights are that it is platform independent and supporting a broad variety of languages.
• FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 849 - FlashFXP is a powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market. What's New:"Fixed bug where changing the application password with multiple instances of FlashFXP open resulted in serious issues. New toolbar buttons windows XP style. Created by Christof By default the compare folder button is now hidden, to enable it right click on the toolbar and select it from the pop up menu. Added 3 new buttons. Edit File / View File, and Transfer Mode to the FTP only view."
• HSmonitor 4.0.4.2 - This program has been developed as a light-weight alternative for Intel LANDesk Client Manager. It takes much less memory and monitors only parameters that are collected by several types of sensor chips, installed on modern motherboards.
• HyperSnap-DX 4.50.01 - 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. This new version adds new function Color/Substitute Colors, allows you to define custom color lists to be replaced on an image, like "replace all green pixels with red" etc.
• BSPlayer v0.85 build 484 - BSPlayer is a Windows player for playing back avi/asf/wmv/mpeg video files or any other file for which you have a codec.
• Audiotools v4.00 - Audiotools is a direct-to-disk recording tool with the facility to automatically split a recording into tracks to the hard disk without having to use much memory.
• Winamp v2.80a - Nullsoft have released a new version v2.80a of WinAmp, their free mediaplayer.
• NVRefreshTool 0.6b - There is a new re-designed version - download.
• Sonique2 Alpha 2.1.4.30 - An updated build of the second alpha of Sonique2 (MP3 player) has been released.
• Jetway ATI BIOS - Jetway have released a new set of ATI BIOS files: ATi RV200A1d (RADEON 7500) Flash BIOS / ATi RV200LE (RADEON 7500LE) Flash BIOS.
• Nvidia Detonator 29.11 (Win2K/XP) Leaked - A new Detonator driver has been leaked - download.
• Creative Labs Audigy & Live Update - Compaq has offers a masssive 377MB package (it's probably a  beta) for download. The package is for Windows XP only and includes: Playcenter: 3.01.57, Creative Recorder: 2.00.24, Surround Mixer: 2.00.26 and Creative Task Bar: 1.00.26.

• NY Times Readers Can't Digest Klez Worm - According to Times spokeswoman Christine Mohan, approximately 250 subscribers to the TimesDigest service received the e-mail, which carried an attached file infected with Klez.
• MP3 viruses could play with Winamp - A bug in the code of Winamp 2.79 allows a specially formed data tag in an MP3 file to cause a buffer overrun in the application, which could be exploited to run any piece of code the attacker wishes. The glitch was posted to the Bugtraq security mailing list Friday by Andreas Sandblad, a Swedish engineering student.
• Hackers Continue 'Early Warning' Attacks On U.S. Web Sites - A team of hackers, cutting a wide swath of Web-site defacements across the country in what they say is the interests of national security, added servers from Sandia National Laboratories, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to a list of conquests today.
• Multiple Solaris vulns reported - According to eSecurityOnline, your Solaris system is screwed six ways to Sunday, though we'll note that the majority of stuff-ups they cite are not remotely exploitable
• Microsoft: XP SE Not Happening - Microsoft will release XP SP1 this fall, and then begin the beta program for the next Windows version (code-named Longhorn). But Longhorn isn't set to ship until sometime in 2004, leaving an empty release slot in late 2003. The fact that Microsoft has shipped a new consumer Windows product every year since 1995 has led to speculation about XP SE.
• Plans for PlayStation 3 - Sony has courted alliances with some of the technology industry's biggest hitters in an effort to "soundly beat whatever our rivals produce next''. IBM and Toshiba are jointly designing the central chip that will control the PlayStation 3 at a top-secret technology lab in Austin, Texas. The project, which aims to create the ultimate graphics and sound processor, is believed to cost around $1bn (£650m).
• AMD gains on Intel, sets Hammer speeds - AMD's chairman, Jerry Sanders, told an audience at Merrill Lynch's Hardware Heaven conference in San Francisco that Hammer, the company's forthcoming chip for desktops and servers, will debut at 2GHz or higher. Hammer will ship to PC makers in the fourth quarter and will be released to the public in the first quarter of 2003, Sanders added.
• Gainward release Ti4200 prices - Gainward have just sent us these prices on the new Ti4200 cards, this in my opinion confirms Gainwards commitment to the UK gamer. As you are probably aware, Ti4200's offer near Ti4400 performance for a fraction of the price, check em out. Street prices SRP 64MB Ultra/650 TV/DVI £179.99 inc VAT
  128MB ULtra/650 XP Golden Sample £249.99 inc VAT expect online pricing to be lower!!!! Of course the price in $ is approximately £1 to $1.4.
• CPU & Chipset Lapping Guide - Every metal surface on every heatsink that I have ever seen has a lot of little imperfections in them. It simply isn't possible for the manufacturers to produce perfectly flat bottomed heatsinks. They are good enough for you to use but by doing something called lapping you can usually lower your temps a few degrees. Any real mod freak will want to lap the heatsink on your northbridge as well as the one on your CPU. Today we will be lapping our Northbridge heatsink but you can use the same principles on your CPU and heatsink.
• Quake 3 Engine Tweak Guide - What I am going to do is show you a copy of the default q3config.cfg file and then explain just a few items you will want to edit for your preferences. A very brief but informative description will be used.  Not all of these settings will be in all Quake III based games but most will be. There will be options in the newer games that are not shown here. If it is an item to be simply enabled or disabled then 1=true or on, 0=false or off.
• How to Use Computer Management in WinXP - Computer Management is a collection of Windows administrative tools that you can use to manage a local or remote computer. The tools are organized into a single console, which makes it easy to view administrative properties and to gain access to the tools that are necessary to perform your computer-management tasks.
• Ad-aware 5.80  - Ad-aware is an award winning, free multi adware removal utility, that scans your memory, registry and hard drives for known adware components and lets you remove them safely.
• CloneCD version 4.0.0.0 Final - Don't leech this file, this "final" version is FAKE!!!
• AVG 6.0 Anti-Virus System (Free) - I have to pay for this software in my country, but it's still free for all americans!
• Nero InCD 3.28.0 -  Ahead has released a new InCD Update of their packet CD reading/writing software.
• Winkey Enhancer - Start your favorite applications, folders and Web pages instantly by using your own "Windows key" shortcuts with WinKey. This FREE shell extension allows you to define keyboard shortcuts with the Windows key.
• nForce Unified Driver Package v1.05 - This new version (Win9x/ME ~ Win2k/XP) adds Rear Stereo Support and includes some compatibility Fixes.

• Microsoft planned to buy out Nintendo - Microsoft was planning to buy Nintendo for more than $25bn, according to a new book. In Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution, Dean Takahashi claims that Nintendo's US president Minoru Arakawa admitted to him that a deal with Microsoft was being talked about in 1999.
• Apple unveils the eMac - Apple isn't ready to cede its education market to Microsoft. The white eMac is based on the iMac but is built around a 17-inch flat-panel monitor and is only for educators and students. Plus, there are new PowerBooks for all.
• Theater Far, Far Away ... - When he began shooting Star Wars Episode II in an all-digital format, George Lucas imagined that Attack of the Clones could screen in 2,000 digital-projection theaters nationwide. Oh, well. As of the May 16 opening, only 19 screens had the equipment required to do so. Here's where to find them.
• Too much Counter-Strike? - You probably heard about this massacre already. According to Der Spiegel news magazine, Steinhauser spent much of his time playing violent computer video games. His favourite was called "Counterstrike" in which anti-terror units wearing masks battle each other to death.
• Work continues to ready solar sail for launch - Preparations and testing in advance of the Planetary Society's orbital solar sail mission called Cosmos 1 are making progress in Russia, officials report. The first-ever solar sail is scheduled for launch no earlier than September aboard a Russian submarine-launched Volna rocket.
• ARM claws at 1GHz barrier for devices - ARM says its new 'Jaguar' processor microarchitecture will ultimately produce handhelds, smartphones and multimedia devices with chip speeds above and beyond 1GHz.
• Military hackers hit US Defense office - 'Deceptive Duo' continue US rampage to reveal inadequate securit. A pair of hackers that recently claimed responsibility for a spree of defacements on US government military web servers, hit the US Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) on Friday night and posted data stolen from the US Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Screenshots of two DLA databases were posted on a subdomain of the Secretary of Defense site at OSD.Mil. In the defacement the hackers also claimed to have full system-wide access to the OSD databases and the screenshots show names, logon details and encrypted passwords for DLA employees.
• AOL Instant Messanger Hacked-- Users Presented with Porn - AIM users were caught off guard Saturday morning when upon launching AIM Today, they were presented with pornographic images. The following attack is the latest in security holes to be discovered in AIM.
• Microsoft patches gaps in Outlook security - According to information posted with its software patch, Microsoft explained that the potential problem lay with the option in Outlook 2000 and 2002 to use Microsoft Word as the email editor when creating and editing email. The vulnerability results from a difference in the security settings applied when displaying an email as opposed to editing one.
• Microsoft Excels @ insecurity - Microsoft has only partly fixed a flaw involving malicious script execution involving Office, according to veteran bug hunter Georgi Guninski. The patch above fixes a bit trouble with Outlook 2000 or 2002  vs MS Word. Outlook blocks scripts when an HTML email is viewed; but when Word is the editor, replying or forwarding calls it in an unprotected mode, and it then allows the script to run. The consequences of exploitation are running arbitrary code (potentially malware) on a local machine with the user's level of privilege.
• Pixter -  hand-held for kids - What's Pixter? It's a hand-held, electronic toy that puts the power of digital creativity in the palms of kids' hands! Cool drawing tools, awesome activities, and a touch-sensitive LCD screen activated by a drawing stylus encourage endless creativity and imagination.
• MSI to launch own-brand LCD monitors and optical storage drives - According to sources, MSI began shipping LCD monitors to the China market in March. MSI has outsourced orders to monitor manufacturer Top Victory Electronics (TPV), the producer behind the AOC brand.In addition, MSI plans initial production of CD-ROM and CD-RW drives to start in May at its Baoan, Shenzhen (Guangdong Province, China) factory.
• Sexy LCD 17" Monitors, Part I - In the first part of this review, guys at Tom's Hardware have examined six monitors in close detail. They tested products from ADI, Compaq, CTX, NEOVO, Philips and Solarism. They are based on a variety of technologies, including TN + Film, IPS, and MVA. They especially spent a lot of time studying the ergonomics of the various models, real-time response, and the color spectrum-not forgetting the technical improvements that are expected by the end of the year.
• Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP - This article describes how to troubleshoot configuration errors in Microsoft Windows XP by using the System Configuration utility (Msconfig.exe). When you use this tool to modify the system configuration, you can select check boxes to eliminate issues that do not pertain to your configuration.
• Hardware Reviews Roundup - GeForce4 Ti Roundup / GeForce4 Ti 4200 / ATI Radeon 8500 64MB DDR / GeForce 4 MX 440 Round-up / ASUS V8440/TD GeForce4 Ti 4400 / GF4 Ti 4600 Review / NVIDIA Reference GeForce4 Ti 4200 / PNY GeForce4 Ti4400 / SOYO KT333 Dragon Ultra / Epox 8K3A, Mouse Bungee & Mouse Bungee Pro / Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Player / Thermaltake Crystalorb cooler / Variable Speed Fans / Coolermaster ATC210 Aluminium Case / Glowing Mouse Pad / Samsung 210T 21" flat panel display / Samsung 753DF 17 Inch Flat CRT, /Belkin USB Dual Media Reader/Writer / Logitech Cordless / USB 2.0 Round-Up / Storage Blaster Portable Disk
• Macromedia Beta Trials - if you are very impatient to see these new versions, Macromedia have Preview Versions of the MX suite available for download.
• FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 849 Alpha 2 - FlashFXP is the most powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market today.  This new alpha version fixed: "I discovered a problem where if a file failed to load the user wasn't informed. A file will fail to load if decryption fails (invalid password/corruption)."
• ZipGenius - It's not only a FREE zip and unzip but also scanner, email, web, ftp, safety, data protection, backup, mp3, multimedia. If you already know ZipGenius you know that this is the most versatile program for file compression.
• XP-Spider - This utility has all the Windows XP preformance tweaks you'll ever need... from Prefetcher modes, large system cache, to all the supported Windows XP services, com+ management, user, drive, preformance managements and much more.
• WinRAR v3.0 Beta 7 - A new beta version of WinRAR v3.0 has been released.

• Klez threat upgraded to 'severe' - Symantec has been tracking an average of over 3,000 infections a day in the last few days. By comparison, the SirCam epidemic peaked at only 1,500 infections a day. As a result, Klez and its variants have been upgraded to a level four threat, which translates as 'severe'. Level five is the most dangerous. The latest variant spreads as an email attachment via the Windows Address Book, ICQ and local files and shares. Security firms have also warned that the virus may try to delete all files on a local drive on 13 September or 13 March.
• Training the cyberwar troops - Military cadets attempt to defend computer networks in cyberwar games staged to mimic attacks by foreign intruders. What security lessons are there to learn at the anti-hacking boot camp?
• The Future Of Gaming And Computer Graphics - ZDNet UK has posted an interview with Dave Kirk, Nvidia's chief scientist as he talks about the future of PC and console graphics. "Last year we took a scene from 'Final Fantasy,' dumbed it down a bit and were able to render it in real time at 12 to 15 frames per second. That same scene runs at well over 30 frames per second on a GeForce4, so now, if we did it again, we should be able to render the original scene from the movie at 12 to 15 frames per second. We are less than one year away from rendering it with full details and at full speed of 30 frames per second on PC hardware."
• Intel christens 64-bit McKinley chip - The chip maker on Thursday announced it has named its next 64-bit Itanium processor "Itanium 2," Formerly code-named McKinley, Intel's upcoming Itanium 2 will be the second chip of the company's 64-bit line of Itanium processors. Stronger and faster than Itanium, Itanium 2 should offer as much as twice the performance of its parent chip, according to Intel.
• Club3D announced SiS Xabre 400 based board - Club3D introduced the SiS Xabre 400 based videocard in Taiwan. Their solution works at 250/250 MHz for core and memory and utilizes 3.3 ns Hynix chips. The board is equipped with VGA, DVI-I and TV-Out connectors. As the SiS301 chip is also present, the board supports multi-monitor functions.
• Hands on with the PDA-killer Sony P800 -  The P800 resembles its Symbian predecessor, the R380, sporting an LCD that takes up much of the front of the device, with a flip down keypad that mechanically touches the LCD. The camera is built into the back, but unlike Nokia's 7650 camera phone, there's no lens cover, which could leave the device vulnerable to dirt and dust (or in my case, stray tobacco).
• Hardware reviews Round-Up - Triplex Millennium Silver GeForce4 Ti4600, eVGA GeForce4 MX440, MSI GeForce4 MX G4MX440-T, ABIT KR7A RAID,  SOYO KT333 DRAGON Ultra, Thermalright SLK-600 CPU Coolers, Cooler Master ATC-201 Aluminum Case, Socket Cooler Round-up, DiskOnKey 128MB USB, Neteasy NetCam, Samsung Syncmaster 171MP LCD/TV, P4 Cooler Roundup, Mobile 120 GB: FireWire Hard Drive From WD.
• ABIT AT7 Tweak Guide - OC Workbench has published their tweaking guide for ABIT AT7.
• Optical Drive Tweak Guide - Just like with the BIOS on your motherboard often times the manufacturer will find problems with the product after it has already begun shipping. They will apply the fixed BIOS to future shipping models and also post the updated BIOS to the web for us to download. You will need to know the model number of your drive before you can do this. Just like with BIOS updates, if it's not broke don't fix it! For firmware updates you will have to visit the manufacturers website and lookup your drives model number in their support sections.
• WinXP Network Troubleshooting  - This article applies to Windows peer-to-peer networks using the TCP/IP protocol in a workgroup. It doesn't specifically address problems with other protocols or with Windows NT/2000 domains.
• Unchecked Buffer in SNMP Service ~ Win98 patch - Microsoft released an updated version of the bulletin annoucing the availability of a patch for Win98 and Win98SE and to advise customers that the work-around procedure is no longer needed for that platform.
• Microsoft Data Access Components 2.7 RTM - Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.7 RTM - Refresh (2.70.9001.0) contains core components, including the Microsoft SQL ServerT and Oracle OLE database provider and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver. MDAC does not contain the MDAC software development kit (SDK) or the desktop database providers and drivers.
• Scripting Hole In MS Word/Outlook Combo (Patch)- The company said the vulnerability, which could allow an attacker to launch his or her own script on a victim's computer, affects only installations of Outlook 2000 or Outlook 2002 for which the user has chosen Microsoft Word as the editor of choice for rich text or HTML mail - a combination Microsoft calls WordMail. More info & patch.
• Office XP SP1 Speller Update - The Office XP SP1 Speller Update: April 25, 2002 refreshes the dictionary of words referenced by Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 1 (SP1).
• AMD 762 + Intel 850 PCR's - Mod4me's Martin has put together PCR files for Intel's 850 chipset and AMD's 762 which is the MP/MPX chipset.
• Refresh rate fix for Detonators v28.90 - This will make it so that the latest drivers will work with the NVIDIA Refresh Rate fix program, that otherwise cannot detect your graphics card settings.
• ClonyXXL v2.0.0.6 - ClonyXXL is the best copy protection detection scanner, wich can show what kind of protection is used on a disc. It will provide you with the right settings for CloneCD, so you can make a working copy of the disc.
  This New Version has English Language Support.
• Opera 6.02 build 1090 - A new beta of Opera Internet browser has been released.
• FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 848 - This new build fixed problem where sometimes FlashFXP incorrectly identified folders as files in the local view.
• ZoomPlayer 2.6b1 - ZoomPlayer 2.6b1 has been released. As usual there's a long list of changes, here are just a few of them: Setting deinterlace and audio options for the Intervideo filters, faster folder/DVD image resize code, faster gradient draw, cycling subtitles now works for VobSub subs as well, Ogg audio and subtitle languages can now be selected (but it doesn't work together with VobSub) and the enter key can now be used to play an item in the playlist editor and chapter/bookmark editor.
• TVTool 6.0d beta - 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. 
• VobSub 2.14 - VobSub 2.14 supports all common color space formats and a property page to switch between them. The SMI support also won't crash when you have control code like characters in the subtitle file. A few days I reported about the MFC-CD maker. Now there's a DirectShow filter that permits you do read these 800MB files directly from the CD.
• The Bat! 1.60h - For those who don't like Outlook, here is definitely better E-Mail Client! :))
• Intel Application Accelerator v2.2 - Intel have released a new version v2.2. The Intel Application Accelerator is a new performance software package for Intel desktop PCs.
• Jedi Knight 2 Multiplayer Dual Processor Loader - This loader will allows you to play Jedi Knight 2 MultiPlayer on your dual AMD system! (thanks to a user named Raiden in the Lucusforum)

• CIA Warns of Chinese Plans for Cyber-Attacks on U.S. -   U.S. intelligence officials believe the Chinese military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Taiwanese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage, according to a classified CIA report.
• eBay to cancel customer service e-mail - eBay is quietly canceling a much-used e-mail address, which has some members worried.
• 3Com puts firewall on an NIC - 3Com has launched a network interface card (NIC) with a firewall in firmware, to minimise risks and enforce security policies inside the enterprise. The NIC is intended for desktops and servers. Embedded Firewall is a firmware version of Secure Computing's firewall, and loads onto the 3CR990 -- a 3Com NIC that includes a processor and memory intended to support extra applications. So far the 3CR990 has been sold with an encryption application, which offloads encryption tasks from the host CPU, but the firewall is the next security application in a list which 3Com intends to add.
• Intel Plans New CPUs -The desktop chip, now running at 2.4GHz, will hit 2.53GHz later this quarter and 3GHz during the fourth quarter, the 2.53GHz Pentium 4 will bring an increase in bus speed, from 400MHz to 533MHz, which will boost desktop PC performance. The bus provides a data pipeline between the processor and RAM (random access memory).
• NaturalPoint TrackIR - Here's how it works, the TrackIR has 2 basic parts that make it work. The first is a camera that mounts on the top of your computer and second part is silver dots which you stick on your forehead, hat, etc. that catch the attention of the camera so that the cursor moves along to the movements your head makes. The dots have a cloth backing so you can stick it and remove it many times. The camera is sensitive enough to detect the silver dots and it will only detect those dots and calculate how it moves and translate it to cursor movements.
• VIA to launch Zoetrope  - VIA Technologies is scheduled to introduce its new Zoetrope graphics core in May. According to sources, the company is also considering launching a Zoetrope-based graphics chip, in addition to adopting the core for its integrated chipsets. However, VIA says that the idea is still under evaluation at the moment.
• Video Cards reviews - ATI Radeon 8500 / eVGA GeForce4 MX440 /  NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200 & 4600 engineering samples / MSI GeForce4 Ti4600.
• VIA KT266/KT266a tweaking guide - In this article we are going to look at improving the performance of the VIA KT266 chipset family. This will be a very in depth article, covering both the theory behind it and the actual practice involved. You will see in bit 7 really the only new feature of the KT333 chipset and that is the CPU+33=DRAM. The KT266 technically has support built into it for running the asynchronous bus. What I believe VIA did was they either were unable to get this feature working properly by time they wanted to ship their chipset OR they decided they could release a new chipset later on with features that should have been in the previous release. Just think KT133 and KT133a, KT266 and KT266a. Where as the A only brings the benefits that the original SHOULD have brought.
• NT4 Terminal Server Edition Security Rollup Package - Microsoft has released the first Security Rollup Package (SRP) for Microsoft® Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition (TSE SRP1). TSE SRP1 includes the functionality of virtually all security patches since the release of Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 6 (SP6).
• Klez Removal Tool 1.0 - W32.Klez Removal Tool will remove the Klez worm from your system. W32.Klez.gen@mm is a generic detection that detects variants of W32.Klez. Computers that are infected with W32.Klez.gen@mm have most likely been exposed to either W32.Klez.E@mm or W32.Klez.H@mm. If your computer is detected as infected with W32.Klez.gen@mm, download and run the tool. In most case, the tool will be able to remove the infection.
• Fresh UI 2.6 (Free) - 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. Unlike any other similar utilities, this software is 100% free.
• ALi AGP Driver 1.90 - ALi has released a new AGP driver v1.90 with some TV card fixes. This new driver may improve system stability for PCI TV card.
• FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 847 - 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.
• Sparkle Nvidia GeForce4 BIOS - Sparkle have released a new set of Nvidia GeForce4 TI4600 and Ti4400 BIOS files: GeForce4 Ti 4600 SP7200T6 DDR SDRAM 128MB 650MHz 4.25.00.27.WP3 / GeForce4 Ti 4400 SP7200T4 DDR SDRAM 128MB 550MHz 4.25.00.27.WP7.

• How to Build a Computerized Android Robot Head for $600.00. - It is possible to build a computer-driven, life-size, android robot head for cost of materials of about $600.00. The android head will have two color video-camera eyes with the video going both into a window on the PC and into an image processing Java application. The robot will have six servo motors controlling: (1) base of the head spins, (2,3) each eye moves left/right, (4) both eyes move up/down, (5,6) each eye-lid opens/closes. All servo motors are controlled via a Java application. The user supplies the computer (PC). The details of how to construct such a head follows, based on the authors creation of Robot Maxamilian, R. Max for short.
• AMD's Hammer chips get Microsoft nod - The chipmaker will collaborate with the software giant to tune Windows to run on AMD's upcoming family of Hammer chips.
• AMD Announces Opteron - AMD today announced that it has selected "AMD Opteron" as the brand for its 8th-generation enterprise class processor for servers and workstations, formerly code-named "SledgeHammer."
  The AMD Opteron processor is based on AMD's 8th-generation processor core, which will represent the landmark introduction of the industry's first x86-64 technology.
• Corsair Announces 512MB XMS3000 & XMS3200 Modules - Corsair Memory has announced that it is now offering two new 512 megabyte modules tailored specifically for overclocking applications. The first part, Corsair part number CMX512-3200, is guaranteed to operate at 400 MHz. The second part, part number CMX512-3000C2, is guaranteed to operate at 370 MHz, but with a column access strobe latency ("CAS latency") of only two clock cycles.
• PS2 to pour into new smartphones - The P800 has a full Web browser, in full color, and fast graphics. It has SSL, HTML and everything, so you can get all the applications you have on the Web.
• DivX 5.01 for Mac/Linux - An alpha version of the DivX 5.0 decoder is available for Mac OS. A version of DivX 5.0.1 with a decoder and encoder is available for Linux.
• Java 1.4 Released - Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SETM) software is the premier solution for rapidly developing and deploying mission-critical, enterprise applications. Version 1.4 builds upon Java technology's cross-platform support and robust security model with new features and functionality, enhanced performance and scalability, and improved reliability and serviceability. In addition to new features, version 1.4 addresses key customer issues and is fully compatible with previous J2SE software releases.
• ICQ Plus v3.4 - ICQ Plus allows you to change the appearance of ICQ. When installed, ICQ Plus integrates with ICQ by adding a menu item to the main menu. Choosing this menu item brings up a dialog which lets you configure ICQ's appearance in several ways. You can apply a predefined skin or create one yourself.
• Updated Real Video 9 Codec - Real Networks has released an updated Real Video 9. This new version brings 30% improvement over RealVideo 8 and the same quality at half the bit rate of MPEG-4.
• WinAmp 2.80 - This new version includes: Fixed drag&drop from open file dialog related bugs, Made CDDB support better handle not-found CDs/lack of CDDB installed, Update to CDDB ui (bugfix), New splash screen, Minibrowser security fix, Updated winamp agent to support both winamp 2.x and 3.x., Included PP's hacks for slightly better unicode filename support, in_wave support for floating point .WAV files fixed, Better win9x compatibility for DirectSound, WaveOut made skip less, Some in_mod per-file fixes, OGG Vorbis support for Standard and Full installs.
• IsoBuster 1.0 - IsoBuster is a cool application that will allow you to view and extract CD images without the need for burning them. 
• Leaked RADEON Beta drivers - A new release v7.70 is dated from April 2002.  Supported cards:  Radeon Mobility 7500 GL, Radeon Mobility, Radeon 8500 / 8500LE, Radeon 7000 / Radeon VE, Radeon 7500, Radeon 8500, Radeon 7200 / Radeon, Radeon 8500 DV Edition, Radeon Mobility 7500, R8500. Download: ATI Radeon Beta 6.13.10.6071 WinXP, ATI Radeon Beta 5.13.10.6071 Win2k, ATI Radeon Beta 4.13.9030 Win9x/ME, AIW WDM Capture Drivers 5120.
• ABIT nForce Chipset & VGA & USB 2.02 Drivers - download them from Entity.com
• Detonator 28.90 With Refresh Rate Fix For W2K/XP - Smart guys at NVchips-fr have modded the leaked Nvidia Detonator driver 28.90 so that now the refresh rate fix works again on Windows 2000/XP.
• Leadtek Detonator Drivers 28.32 - Download: Leadtek Detonator 28.32 Win9x/ME / Leadtek Detonator 28.32 WinNT4 / Leadtek Detonator 28.32 Win2K/XP / Winfox Tool 5.13.01.2002-2.20

• Porn star debuts vicious virus -  A new highly aggressive" virus using the name of a well known porn star to aid infection has been spotted in the wild.  Antivirus firms have warned that the 'Jenna Jameson' virus has a "large potential for spreading" because it tricks users into executing the code by tempting them with links to free pics of the porn star doing the nasty.  The virus arrives as an email with the subject line: 'Jenna Jameson pornostar free superfuck+photo addresses'. The accompanying attachment, 'JENNA-JAMESON-FREE-SUPERFUCK.TXT.vbs', appears to be a text file but is really a malicious Visual Basic script.
• Anti-Spyware Program Targeted By Multimedia Player - Calling the tactic "malware at its worst," Lavasoft said its privacy software is being silently deleted when users install a third-party multimedia player. Newsbytes has confirmed that installing RadLight version 3.03 deletes Lavasoft's Ad-Aware program, as promised in a warning in the software's 1,100-word license agreement.
• Start-up defends DVD-copying software - 321 Studios asks the court to declare that its DVD Copy Plus program, which lets people make copies of DVD movies, does not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• IE 6 Privacy Features Open Users To Attack - Security flaws in privacy features added to Microsoft's Web browser could enable attackers to perform several privacy-robbing attacks, including hijacking victims' MSN Messenger accounts, a security researcher warned.
• Europe plans to jail hackers - The European Commission has unveiled new proposals that could send Internet hackers and spreaders of computer viruses to jail for years.
• Rumbled Russian hackers banged up - The ringleaders of a Russian hacker group that misappropriated almost $1m from foreign bank accounts have been put behind bars. Russian newspaper Kommersant reported yesterday that Zviadi Beria and Vladimir Medvedov had been sentenced to five years in prison.
• How "smart" is your ID card? - Companies are offering new smart cards with improved technology, including security and counterfeiting resistance, in hopes of hastening its broader use.
• Experiment confirms Sun theories - New evidence confirms last year's indication that one type of neutrino emerging from the Sun's core does switch to another type en route to the Earth.
• IBM stacks hard-disk bricks to build dense storage cube - Researchers at IBM Corp. are creating a prototype for a vast data-storage system built Lego-style with storage-array bricks that can be stacked into a cube-shaped server. Such systems would significantly reducing the size, cost and power of today's data center storage systems, the company said.
• Intel to debut speedy 2.4GHz Xeon chip - Intel plans to release a 2.4GHz version of its Xeon chip for one- and two-processor servers during its developer conference in Taiwan, sources close to the company said. Along with being faster than existing Xeons, the new chip will be the first Xeon manufactured on wafers with 300-millimeter diameters. More than twice as many chips can be produced from these wafers than standard 200-millimeter wafers for roughly the same cost. Intel started producing Pentium 4 chips on these wafers in the first quarter. As a result, the new wafers can lead to higher profits, or provide insulation in a price war. The chip is expected to cost $165 in 1,000-unit quantities.
• ATi's New All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 128MB Review - The All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 is ATis direct response to those hardcore gamers that want a powerful gaming card along with quality TV capabilities. The AIW Radeon 8500 is the most powerful "All-In-Wonder" yet, with its robust 275MHz. Radeon 8500 GPU and 128MB of 275MHz. (550MHz.) DDR SGRAM . Clearly, this new card is ATi's most ambitious All-In-Wonder to date, with the strength to take on some of the fastest gaming cards on the market today. So let's take a peek at some of the All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500's finer qualities and then we'll put ATi's latest "Wonder" to the test, to see how "Wonderful" it may perform when we compare it to the competition.
• Video cards Reviews -  NVIDIA's Geforce 4 Ti4200 vs. ATi's Radeon 8500, NVIDIA Quadro4 200 Nvs, Chaintech Ti200 Special Edition, GeForce4 Ti 4200, ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500, NVIDIA Geforce 4 Ti4600 Reference Card, eVGA GeForce4 MX440.
• Miscelanous HW Reviews - ASUS CRW-4012A 40/12/48 CD-RW, Bay Fillers, Koolance Frozen PC2-601, Iogear Phaser Mouse, SiS' Xabre GPU, Sony 24x CD-R-RW, X-Arcade Multi-Platform Controller.
• psyBNC Vulnerable to a DoS Attack - psyBNC has a problem dealing with oversized passwords, making it possible to tie up all the connection slots and consume a lot of CPU on the server.
• Elemental Panic Crash - Elemental Panic Crash was a shot at simple but addictive gameplay. You must go for a high score in a fast paced game of reflexes and wits, as you switch elements to battle other elements. There's tons of flashy effects and lots of powerups to gather in your quest for the top rank on the high score list. With cute presentation and great graphics and music, this one's sure to occupy your time for quite a while.
• Adobe Illustrator 10.0.2 update - I don't know what is new, just leech this 2.5MB big update for Adobe Illustrator 10.
• PHP 4.2.0 - The biggest change in PHP 4.2.0 concerns variable handling. External variables (from the environment, the HTTP request, cookies or the web server) are no longer registered in the global scope by default. The preferred method of accessing these external variables is by using the new Superglobal arrays, introduced in PHP 4.1.0.
• Microsoft Powertoys For WindowsXP - The powertoys must be downloaded individually: Alt-Tab Replacement / Open Command Window Here / Tweak UI / Power Calculator / Image Resizer /  CD Slide Show Generator / Virtual Desktop Manager / Taskbar Magnifier / HTML Slide Show Wizard / Webcam Timershot.
• Sonique 1.96 -  Are you bored from long years with WinAmp? :) Try this cool mp3 player.
• Windows Messenger v4.6.0078 - Download WindowsXP US/English or Non WindowsXP version.
• Windows Blinds 3.3 - WindowBlinds is a program designed to make Windows into a fully skinnable operating system. It does this by applying visual styles (skins) to Windows. On Windows XP, it extends Microsoft's visual style engine to support WB visual styles which are faster and use less memory and are far more flexible. With version 3.3, much of the Windows XP visual style engine has been brought to Windows 98, ME, and 2000. New under the hood changes include a global bitmap cache which dramatically improves performance while reducing memory consumption.
• ATi RADEON Refresh Rate Fix v0.9.9.6 - Leech new version of this cool tool -  No more gaming at 60Hz :)
• Official Nvidia Driver Update v28.32 Win2k/XP - Nvidia today updated their drivers page with HQL Certified 28.32 drivers.  I have no idea if they are any different than the version already released.

• Gates Testifies in Antitrust Suit - Bill Gates is testifying today in the Microsoft antitrust case. 
• Microsoft revs speech app for cars - The software company's latest speech software will be the interface that developers can use to access Microsoft's Windows CE for Automotive 3.5 operating system.
• Modem talks two wireless languages - A U.S. company on Monday unveiled its version of a modem that can automatically switch between an 802.11 wireless network and wireless Internet services from commercial carriers.
• Intel slashes Mobile PIII prices - The 1.2GHz part falls 21 per cent down the price ladder from $508 to $401. The 1.13GHz PII-M tumbles 27 per cent from $401 to $294; the 1.06GHz model falls 18 per cent from $294 to $241; and the 1GHz also drop 18 per cent from $241 to $198. All parts are supplied with 512k cache and are manufactured using the 0.13micron process.
• Robot cameras 'will predict crimes before they happen - Scientists at Kingston University in London have developed software able to anticipate if someone is about to mug an old lady or plant a bomb at an airport. It works by examining images coming in from close circuit television cameras (CCTV) and comparing them to behaviour patterns that have already programmed into its memory. The software, called Cromatica, can then mathematically work out what is likely to happen next. And if it is likely to be a crime it can send a warning signal to a security guard or police officer.
• Z-Cyber Cool Disk USB Flash Drive Review - A single 384M COOL DISK can hold up data equivalent to 267pcs floppy diskettes. With universal support from Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, MAC OS 8.6+, Linux, you can bring and access your data anywhere in the world with PCs that has USB ports. What's more! The password protection prevents unauthorized access to your valuable data.
• Pentium4 vs. AMD AthlonXP - PC Rivals has written a comparison review between Pentium4 against AMD AthlonXP.
• Creative PC-CAM 600 Review - Creative boasts 1.3 MegaPixel shots, but this is done by interpolation only. Default capture resolution is 1024x768, but the camera allows for both 1280x960 (1.3 MegaPixels) and 640x480 shots as well. Video resolution maxes out at 640x480 when used as a webcam, and 352x288 when used as a video recorder. To store all these pictures, 16MB of on-board memory is included. Unfortunately, there's no external expansion on the camera, so you're stuck with 16MB.
• GeForce cooling mods - This is where we create the heatsinks to stick on the card. I generally only use two full size Socket A coolers, however this time I used three!
• Innovatek Water-cooling Kit - Simple, lack of knowledge about procedure which leads to fear and cost, are the two most prevalent reasons. What if you could buy a water-cooling kit that contained everything you needed, that came with simple to understand instructions, and that was easy to use and install? A German manufacturer had this same thought, and designed the Innovatek water-cooling system.
• Chaintech GeForce3 Ti200SE 128MB Review - With the GeForce 4 cards finally making a big splash in the scene, the old venerable GeForce 3's are still hanging around, dropping in price like mad. NVIDIA would like you to think that their GeForce4MX line is the product to get for lower end performance, but we all know that the GeForce 3 Ti200 is what it's all about. Read about this Special Edition Ti200 by Chaintech, which includes a full 128MB of RAM on a card that is just too nice to cover up with a PC case.
• Leadtek A250 Ti4400 Review - I got my grubby little hands on their Ti4400 based card, the A250 TD, and have been busy the last few weeks putting it through its paces. In contrast to some of my other more lucky associates on this site, this is my first Geforce 4 based card which means I was extra curious about what improvements I would see over my Ti500.
• New Patches for Windows XP - XP Patch (Q306676) Direct3D Hibernate/Screen Saver and Hard Disk (SCSI) Performance Is Slower Than You Expect (Q308219).
• SuSE Linux 8.0  - SuSE Linux 8.0 is out! This new version features KDE 3, new kernel and large collection of games.
• Nero Express v5.5.7.7 (beta) - Nero Express, the new "light" and user friendlier version of the well known Nero Burning ROM. The idea is to make sure that the user will easily select the right settings for each burning process, and proceed to recording within a few -step process.
• Opera 6.02 Build 1087 - Just another beta.
• MCF-CD Maker - With this tool you can create an MCF-CD (Ingo's version) which is a CD/XA ISO bridge type CD, containing files in Mode2/Form2 (i.e. the same as VCD). This way you can benefit from the greater storage space VCD offers (800 MB in a single 80 min. CD), but with other files, not just MPEG.
• WinDivX decoder v2002.16.04 alpha -  It operates with Div3(aka MS MPEG-4 v3 or DivX 3.X), DivX4; download
• IrfanView v3.70 - IrfanView is a very fast freeware (for non-commercial use) 32-Bit graphic viewer for Windows 9x, Windows NT and Windows 2000. It is the first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support, Multipage TIFF support, and Multiple ICO support.
• Winamp Visualization Plug-in Smoke v1.04 (final) - Smoke is a Winamp plug-in that generates rich and lively audio-driven visuals through the simulation of fluid dynamics.
• Rage3d Tweak v3.1e -  Well, this version is primarily all of the fixes released yesterday wrapped up with a new help file and some other minor additions.
• GeForce Tweak Utility 3.2 t32 - This utility allows you make a lot of modifications to the registry settings of any GeForce videocard. GeForce256 DDR, GeForce2/MX/Pro/Ultra, GeForce3, Quadro, Quadro2/Pro/MXR, Quadro DCC.   (well, there is t31 but scroll down and check the version history). (Mirror: MajorGeeks)
• SpeedFan v4.05 - SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds and temperatures in computers with a known monitoring chip. Its main feature is that it can control the speed of the fans according to the temperatures inside your pc, thus reducing noise and power consumption. Currently the only recognized (and useful) chips are WINBOND W83782D, which is found in ABIT BP6, and WINBOND W83627HF.
• Maxtor's Power Diagnostic Utilities v3.03 - The POWERMAX.EXE utility is designed to perform diagnostic read/write verifications on Maxtor/Quantum hard drives. These tests will determine hard drive integrity. The POWERMAX.EXE utility is effective on all ATA (IDE) hard drives with a capacity greater than or equal to 500 MB. Maxtor recommends the use of this utility for troubleshooting potential hard drive problems.
• MSI Driver Updates - MSI have released new drivers for their motherboards: Chipset Driver - Intel ICH4 and 845E/845G/845GL/E7500,  All MSI SiS 650/740 - Win9x & 2k/XP,  SiS AGP Driver (MS-6547, MS-6559, MS-6533, MS-6524), VGA Driver (MSI VIA KM266) - Win 9x&ME / Win 2k / Win XP,  Audio Driver - KT3 Ultra-ARU (MS-6380E), KT3 Ultra (MS-6380E),  Avance ALC201A/ALC650 AC'97, IDE Driver - Promise FastTrak133 RAID Driver,  Intel Application Accelerator v2.10.
• Plextor PX-W 2410 TU/TA firmware - download.
• ASUS nVidia Drivers - Asus has released new drivers for their nVidia based graphics cards.
• VIA AC97 Sound Drivers - VIA has released version 1.70a for their VT8233, VT8233C & VT8233A southbridges
• NVIDIA Detonator v28.90 (beta) Driver for Win9x & W2K/XP - Guru3D have got a new set of Nvidia Reference Detonator Driver 28.90.

• Sudden Strike II Preview - pc.ign has posted a new preview of Sudden Strike II, Fireglow's upcoming isometric RTS game which will be published by CDV.
• Nakatomi Plaza Interview & Shots  - Worthplaying has posted an interview with Piranha Games's Bryan Ekman as he talks about Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, the LithTech engine powered FPS which will arrive to stores next week.
• NeoCairo Interview - HomeLAN chats with Team Orbit's Mario 'ThunderBear' Orsini as he talks about their Unreal Tournament mod NeoCairo and their future plans.
• Soldier of Fortune 2 MP Impressions  - pc.ign has posted their impressions from playing a beta build of Soldier of Fortune 2. They talk about the weapons, tech, game types, levels found in the full game and more.
• Front Line Force 1.5 Released - Front Line Force version 1.5 has been released. The latest version brings a plethora of features including nine new maps, a new game mode, voice communication support, bug fixes, and an updated HUD.
• Robot Wars 2 for PC/Xbox Announced-  Climax is pleased to announce the development of heavy metal successor Robot Wars 2. To be published on XBox and PC formats by BBC Multimedia for Christmas 2002, this all-action sequel is set to deliver a whole new bot battling experience.
• Serious Sam Disco Inferno Contest - All levels designers have the chance to win a Visiontek Xtasy GeForce 4 Ti 4600 video card. It's easy, simply you must create the best map for Serious Sam: the Second Encounter following the unlikely theme of Disco Cathedral! :)
• Starmageddon - Project Earth Gone Gold - DreamCatcher announced that Starmageddon - Project Earth, its RTS PC game, has "gone gold." Project Earth is an unprecedented RTS PC game that takes real-time strategy to the next level.
• Dungeon Siege Interview - The Electric Playground has posted an interview with  Chris Taylor as he talks about  Dungeon Siege , especially about the editing tools, what he did in production, his feelings on the release of Dungeon Siege, and more.
• Industries Giant 2 Official Site Launched - Jowood has launched the official Industries Giant 2 website.

Tech News

• U.S. Robotics Doubles Wi-Fi Speeds - U.S. Robotics (USR) has boosted the speed of its latest range of wireless LAN products for small businesses to 22 megabits per second, while retaining compatibility with existing 2.4-GHz systems built to the IEEE 802.11b standard, the company has announced. USR's 22-mbps products will all be available in June, the company said. The 22-mbps Wireless Access Point will have a suggested retail price of $200; the 22-mbps Wireless Access PC Card, $100; and the 22-mbps Wireless Access PCI Adapter Card, $120. 
• Abit Announces KX7-333 Motherboard - Abit HQ Taiwan has announced their second VIA KT333 based motherboard namely the KX7-333.
• Video Card Reviews - Asus V8460Ultra GeForce4 Ti 4600, eVGA Geforce4 MX440, MSI G4MX440-T, VisionTek GeForce 4 Ti4600, Visiontek Xtasy GeForce 4 Ti4400, eVGA Geforce4 MX440, Three VisionTek GeForce 4 cards, Leadtek WinFast A250 TD, Leadtek WinFast Ti4400, PINE Technologies XFX GeForce4 MX 440, NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB, Chaintech A-GT61 GF4 Ti4600,  MSI G3Ti200 PRO-VT/Pro-VT128, ATI Radeon 8500.
• Hard Drive installation  - Most new computers these days have at least 40GB worth of hard drive space standard; if you have less then 20GB your hard drive is really too small. Luckily for you this is easily fixible since most computers have room for additional hard drives, and upgrading or adding additional drives is easy once you know how.
• How to build a computer -  This is first full length tutorial is available for this site, which is aimed at Beginners and Pros for building or/and upgrading computer systems. It contains information on what to do before, while and after building your computer. Parts of this guide will also help you with a single aspect of computer system such as upgrading a single part or building of an entire computer. By the end of the guide people will start to see you as an expert when it comes to computer hardware.
• ICQ 2002a Beta Build #3727 - Another build of ICQ is available. Check the official page to find what's new.
• WinRAR 3.00 Beta 6 - WinRAR is a 32-bit Windows version of the RAR archiver - a powerful tool which allows you to create, manage and control archive files.
• BlindWrite v1.2.5b - BlindWrite suite is a tool designed to perfectly reproduce most CD. RAW mode is needed to produce perfect backups of some protected CDs! DAO mode is even better. Almost all protected CD can be perfectly backed up using with DAO. Blindread / Blindwrite are perfect tools to produce backups in RAW and DAO mode.
• MSI BIOSes - MSI 845 Ultra-C (MS-6566 v1.0) 1.1 / MSI 860D Pro-LS (MS-6508 v1.0) 1.1 / MSI K7N420 Pro (MS-6373 v1.0) 2.4 / MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU (MS-6380E v1.0) 5.3 / MSI MS-6378 (MS-6378 v3.0) 1.8.
• Asus 28.80 Detonators Coming Soon - Asus HQ in Taiwan has announced their brand specific 28.80 Detonators for WinALL. The files are not available yet, but they will be soon :)

• Gates: PC to rule home network - At WinHEC, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates lays out his vision of home networks, where a PC acts as a hub for video cameras, stereos, TVs--and even replaces the phone.
• Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price in Australia, Europe, UK - As I mentioned yesterday, the company said it is recommending the Xbox consoles be sold for 399 Australian dollars (about $216) down under, 199 British pounds in the U.K. (about $288), and 299 euros on the continent (about $266).
• DoS attack storms port 445 - Security experts have warned that default registry settings on Windows 2000 boxes could allow a malicious user to cause a denial of service (DoS) attack through port 445.
• Look out for Klez - Anti-virus experts are warning UK businesses of an old worm said to be on its way back from Asia. If you didn't upgrade your antivirus yet, be sure to do it now!
• Florida Bank Suffers Online Security Breach - A large commercial bank in Florida said Wednesday that "an Internet hacker" penetrated the security of its systems earlier this month and made off with a file containing 3,600 online-banking customer names and addresses. Officials of Republic Bank said the attacker managed to get past the bank's security firewalls but did not access account balances or transactions of its online banking customers.
• FBI hunts ex Cisco exec - The FBI has issued a warrant for a fugitive former Cisco executive charged with multi-million dollar stock fraud after he failed to report to authorities. Robert S. Gordon, 42, a former vice president of business development at Cisco, missed a court hearing on Tuesday and has been missing since last week, according to the FBI.
• Sega bringing games to U.S. cell phones - Game publisher Sega will announce on Thursday the formation of a U.S. division that will focus on games for cell phones and other mobile devices. Sega has 2.5 million Japanese subscribers for its mobile game and entertainment services. The company contracts its services out to cell phone carriers, which sell game packages to their customers.
• The end of the free cell phone? - In the last two weeks, two of the three U.S. wireless carriers have unveiled new phones that will cost from $20 to $200, even after rebates and discounts. Although some no-frills models are available at no cost, customers looking for advanced capabilities will not get a free ride
• AMD to ditch Duron chips - CEO Jerry Sanders and President Hector Ruiz, who will become AMD's CEO next Thursday, laid out the company's manufacturing plans Wednesday for the future, and they don't include Duron. Instead, AMD will position Clawhammer, a chip that is expected to make its debut by the end of the year, as its premier desktop and notebook chip. Meanwhile, Athlon, the company's current top-end chip, will become its processor for cheap desktops and notebooks.
• Cisco takes dual route to WLAN market - Cisco yesterday launched a wireless access point which supports simultaneous operation of both 802.11b and high-speed 802.11a wireless LANs. The Cisco Aironet 1200 Series Access Point is positioned as offering investment protection by giving a ready migration path from 11Mbps 802.11b to networks using either 802.11a or the emerging 802.11g standards, which have a theoretical throughput of 54Mbps.
• IWILL announces DPX Dual Xeon Processor Server board - DPX is one of IWILL's new generation server boards. It's specially design for high-end e-Business server and dedicate workgroup applications. DPX using Intel Plumas Chipset that supports two Intel Xeon processors, and Dual Channel DDR Memory. With Adaptec Ultra 320 SCSI and ability of supporting PCI-X. This board will make your business running at the highest-level performance possible.
• Chaintech A-G441 GF4 MX440 Gallery - The package consists of the graphics card, User's Guide, 2 games MDK2 and Aquanox. Drivers CDROM. S-VHS cable.
• Belkin Nostromo n45 Gamepad Review - From the setting up to the game playing, the Belkin Nostromo n45 was a pleasure to review. The look of it doesn't seem so impressive; so don't judge this by the way it looks. I think Belkin added that silver bar and the bottom so it would look "pretty" or at least have some sort of attractiveness. The only thing I can say that's bad about it would be that it was hard to get out of the hard plastic package.
• MSI G4MX440-T Review - All things considered you have a good performance using this card, even though it is the slowest one in the review. In my conviction MSIs GeForce4 MX440 is cheaper then Gainwards, so this should justify this.
• Leadtek WinFast A250 TD Ti 4400 Review - The review covers the standard fare - first impressions, software bundle, installation, and benchmarks.
• Asus V8460Ultra Review - Hardware Mania has written a review of Asus V8460Ultra graphics card.
• Tom's VGA Charts - The VGA charts give you a performance overview for the most widespread collection of graphics cards and 3D chips on the market! Here, we bring you VGA charts from 30 different graphics cards. Check it out!!
• More Video Card Reviews - MSI GeForce 4 MX440-T,  Leadtek A170 DDR T GeForce4 MX440, NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4400 Shoot-out, Creative 3DBlaster4 MX440, Apollo Radeon 8500LE Pro, Leadtek GeForce 4 WinFast A250 Ultra,  ASUS GeForce 4 Ti 4400,  Palit Microsystems 128MB GeForce 3 Ti 200, NVIDIA Detonator 28.80 Win2k/XP Beta,  GF4 Ti4200 vs. Radeon 8500LEs,  Leadtek A170 DDR T GeForce4 MX440,: ATI Radeon 8500,   ATI Radeon Driver Comparison.
• Kazaa Lite is 'spyware free' says creator - Kazaa users can now get hold of a hacked version of the peer-to-peer file sharing software which claims to be spyware free.
• McAfee launches free security analysis tools - McAfee have just launched its SecurityCenter - a suite of free analysis tools aimed at getting users to become more security aware and hopefully plug any gaping holes with yearly licences of McAfee products. Once downloaded and installed, SecurityCenter will scan your PC, giving you a security rating between one and 10 based on the vulnerability of the machine to viruses, hackers and abuse. Also on offer is a Hacker Vulnerability Scanner that will chuck packets at your PC, through your firewall if you have one, to check the vulnerability of common Internet ports.
• Windows XP Patch: GDI+ Graphics Rendering Issues - This update (1.8MB) addresses several graphics rendering issues with GDI+ in Windows XP, and is discussed in Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) Article Q318966.
• PowerStrip v3.16 Beta Build 276 - PowerStrip 3.16 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 8500DV and GeForce4 Ti4600.
• Rage3D Tweak v3.1d - There is a new bugfixed version v3.1d of the Rage3D's tweaking tool.
• ATI Remote Control Software Version 1.1 - For those that own the kickass remote control that comes with the latest line of AIW cards you can download a bugfixed version 1.1 of their remote control software.
• ATI DVD Player 7.6 Update - ATI has released a small updated version of their new DVD player version 7.6. All the new packages does it add more allowed cdkeys to the installer. I know some people have been having problems with that.
• CloneCD 4.0 Beta 30 - It seems that in this new beta version the Tray Icon bug has been fixed.

• WinHEC 11 - Microsoft's $200 Billion Mosh Pit - Is Microsoft putting a nail in the coffin of PC gaming? Could be. New technologies Freestyle, Mira, and Longhorn take center stage. Also on the agenda, AMD's got an updated product roadmap, MSI sneaks in 845GL, SiS is on 550, VIA has Eden, designing a quiet PC, Trident comes out with the first DX8.1 notebook graphics chip, and just about everything you need to know to build hardware for just about everything Microsoft can squeeze a Windows license out of.
• The IE back-button attack - Swedish security researcher Andreas Sandblad has discovered that the MS Internet Explorer history list allows JavaScript in the URLs. The code will execute in the same zone as the last URL visited. The error page generated by IE functions in the local computer zone. Thus when an error page is generated, JavaScript can be injected in the history and executed by using the back button.
• Software pirates face 10 years in chokey - Experts have attacked the decision to increase jail sentences for software piracy, arguing that it targets the wrong groups. A Private Member's Bill covering copyright infringements has just been passed by the Commons, and will now go to the Lords. It could become law by the autumn, and would see maximum jail sentences raised from two years to 10.
• IBM to left HDD biz? - Separately, IBM and Hitachi also said they plan to combine their various hard-disk drive operations into a new, stand-alone joint venture. Hitachi would own 70 percent of the joint venture and pay IBM for its hard drive assets, subject to the completion of negotiations, the companies said.
• Athlon XP 'Thoroughbred' - New AMD Chip - AMD on Wednesday added a new Thoroughbred to its stable of PC processors. The chipmaker launched its line of new Mobile Athlon XP processors, a new generation of 130-nanometer mobile chips based on its newest processor core, called Thoroughbred. The chip core consumes less power. The chip also has a higher bus speed than the previous Athlon processor, the Athlon 4, allowing for more data to be shuttled between the chip and RAM.
• Take Control of Your Computer with ATI - ATI Technologies Inc. today announced the new REMOTE WONDER. Available through ATI's website (www.ati.com) for (US) $49.99, the radio-frequency (RF) remote control provides access to all the multimedia functions of the ATI RADEONT series graphics cards and other Microsoft Windows-based computer programs.
• AMD'S New Mobile AMD Athlon - AMD today announced the new mobile AMD Athlon XP processor, the first AMD processor manufactured on its state-of-the-art 0.13 micron technology.
• The Hercules Gamesound Fortissimo II Review - Enter the Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II, a soundcard that is advertised as being made for both the hardcore and casual gamer. Priced at around $60 U.S., it fits in nicely between Hercules' high-end GameTheatreXP ($150) and their entry-level MuseXL ($30).
• AOpen AK77-333 (VIA KT333) Review - The AOpen AK77-333 performed well during the benchmarking. The stability of the AK77-333 was outstanding and the memory performance was typical of what we have seen with KT333 based motherboards.
• Samsung SyncMaster 900IFT Review - The 900IFT is built using Samsung's patented DynaFlat technology, however, it's not a true flat monitor since the dot mask is curved. What I mean is, if you look specifically at the corners of the 900IFT, you'll see that the display actually curves inwards.
• Building an LED caselight - Lots of case modders light up their PCs. They usually do it with neon tubes of one kind or another. With a small amount of effort, though, you can assemble an LED array that works as well as a neon, is easier to mount, and will last much longer. I've done just that, and written a tutorial about it.
• Win XP Performance Tweaking Guide - I have broken this guide into 6 parts. Networking, file system, memory performance, freeing up memory, startup/shutdown and then the other stuff. I've tried to pack as much performance related tweaking here as I can but there's always more to be uncovered. I will update this article as frequently as possible. I know there's a million tweaks that I'm missing here but I am trying to keep this guide dedicated to tweaks that directly affect your performance. I'll put together a second guide about the annoyances and other things but keep in mind this is ONLY performance stuff.
• Nvidia Refresh Rate Problems Explained -   Nvidia has released documentation on exactly how the driver handles the new method. There are things in there even I didn't know, and it's quite an informative read.
• Remote Task Manager 3.7.3 - Remote Task Manager is a systems control interface that can be run from any remote Windows NT/2000/XP computer. This enables a Systems Administrator to control most aspects of a remote environment. The simple-to-use, tabbed interface separates applications, services, devices, processes, events, shared resources and performance monitor, making each of these very easy to control.
• BlindWrite v1.2.5a - BlindWrite suite is a tool designed to perfectly reproduce most CD. RAW mode is needed to produce perfect backups of some protected CDs! DAO mode is even better. Almost all protected CD can be perfectly backed up using with DAO. Blindread / Blindwrite are perfect tools to produce backups in RAW and DAO mode.
• Eudora Pro v5.1.1 beta 3 -  Eudora is currently the world's most powerful and easy-to-use email client software, featuring : enhanced User-Friendly features, more powerful mail management features, best of class tools for internet communications, designed for the latest internet standards, and extended capabilities.
• FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 845 - 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.
• CursorXP 1.1 - CursorXP is a new program that takes advantage of the new visual effects features of Windows 2000 and Windows XP. With it, users can create and use cursors that look and feel far superior to anything you've ever seen before! Best of all, it's really easy to create your own super-charged cursors! It integrates into the standard Mouse interface of Windows and is easy to turn on and off as you need.
• New ProSavage Drivers (S3) - Download:  Logo'd: ProSavage Win9x/ME Drivers 13.00.37 NoUtil / Logo'd: ProSavage Win9x/ME Drivers v13.00.37 w/util
• Abit BIOSes - Abit NV7-133R 84 / Abit SE6 Rev1.0/2.0 7Y / Abit SE6 Rev2.1 7V / Abit SH6 7U / Abit SL6 7W / Abit ST6 8A / Abit ST6E 8B / Abit VA6 7L / Abit VH6 Rev1.0 7J / Abit VH6 Rev1.1 7F / Abit VH6-II 7F / Abit VH6T 8G / Abit VL6 7K.
• MSI BIOSes - MSI 645 Ultra (MS-6547 v1.0) 1.6 / MSI 845 Pro2/-R (MS-6528 v1.0) 1.4 / MSI K7T Pro (MS-6330 v1.0A) 3.4 / MSI K7T Pro 2/-A (MS-6330 v1.0C) 3.4 / MSI K7T Turbo/-R (MS-6330 v3.0) 3.4 / MSI K7T Turbo/-R LE (MS-6330 v3.0) 3.4 / MSI K7T Turbo2 (MS-6330 v5.0) 3.4 / MSI MS-6330 Lite (MS-6330 v1.0C) 3.4 / MSI MS-6330 Lite 3 (MS-6330 v3.0B) 3.4.

• Gaucho hackers escape legal lasso - A judge has ruled hacking is legal by default in Argentina because of a lack of applicable computer crime laws. Argentina's first computer hacking prosecution was dismissed after an unnamed Federal judge ruled its law only covered crimes on "people, things and animals" and not digital attacks.
• Adobe releases Photoshop 7.0 - Adobe Systems on Tuesday began shipping the new version of its Photoshop graphics software, a major release expected to pay dividends for Apple Computer as well as for Adobe.
• Netscape, not IE, put on new CompuServe - The Internet giant launched CompuServe 7.0 with Netscape bundled as its default browser. CompuServe, AOL's other online service, previously used Microsoft's Internet Explorer as its default browser, and AOL itself continues to use IE.
• Longhorn Slips to Late 2004 - Anyone hoping to see the next major release of Windows next year will be sorely disappointed, as various representatives from Microsoft revealed Tuesday morning that Windows Longhorn will not ship until the second half of 2004 at the earliest. The Longhorn delay revelation came on the opening day of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle, a forum where Microsoft often discusses future directions and strategies.
• Nomad Jukebox 3 Officialy - The NOMAD Jukebox 3 connects to everything audio, anywhere! It works with PCs and stereos and other devices to transfer, store and record at will. With 20GB of storage you can keep up to 340 hours of music in WMA format, that’s like having a 250+ disc CD changer with you all the time. Imagine 8,000 songs in the palm of your hand! 
• DVD+RW drive upgrades: Philips says free, HP says $$$ - In the great DVD+RW upgrade scandal, Philips may be poised to emerge as the hero and HP the villain. HP has quietly (or at least, as quietly as it can) announced a time-, geography- and product-limited $99 upgrade offer, while over at DVDplusRW.org there's a report (which we're trying to confirm with Philips) that the company will release a free firmware upgrade disc for its DVDR1000 and DVDR1500 this month.
• OQO device - New Windows XP Computer - The Seattle-based company is showing off a full-fledged "ultra personal" computer this week at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, or WinHEC 2002. The computer is slightly thicker but roughly the same size as handhelds currently coming out from Palm or Hewlett-Packard. The major difference is that the OQO device, which will come out in the second half of the year for around $1,000, is a complete Windows XP computer. Along with Windows, it will come with a 5800 Crusoe processor from Transmeta, a 10GB hard drive, 256MB of memory, connection ports for FireWire and USB (universal serial bus), and wireless networking connections through either WiFi or Bluetooth.
• VIA Launches LAN-on-Motherboard Fast Ethernet Controller - The latest addition to VIA's growing Rhine family of Fast Ethernet controllers, the VIA VT6105 LOM combines the physical and media access layers into a single chip providing Ethernet connectivity for 10Mbps and 100Mbps connections in full and half duplex modes.
• Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 Review - The Jukebox was an original product and problems were bound to be associated with it. For example, the unit was big and bulky and navigation was cumbersome. We believe Creative has spent the last year or so listening, analyzing and developing the new version of Jukebox which is labeled version 3.0. In case you're wondering what happened to v2.0, that was just a small upgrade that increased the hard drive capacity from 6GB to 20GB.
• GeForce4 Reviews - Gainward Geforce4 PowerPack Ultra/750 XP Golden Sample, MSI GeForce4 Ti4600 , Canopus Spectra WX25 Ti4600.
• Sub-$200 video card roundup - If it isn't clear by now this should help considerably, NVIDIA's GeForce4 Ti 4200 is by far the best card under the $200 mark for those purchasing in the very near future.
• Video Chipset Analytical Comparison - As you all know by now, NVIDIA has recently released their new line of video cards - the GeForce 4 series. There are quite a few ranges of cards to choose from including the MX 440, MX 460, Ti 4200, Ti 4600, etc. Currently the top of the line Ti series sits with the top of the line price. The Ti4600 is a great performer, but also quite pricey. Because of the new cards, prices on the older generation of cards have dropped and should continue to drop in the future. What we are going to do today is look at some various video cards to see which might be the better buy if you are looking to upgrade.
• MSI G3Ti200 PRO-VT/Pro-VT128 review - This card came with a complete software package that includes MSI's DVD software, a drivers disk with the MSI Turbo3D 2000 Utility, a full version of the Interplay's game Sacrifice and copies of InterVideo WinCoder and WinProducer. The card offer both Video in/out (S_Video or composite) as well as TV/out (S_Video) option and for you 3D freaks they also offer 3D Glasses as another option.
• Video Card Overclocking & Cooling Guide - Tweakers Australia has published their Video Card overclocking guide. We all have video cards, well, those of us with all-in-one motherboards don't really have "video cards" - you guys/gals have got video craps. I feel sorry for you poor souls - because you can't get anything out of this article, unless you go out and buy a PCI video card then come back here again - or if you're lucky you might, just might have an AGP slot on your dodgy motherboard. How do you tell if you have an AGP slot or a PCI slot?
• GetRight 4.50d - A new version of this popular download manager has been released. This new version has no new big features but many bug fixes and other nice smaller improvements. Download mirrors: mirror1, mirror2, mirror3, mirro4, mirror5.
• Adaptec SCSI RAID 5400S Drivers - Adaptec has released Windows 2000 drivers for the Adaptec SCSI RAID 5400S.
• Creative Jukebox firmware v2.95 - This is an updated firmware package for the Nomad Jukebox Series for users running Windows 98/ME/2K/XP. It includes: improved Recording Controls and improved Diagnostics and Maintenance Tools.
• ALi Integrated Driver 1.07 - Li has released their Integrated Driver version 1.07.  North bridge Support: M1541, M1621, M1631, M1632M, M1641, M1644, M1646, M1647, M1649, M1651, M1671, M1672. South bridge Support:
  M1543C, M1535, M1535D, M1535+, M1535D+.
• Sparkle Detonator 28.32 WHQL Drivers - Sparkle have released   28.32 WHQL drivers for Win9x/ME and Win2k/XP.
• ATI OmegaCorner Drivers - Omegacorner.com has released its ATI Radeon line of drivers based on the new 6058. These drivers includes fix for PowerDVD 4.0 and hardware acceleration.

• Nvidia Detonator 27.52 WHQL certified Win2k/XP - There is a new Nvidia Detonator 27.52 WHQL certified Driver for WinXP/2000, however don't hurry to leech it because it's driver for the nVidia Quadro4 900XG :)

• Tech BONUS - FREE Donkey Kong for PC - Oh yeah!! The last time I have played Donkey Kong was on my old good Atari 800XL :) Hehe now there is a remake of the now classic Donkey Kong game for WINDOWS! (466kb). The game includes all the classic screens and has three levels. It has full sound, gamepad and hiscore saving support!

• Korean firm offers $100,000 in hacking competition - A Korean company is offering $100,000 (£70,000) in a 48-hour hacking competition, to be run this week. The first hacker to gain access to a server run by Korea Digital Works and leave their name on the site's front page this week will find it an enriching experience .Korea Digital Works (KDWorks) will launch the competition, which will involve gaining root access to a server, on Tuesday 16 April at 11am Korean Standard Time (2am GMT) at the Munhwa Daily Newspaper.
• Huge hydrogen stores found below Earth's crust - Scientists have discovered vast quantities of hydrogen gas, widely regarded as the most promising alternative to today's dwindling stocks of fossil fuels, lying beneath the Earth's crust. The discovery has stunned energy experts, who believe that it could provide virtually limitless supplies of clean fuel for cars, homes and industry.
• Coca-Cola unveils Vanilla Coke - Coca-Cola Co. said Monday it will start selling Vanilla Coke, confirming recent reports that the world's largest soft-drink maker was planning a new version of its flagship product. Vanilla Coke will hit store shelves in the U.S. May 15.
• WD caches up 80 gig HDD - Western Digital is extending the 8MB cache buffer offering down the Caviar line with a Special Edition version of the 80GB EIDE hard drive.
• Intel confirms Pentium 4 price cuts - The biggest price drop in the Pentium 4 family is the 2.20GHz/512K chip, which falls by 25 per cent to $423 from $562. The $562 remains the price of the 2.40GHz/512K Pentium 4. The 2.0A drops 22 per cent from $364 to $284, the 2GHz/256 from $342 to $262 (23%), and the 1.90GHz P4 drops seven per cent to $225 from $241. Intel has however taken the axe to its 1.20GHz Pentium III desktop chip, which falls 32 per cent from $241 to $163, while its other Tualatin Pentium III, the 1.13A with 256K, drops 12 per cent to $153 from $173. These chips are now proving somewhat hard to find. Other price cuts Intel makes today are on its LV/ULV mobile Intel Pentium III-M: the 866/512 drops 24 per cent to $241, which is also the price of the 850/512 - meaning the latter is on its way out. The 800/512 drops 18 per cent to $198 from $241.
• HP upgrades DVD+RW drives--at a price - The company will swap the first-generation DVD100i drives with ones that will handle both DVD+RW (DVD-rewritable) discs and the less-expensive DVD+R (DVD-recordable) discs. Last month the PC maker backed off of its initial claims that it would offer an upgrade for its earlier drive, the DVD100i, saying it would not be possible.
• Pro Card comparison - Digit-Life has posted a comparison of professional 3D accelerators in 3D Studio MAX 4.26.
• GeForce4 Reviews - Visiontek GeForce4 Ti 4600 & 4400,  Chaintech's A-GT61 SE (Ti 4600), SUMA GF4 MX 440, MSI GF4Ti4600-VTD (MS-8872), MSI G4MX440-T, Asus V8460 Ultra, Triplex GF4 Ti 4600,    PCI GeForce4 MX,
• Mozilla 1.0.0 RC1 - Mozilla 1.0.0 Release Candidate 1 is out! Mozilla is an open-source web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability.
• LAME MP3 3.92 Codec - LAME is a fully GPL'd MP3 encoder, with speed and quality to rival all commercial competitors.
• PowerStrip 3.16 Beta Build 273 - PowerStrip 3.16 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 8500DV and GeForce4 Ti4600.
• Mouse rate checker 1.1b - This little utility measures and displays the sample rate of a mouse. the sample rate (in Hz) tells how often (per second) the mouse sends information to your computer. So the best way is to use a ps/2 mouse and tweak it to 200Hz. To use this checker, just move your mouse over the pad really fast and you will get the average speed.
• RockNES X v2.0 - This is the Windows version of the RockNES, a Nintendo Entertainment System 8-bit (NES) videogame emulator for PC machines.
• Gravis Xperience 4.5 Final Drivers - This drivers supports the following Gravis game controllers: Xterminator Force, Xterminator Dual Control, Xterminator Digital GamePad, Eliminator Precision Pro, Eliminator Joystick, Eliminator AfterShock, Eliminator GamePad Pro, BlackHawk Digital, GamePad Pro, Stinger, and Destroyer AfterShock.
• Detonators 28.32/28.35/28.80 Comparison - There is a nice Detonator Driver Comparison featuring version 28.32, 28.35 and 28.80.
• Nvidia Detonator v27.45 Driver for WinXP/2k - Here's a new Nvidia Detonator 27.45 Driver for WinXP/2k from Dell. This driver should work with nVidia's 128MB DDR GeForce4 Ti 4600.

• Dual P4 [email protected] OC Results - This week we saw 2 entries from Holicho and Jahovx where they both overclocked their new P4 2.4Ghz to 4.1Ghz using a modified ASUS P4T-E board. We have gradually been seeing more people using ASUS P4T-E for added stability under very high clock speed environment and replacing ABIT TH7-II as the top RDRAM overclocking board for Pentium 4.
• VIA P4PA-UL Review - VIA's recent introduction of their Platform Solutions Division, VPSD, was a move that had been in the planning stages for quite a long time. According to VIA, the purpose of VPSD is to help accelerate the rate at which the latest and greatest chipsets, along with other technologies can reach the market. VIA is well known for their "A" revision chipsets, all of which have brought incredible performance with them. One thing is for certain, VIA can make some high performance chipsets, but can they pump out some high performance motherboards too?
• Rexxx's GameRoom MP3 Jukebox Project - While working on a MAME cabinet (which isn't yet finished, and I'll post here when it is),
  inspiration struck. I could build an MP3 jukebox for my gameroom. Something that was as easy to control as an arcade game, and had all of the features I needed to simply play music.
• ATI Radeon Driver Comparison (Updated) - The old 7.60 driver seemed to have a huge lead over the newer 7.67 and 7.68, but I do believe there is an explanation to this. If you take a look at the screenshots below, you can see that the AA in 7.60 is very poor, which would result in more frames since the complexity of the AA isn't particularly high! The AA in 7.67 and 7.68 are spot-on, and it is hard to tell the difference since the quality is just so good. Take a look for yourself...
• Netscape v6.2.2 - A new version v6.2.2.of Netscape has been released.
• PHP 4.2.0 RC3 - A third release candidate for PHP 4.2.0 has just been released, with support for the recent Apache 2.0.35 release as well as numerous collected bug fixes.
• Tweak XP 1.31 - 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 Windowsr XP system.
• WinDVD Tweaker 3.1 - WinDVD Tweaker is designed to allow users of the WinDVD playback software to enable some hidden settings and allow for maximum playback pleasure.
• AGP 4x/2x/1x Guide - Pc-Extreme.com  has posted AGP 4x/2x/1x Guide (in German language, use BabelFish for translation) that will help you to make decision which setting is fastest for AGP speed in games AGP 4x or AGP 2x or is it AGP 1x . He tested theses settings with five different Benchmarks Aquanox, Comanche4, Serious Sam 2, Jedi Outcast, Quake3.
• New Abit BIOSes - Abit has released a couple of   BIOS files: KR7A 7G03 / KG7 8S00 / KT7A Version 1.3 or higher 8T00 / BL7 6V / BW7 6V / NV7M 79 / SA6 Rev1.0 7X / SA6R Rev1.0 7U / SA6R Rev1.1/1.2 7X.
• ATI RADEON 8500 Drivers v4.13.9026 for Win9x/ME - Rage3D have posted another beta version of ATi's RADEON 8500 drivers. (mirror1 / mirror2)

• First Amiga games for Windows devices to ship next week - Amiga's Microsoft relationship has borne near-instant fruit; the first Amiga Anywhere Entertainment Pack for CE, CE.NET, PocketPC and PocketPC 2002 is due to ship from Monday, April 15th. The pack comes with the Amiga Anywhere Content Engine, which allows Amiga Anywhere applications to run on Windows devices, plus four games, Planet Zed and Convex from ZeoNeo and Gobbler and Solitaire from Pulsar. Average size for Amiga Anywhere applications, according to Amiga Inc president and CEO Bill McEwen, is 300k.
• Ashcroft Calls For Web-Based Terrorist Data System - U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft on Thursday called on various law enforcement agencies within the Justice Department to construct a Web-based system for sharing terrorist data with state officials. Ashcroft directed the deputy attorney general to coordinate the building of a secure but unclassified Web-based system that would enable local, state and federal users to post, retrieve and read documents and photos, as well as send and receive secure e-mail.
• Another Computing Platform Gets Its First Virus - SAPvir, the first virus to infect programs and reports used by the high-end SAP R/3 business information system, was posted to an online virus library this week.
• Earth's Magnetic Pole is Flipping Sides - Scientists are getting some data that indicates that all of that may change in the next millennia or two. The Earth's magnetic poles are showing signs they may be preparing to flip. You read that correctly-flip, switch, swap, and exchange polarities. "North" would become "South", "East" would in reality actually be "West", and those of us already directionally-impaired would have to simply give up and just stay at home all the time, because we wouldn't be able to find our way anywhere.
• Wi-Fi "lite" from Microsoft - Setting up a network is relatively inexpensive, costing $500 to $1,000 for a system that allows wireless access in a 300-foot radius. The radio generally costs between $150 and $250. These networks are already in about 1.4 million U.S. homes and are catching on in restaurants, hotels, airports, workplaces and conference centers. By 2005, analysts believe, Wi-Fi will be used in about 27 million homes and 28 million offices.
• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Hard Drive Round-up - If you are looking for an external drive, don't count out USB yet. New Hi-Speed USB 2.0 hard drives are marching into the market in great numbers, and they live up to their names with impressive gain in performance over older USB 1.1 drives. Our reviewed drives' transfer speeds are rated at between 10 to 16MB/s, with Maxtor Personal Storage 3000LE being the fastest.
• GeForce 4 Reviews Mania:  Gainward GF4 Ti4600 Review,  eVGA e-GeForce4 MX 440, Palit GeForce3 Ti200 128MB, GeForce4 MX 440 Experiences, Visiontek's Xtasy Ti 4400 & Ti 4600, Leadtek A170 DDR T GeForce4 MX440, Visiontek GF4 Ti4440 Review,  Leadtek WinFast GeForce4 Ti 4600 & 4400, Ti 4200 Preview
• NVIDIA's GF4 Ti4200 Vs. Radeon 8500LEs - Today we'll be taking a look at three such products, the Apollo Graphics Devil Monster II Radeon 8500 LE, the ATi Radeon 8500 LE and an NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200. All three of these products offer features like pixel and vertex shaders or have dual monitor support, but they are clocked lower than the high-end products in their respective company's lineup. These lower clockspeeds result in lower costs. All three of these products are priced at or below $200, about half that of a Ti 4600 or 128MB Radeon All-In-Wonder. It's time to get up close an personal and see what these cards are made of..
• Chaintech GF3 Ti200 Special Edition - The first in this Special Edition series of theirs is GF3 Ti200 video card with 128MB of RAM. Does that much extra RAM help the performance? How come this card costs almost the same as its 64MB sibling? Find out in Bench House's article.
• ATI Radeon Driver Comparison - Tweakers Australia has posted a comparison on the latest ATI Reference driver for the Radeon series, v7.68.
• Microsoft .NET Framework SP1 (English)  - This update is a service pack that resolves various issues found after the initial release of the .NET Framework. These include both security and non-security related issues. Because this service pack applies to different setup configurations, you may need to apply it twice per language.
• Windows XP Updates - Q320174 (Recommended Update that addresses several CD Burning issues, Q310510 (Recommended Update that resolves the "Playback and Copy-Protection Issues When You Try to Play the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs DVD Movie" issue in Windows XP), Windows XP Application Compatibility Update V4, April 2002.
• Google API's - Google have released the first beta of their Web APIs package. Used in conjunction with a free license key this SOAP based web service allows developers to execute up to 1000 automated queries a day, but is currently available for non-commercial use only. The download comes with Java and .NET code examples and includes a WSDL description for use with other SOAP supporting languages.
• Antivirus database feed - As usually don't forget to feed your scanners : Kaspersky Anti-Virus (AVP) Weekly Update (April 12, 2002), Norton Antivirus 4.0/5.0/2000 Definition Update (April 12, 2002), McAfee
• Opera 6.02 build 1078 - Opera Software have released a new beta version of Opera 6.02.
• TaskInfo 2002 v4.0.0.51 - TaskInfo2002 is combination of Task Manager and System Information Utility, It visually monitors different types of System information in Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
• Memory-Trax 3.5 (Free) - Memory-Trax III is a small program that reclaims the memory Windows neglects to release when you quit out of a program.
• WinDVD v3.1 - WinDVD is the best selling software DVD player for the PC. WinDVD combines the best picture and sound with advanced features only possible on a PC.
• BearShare v2.5.1 - BearShare is designed to let you share files with everyone on the Internet, and download files that other people are sharing. The program works with all types of files, and lets you search for files that contain specific words or phrases. BearShare is built on the Gnutella protocol.
• Intel Application Accelerator 2.2 Beta - Intel Application Accelerator is a performance software package for Intel 800 series desktop PCs.
• BootXP v1.90 RC1 - A new version of Boot XP has been released.
• CloneCD v4.0.0.0 beta 21 - Again, another beta of this  powerful CD-Copy program which can produce real 1:1 copies of your CDs.
• Radeonator v1.80 Final - Radeonator is a tweaker developed for Radeon based videocards. The tweaker makes it easy to manipulate driversettings to squeeze out the last bit of performance.
• SiS AGP Driver v1.09f -  SIS has released a new AGP Driver version 1.09f for the following chipsets.
• Detonator XP 28.35 All cards - AbitBoy.com has added 28.35 detonator drivers for XP/2k for all nVidia cards.
• Detonator XP 28.80 - AbitBoy.com has posted  some leaked XP/2K drivers for all you crash monkies out there. :o)

• Experts: Chat rooms a haven for hackers - Computer security expert Chad Harrington regularly surfs Internet Relay Chat (IRC), one of the oldest chat technologies on the Web. The IRC networks have names like Dalnet and EFnet, but he agrees that another name works just as well: eBay for hackers.
• Europe rejects Internet content 'blocking' - The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to oppose the use of "blocking" as a way of regulating content on the Internet. The vote (460 in favour, 0 against and 3 abstentions) this morning means that ISPs will not be forced to restrict access to Web sites. Instead, they have been given the green light to continue with self-regulation.
• Win-XP Search Assistant silently downloads files - A little over a week ago, while searching for a file on a Windows-XP machine, I was surprised to see the Search Assistant attempting to activate my Internet connection. It puzzled me because I wasn't searching the Internet, only my local drive.
• Will we see OSX on x86? - It's not an exaggeration to say that the decision of whether or not to port OSX may be one of the most important Apple makes this decade-perhaps even rivaling Apple's much-debated decision to not allow Mac clones.
• Nomad Jukebox v3.0 Pictures - T-Break has posted some pictures from the Creative Nomad Jukebox v3.0.
• Abit AT7 (KT333) Review - Giant leap or baby step, one thing is for certain, the AT7, Abit's first board in the MAX lineup, is definitely one of the most unique boards you'll see today. The AT7 uses the newest, fastest chipset for the Athlon platform, VIA's KT333. KT333 supports most of the newest features you'll need, such as native ATA/133 hard drives, onboard 5.1 audio with digital output, support for DDR333 SDRAM, and more. Abit takes that one step further, and adds a ton of integrated components intended for the next generation of computing. This includes both FireWire AND USB2.0 controller, a 4 channel ATA/133 RAID adapter (making for an unprecedented support of 10 ATA drives onboard), onboard 10/100 LAN, and MediaXP support.
• ABIT BD7-RAID Review - VR-Zone has writen a review of the ABIT BD7-RAID board based on Intel 845D chipset.
• Pentium 4 Northwood Review - Because the multiplier of every Pentium4 CPU is hard locked, Intel leaves you with nothing but the Front Side Bus to crank up the core speed of their CPUs. The multiplier of our 2.2GHz Northwood sample is locked at 22x just as it is on all retail 2.2GHz P4 CPUs. It's time to fresh up your math folks : 22 x 100MHz FSB = 2200MHz or 2.2GHz. Now, we have increased the 100MHz stock FSB to a sweet 118MHz using our BD7-RAID motherboard. This increase of FSB speed forces the P4 2.2GHz run at 22 x 118MHz or 2600MHZ or no less than an impressive 2.6GHz!
• GeForce 4 MX Overview - Unlike the Titanium cards, which are based off NV25 technology, the MX is based on NV17 technology. Consider that the GeForce 3 is based on NV20 tech, and the GeForce 2 on NV15, you'll see where this is going.
• GF4 Ti 4600 Review -   With the stock cooling we could reach 347/765MHZ on this card! Once again an impressive overclock on a Leadtek card. This is now the third card we review from Leadtek and once again it's a great overclocker.
• Style XP 1.0 - Style XP is not a skinning engine. It uses Microsoft's built-in visual style engine, but enhances it by providing many useful tools. Style XP can import, select, rotate, and manage Themes, Visual Styles, Wallpaper, and Logons. Future versions may support sounds, cursors, screensavers, and packages of all the above.
• WinTasks Prossional 4 Review - Introducing WinTask Professional 4 from LIUtilties - a turbocharged Task Manager for Windows that offers greater resource management, improved computer security, as well as optimization and debugging utilities.
• 7-Zip 2.30 Beta 19 - This new version adds support for RAR 3.0 archives.
• PowerStrip v3.16 beta build 271 - PowerStrip 3.16 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 8500DV and GeForce4 Ti4600. It is in fact the only program of its type to support multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors, simultaneously, under every Windows operating system from Windows 95 to XP.
• CloneCD 4.0 Beta 17 - Just another beta :)
• GeForce Tweak 3.2t31 - Johannes Tuemler has just released version 3.2t31 Beta of his extremely popular GeForce overclocker/tweaker.
• VirtualDub v1.4.10 (free) - VirtualDub is a video capture and processing program that  features fast capturing, process files larger than the 2 gigabyte limit, optimized for linear editing, support for Motion-JPEG, MPEG-1 video and layer 3 audio, real-time and near-realtime video processing, video job queues, and much more.
• Intervideo WinDVD 3.2 - leaked Final - xp-erience.com has posted a leaked final version 3.2 (though Trial only) of WinDVD.
• WinDVD Tweaker 3.0  - WinDVD Tweaker is designed to allow users of the WinDVD playback software to enable some hidden settings and allow for maximum playback pleasure.
• ATI DVD Player 7.6 - ATI have finally released v7.6 of their DVD playback software based on the popular Cineplayer by Ravisent.
• Official ATi Drivers - ATi has officially released a new official drivers for their RADEON and FireGL cards: ATi RADEON WinXP v6.13.10.6043 / ATi RADEON Win2k v5.13.01.6043 / ATi RADEON Win98/ME v4.13.9021 / ATi FireGL 8700/8800 WinXP v6.12.10.3028 / ATi FireGL 8700/8800 Win2K v5.12.2195.3028 / ATi FireGL 8700/8800 WinNT 4 v4.00.1381.3028.