Tomorrow's News Today
|
|
|
Please visit our Sponsor
|
Tech News for Friday May 12th 2000.Office
2000 SR1a released. The Office 2000 SR-1a update includes the original Office 2000 SR-1 update and the Office 2000/Windows 2000 Registry Repair Utility. The functionality of this utility is the only addition to the SR-1a update. If you have already installed the SR-1 update and have not upgraded from Windows NT 4 to Windows 2000, you do not need this utility. If you have upgraded from Windows NT 4 to Windows 2000 and have already installed the SR-1 update, you should only install the Office 2000/Windows 2000 Repair Utility. All other users should install the SR-1a update. To determine if SR-1a is installed on your computer, please see "How To Tell if the SR-1a Update Has Been Applied." Win2k
service pack 1 goes into beta. Microsoft has posted a beta of Windows 2000 Service Pack 1, according to Paul Thurrott of WinInfo. It's only available to Universal and Professional MSDN members, via the MSDN Subscriber Downloads site, and Paul reports that it's a chunky 190 megabytes, so don't all rush at once. The size and the territory covered suggests that SP1 is, as we suggested a while back, pretty closely synced in with development of next year's model, Whistler, which will effectively be Win2k 1.1. Last time, we heard Whistler was due for public beta in July, which makes it something of a Win2k bugfix in its own right. The close relationship is sort of good news and bad news, the good being that it'll tend to make it easier to clean up both OSes, the bad being that it'll probably mean the shipping SP1 will be excessively large, and that Microsoft will find it difficult to stay good. The company has been telling its customers that it's going to separate bugfixing service packs from updates and new features, but the notes for the SP1 beta suggest it's already starting to wobble. Cisco
To Buy Sweden's Qeyton Systems. One can tell that Cisco is moving fast into the optical market to design and build optical switching/routing devices. Cisco must be lagging somewhat with the technology as it tries to compensate by "gobbling" up every optical networking company on the market. In this case the company is in Sweden. SAN JOSE, CALIF. - Cisco Systems plans to buy Sweden's Qeyton Systems for about $800 million in stock, the latest of nearly a dozen acquisitions the world's largest maker of computer networking systems has made this year. Qeyton will expand Cisco's (stock: CSCO) optical networking capabilities and enable it to provide a comprehensive package of optical networking services and products for telecommunications service providers' metropolitan networks, Cisco said. An
opening to steal your cookies. Microsoft has yet another major bug on their hands with regards to Internet Explorer. Malicious Java code can steal the cookies within your browser and then extract personal information you submitted on other web sites. Microsoft is working to patch this latest security flaw in Internet Explorer. Computer bug-hunters have pointed out a way to snare personal information from a “cookie” file if the victim uses Microsoft Internet Explorer and clicks on a disguised string of JavaScript code. Microsoft said it was working on a patch for the security hole. Microsoft
likely to win delay in antitrust case. This case is going to drag out for several months and I believe it will take years before anything happens. I could be wrong but with Microsoft's financial power and the difficulty in finding a clear line to cut the company in half with - it's going to take some time. SEATTLE--Microsoft has
marshaled enough of a legal argument against a government-sought breakup that
the judge in its antitrust case probably will have to give the company at least
some of the time it asked for to prepare its defense, say experts who have been
following the case. Getright
4.20 released. Getright is a program to help you download files from the Internet. It allows you to easily download files and recover (resume downloading) if errors occur--and has many other advanced features. Download Getright 4.20 here. ILOVEYOU
virus Saga Continues. Apparently Onel De Guzman had a trojan horse in mind for his graduation thesis. The proposal was in turn rejected by the school, which now states that the idea was extremely similar to the ILOVEYOU worm, in that the object of the trojan was to steal Windows and other programs passwords to allow users to have free Internet access via other people's accounts. Onel is said to have lived with his sister and Ramones, although for a relatively short period. Authorities are also searching for Michael Buen, who also attended AMA Computer College. His name matched those of former students Philippine officials were looking for. Sprint
Launches First Broadband Wireless Market in Phoenix
. Sprint offers wireless broadband internet connections over 85% of Phoenix, Arizona. Imagine being able to carry your laptop just about anywhere without cables and connect to the world wide web at any time. As of today, over 85% of the homes and offices in the Phoenix metroplex can subscribe to Sprint Broadband Direct’s high-speed service for just $39.95 per month. The service provides multi-megabit download speeds and does not require a second phone line to hook up a computer to the Internet. The connection is "always on" when the customer is ready to surf the World Wide Web -- no more dialing into a modem bank multiple times to get a good connection and no more getting bumped off-line during an important work session. And, since the technology is wireless, customers will not have to wait months or years for their local telephone or cable company to upgrade their neighborhood’s wiring with two-way capabilities. Now customers have an attractive third option for combined local broadband access and Internet Service Provider (ISP) service. Sprint Broadband Direct will provide downstream burst rates of up to 5 Megabits per second (Mbps), and commonly experience download speeds of up to 1-2 Mbps. Athlon
prices VS. Pentium II prices. Take a look at several charts showing the prices between AMD and Intel CPU's. Most noteworthy is that the Pentium III 500mhz costs more than the AMD Athlon 700mhz! In a nutshell: The Athlon is at least 44% CHEAPER than the Pentium 3 at 700Mhz and above! (and at least 28% cheaper at lower speeds). How
to get a Tech-Job. If you are considering working in the IT industry or are planning a career advancement in IT, TechExtreme has posted a article to give you some pointers to get you started. The article includes average salaries for the most common IT jobs. Tech News for Thursday May 11th 2000.U.S.
House nixes Net taxes for five years. Everybody please stand up and give a good round of applause: WASHINGTON--Computer users may be able to surf without fear of taxes that single out the Internet for five more years under legislation passed by the House, part of a broader Republican agenda aimed at appealing to the high-tech industry. The House voted 352-75 yesterday for the bill, part of a Republican "E-Contract 2000" agenda intended to underscore their support for the high-tech sector, a prime campaign contribution battleground for both parties this election year. Other priority issues include repealing the 102-year-old 3 percent telephone excise tax, increasing visas for highly skilled foreign workers, and granting digital signatures the force of law. "The high-tech industry is the future," said House speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "The last thing we want to do is impede our future with high taxes and excessive government regulation." The moratorium bill, sent to the House floor without a single hearing, would extend for five years a current ban on Internet-specific taxes that expires in October 2001. The bill is designed to prevent states from taxing Internet access, such as requiring people to pay taxes on their America Online accounts. It also would bar new taxes aimed specifically at online activity, such as the amount of time a person spends on the Internet or how much material a person downloads. Additionally, the bill would repeal a grandfather clause enacted in 1998 that allowed the states of Connecticut, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin and 16 cities to keep taxes they had in place at the time. Without the moratorium extension and repeal of the grandfather clause, thousands of state, county and local taxing bureaucrats could slow down Internet growth and "drown the whole thing in a sea of red tape," said Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif. "Don't pile new taxes on the Internet," he said. Industry groups applauded the vote. <SNIP> The tax moratorium extension bill is H.R. 3709 Maxtor
DiamondMax 60 review. Storage Review takes Diamond's latest 60GB hard drive for a test drive. This drive is incredibly cheap for between $300 and $350 for 60GB. I could start my story here about about the 20MB drive I purchased for $500. Advances in areal density seem inexorable. We opened the year 2000 with hard drives packing a whopping 10 gigabytes per platter… yet less than five months later, ten gigs a platter seems rather tame. Now we've got drives with 15 gigs on a single disk just around the horizon. Research divisions of manufacturers such as IBM, Seagate, and Fujitsu keep on proclaiming breakthrough after breakthrough in recording technology that just keeps pushing the "superparamagnetic limit" (the theoretical maximum areal density) further and further back. Current estimates imply that 200 gig/platter drives won't be out of the ordinary 10 years from now! BulletProof
FTP 1.20 released. BulletProof FTP 1.20 has been released with a couple of new features and bug fixes. BulletProof FTP is by far the best FTP client for Win32. Here's a list of what's changed/fixed: V1.20 11th May 2000 Download a trial/upgrade version here. Intel
to replace faulty PC motherboards. This was mentioned yesterday that Intel's latest i820 chipset is creating havoc on motherboards. The news caused Intel's stock to drop by at least 9% as the company issued a recall on i820 based motherboards. Intel said today it has discovered a problem with components inside some Pentium III computers that could cost the company several hundred million dollars to fix.The company said it found problems with Pentium III computers containing a chip called the "memory translator hub" (MTH). The MTH is malfunctioning because of system noise, or internal computer signals. The flaw with the MTH can cause computers to freeze up or reboot. Customers can download a utility from an Intel Web site to test if their computer contains an MTH. News of the problem drove Intel stock down more than 9 percent, or $10.69, to $106.25. Arcane as it sounds, the MTH has emerged as a fairly important piece of silicon. The chip allows computer makers to combine Intel's 820 chipset, the company's latest and fastest, with standard memory in a computer. The 820 chipset was created to "speak" to more expensive, and often difficult-to-find, Rambus memory. The MTH, released in November, effectively allowed computer makers to cut out the expense of adopting Rambus memory. Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, has estimated slightly less than a million PCs with the 820 chipset and the MTH have been shipped. Single/Dual
CPU Debate. Tech Extreme talks about the pros and the cons of having multiple CPU's in your system. The article is focused on Microsoft operating systems which unfortunately leaves out the most powerful multiprocessor capable operating systems - take any UNIX operating system for example. In a nutshell multiprocessor systems are useless under Windows 9x but add some performance improvements under Windows NT/2000 assuming the applications are multi-threaded. Multi-threaded applications are few and far between at this point for Microsoft Windows NT/2000. Unless you plan to create a multi-user (50+) server environment for either internet or development a multi-processor system is most likely overkill. Playstation
2 launch date, price set. MSNBC reports that the much anticipated Sony Playstation II will ship in the US on October 26th for $299. Initial shipments are to be 1 million units which at this point will most likely only fill the orders for a single online electronics store. The demand and anticipation is running at a fever pitch. Microsoft's X-Box is not slate to ship until early next year and I believe by then the Playstation II will have saturated the market so significantly that Microsoft is going to face a major challenge. Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. said Wednesday it planned to launch its PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system in North America on Oct. 26 with an initial shipment of 1 million units. THE COMPANY, A UNIT of Sony Corp. , said in
an announcement at the Electronic Entertainment Expo here that the system would
have a suggested retail price of $299. Tech News for Wednesday May 10th 2000.Cisco
To Expand In New England. Cisco (stock: CSCO) plans to buy 110 acres in Salem, N.H., to build a plant that will create 2,500 jobs. The networking leader said the 674,000 square-foot New England Manufacturing Center, about 40 miles from Boston, will test, assemble, and globally distribute Cisco products, including optics-based routers and networking products. Cisco, San Jose, Calif., recently said it is building a New England Development Center in Massachusetts. MP3
Digital Watermark Technology Debuts
. Cognicity has taken the wraps off a user-transparent digital watermark system for MP3 files. The AudioKey tMark system has been developed to embed unique watermarks into digital audio files in real-time - as the file is being downloaded - the firm said. Cognicity said that the tMark system's unique feature is that the identity of the consumer making a download transaction is embedded into the MP3 track as it is being downloaded. If the file is uploaded or transferred to other users, the unique watermark clearly identifies the MP3 file's origins, but without preventing the file from playing in the existing wide range of MP3 mobile players or MP3 PC playing software. The firm said that content owners need the transactional watermark solution to fingerprint MP3 downloaded and streamed music, so they can identify those who abuse content distribution rights. To launch the tMark system, Cognicity is offering a free starter kit to qualified customers. The starter kit will, the firm said, allow content owners and online merchants to experiment with transactional watermarking at no cost or risk to themselves. Cognicity's Web site is at http://cognicity.com . Napster
Bars Over 317,000 Names From Website
. This is another one of those useless tactics to try and control the internet. Napster probably banned the users from the web site either by sign-on name or by IP. This can be easily foiled by login in as a new user under a different IP. According to a report published this morning, Napster, Inc. announced Tuesday evening that it has blocked more than 317,000 names used by its subscribers, which have been identified by the hard rock band, Metallica, as allegedly infringing on the copyrights of the group's music. Napster gives users who log in to its Website the ability to store, play, and trade MP3-formatted music files among themselves. The move by Napster to remove the names comes during a lawsuit brought against it by Metallica and the group's music publishing companies. The lawsuit alleges that the service provided by Napster facilitates copyright infringement because users of Napster software can replicate and trade Metallica music with others without paying a license fee to the band. Love
Bug Losses Estimated At $6.7 Bil, Still Mounting. The virus is still popping up in e-mail boxes of corporations, governments and home users worldwide, six days after it slipped into millions of computers in its drive across Asia, Europe and the Americas, said researchers at Computer Economics. Analyst Samir Bhavnanim told Newsbytes that losses are estimated by using a formula based on loss of production and the number of people who received the e-mails in companies, governments and homes worldwide. "We basically took the number of people who received the e-mail and came up with a median impact number" under several categories ranging from minimal to maximum impact, he said. Fujitsu
Unveils Faster Hard Drives. It's always exciting to see faster and bigger hard-drives on the market. At the end of the second
quarter this year, Fujitsu will begin shipments of its two latest creations, the
MAJ3 and MAH3 series of hard drives. The MAJ3 series 10,000 RPM drives are
capable of pushing up to 62.25MB of data per second and come in 9.1, 18.2, and
36.4GB increments. The MAH3 series offers 7200 RPMs and 9.1 and 18.2GB models.
Fujitsu is targeting the new hard drives at business PCs or set top box makers. Link
in Outlook may lock up Word. If a user clicks on a hyperlink in an Outlook mail message that includes Rich Text, Word may hang in Windows 2000, says Microsoft. OFFICE 2000
SERVICE RELEASE 1 (SR-1) will resolve the glitch. Intel
says noisy chips delay 820 chip set. Another reason not to purchase a motherboard that utilizes the Intel i820 chipset. Currently if you wish to pursue the Intel road for adding a CPU to your system pickup a well-matured motherboard from other Asus or Abit using the BX chipset. Also Via currently has developed a chipset with most of the features that are in the i820 chipset such as Ultra-66 HD support and AGP 4x. Chip maker will replace motherboards using its 820 chip set due to noise caused by simultaneous switching of signals. Intel Corp. is facing another showstopper for PCs using its 820 chip set.The company announced Wednesday morning that it will replace motherboards using its 820 chip set that are exhibiting symptoms of a problem with a related component -- called a memory translator hub, or MTH -- with synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM). While the MTH is not part of the 820 itself, it is required on a motherboard that uses SDRAM. It enables the chip set, which was designed to work with Rambus dynamic RAM (RDRAM), to use less expensive, more readily available SDRAM memory. "We have found that some systems ... may be sensitive to system board noise," an Intel spokesman said. The MTH problem, which manifests itself in symptoms including system hangs and intermittent system reboots, is due to noise caused by simultaneous switching of signals on the MTH buses, Intel officials said. Intel is working with PC and motherboard makers to notify end users of the issue and to offer a replace-ment motherboard. Intel plans to replace all the 820 motherboards with SDRAM support it has sold di-rectly to its customers with an Intel 820 chip set motherboard with RDRAM memory. Intel
still supporting RAMBUS. I think this is a big mistake by Intel as the new "Willamette" CPU will only support RAMBUS memory. The future of RAMBUS looks very dim as support for the outrageously priced memory with barely 5% performance over today's conventional SDRAM. If AMD keeps ramping up production as currently planned then the company is going to making major inroads into Intel's market share. Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of the company's chip set group, said, "From a technical point of view, RDRAM is absolutely the best solution." While PC OEMs have started to ask memory vendors to provide double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM to increase system performance at prices lower than for RDRAM, Intel's new processor will only work with RDRAM. "My road map does not include any DDR," said Burns. Microsoft
Launches Windows Services for UNIX 2.0. Las Vegas -- May 9, 2000 -
Today at NetWorld+Interop 2000, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software
Architect Bill Gates announced the availability of Microsoft® Windows®
Services for UNIX 2.0 (SFU). Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 2.0
provides an additional set of comprehensive tools to help bridge the gap between
UNIX and Windows for users and administrators. It helps create a logical
enterprise network where resources are shared seamlessly and access control is
simplified. Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 2.0 provides a mechanism to take
advantage of existing UNIX resources and expertise while simplifying network
administration and account management in a mixed Windows 2000-, Windows NT®-,
and UNIX-based environment. Sneak
peek at 64-bit Windows 2000. Don't hold your breath too long waiting for this version of Windows 2000: Officials offer sneak peek at 64-bit Windows 2000. But the company's supposed "mainframe-killer" Datacenter release still remains nowhere in sight. In a corner of their
booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Microsoft officials were offering a
sneak peek at the future.
During his keynote speech earlier in the
day, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates remained mum on any products under
development. But that didn't prevent his company from demonstrating an early
version of its 64-bit version of Windows 2000 to a handful of interested
attendees at the NetWorld+Interop show. An official demonstrating the product cautioned that the version in the booth was a pre-developer release now circulating inside Microsoft among a handful of software developers. He said Microsoft wants to ship a first beta of Windows 2000, 64-bit edition, sometime this summer. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) expects to ship the final version of 64-bit edition simultaneously with Intel's delivery of its IA-64 processors, before the end of calendar 2000. The software maker has been developing a 64-bit version of Windows in lockstep with 32-bit Windows 2000 for the past three years. The company expects to continue to ship 32-bit iterations of its operating systems for the next decade, officials have said. Tech News for Tuesday May 9th 2000.Sun
Upgrades J2SE Platform. Sun Microsystems on Monday unveiled the first upgrade of its platform that enables solution providers and Java developers to build and deploy client-side enterprise applications. Enhancements to Java 2, Standard Edition (J2SE), version 1.3 include a new Java virtual machine (VM) -- the Java HotSpot Client -- that is aimed at improving client performance in an enterprise desktop, said Blake Connell, product line manager for the J2SE at Sun, Mountain View, Calif. "The Java HotSpot Client VM is totally new, [but] it's based on technology we've had out for about a year," Connell said. "The emphasis we've put on it is having it tuned for client performance -- reducing application start-up time, how quickly [an application] comes to life on a desktop." Sun (stock: SUNW) also added support for LDAP in J2SE 1.3, which gives a desktop client directory connectivity to access information across the enterprise, he said. J2SE 1.3 also has new Java applet caching functionality, which will enable a developer to deploy a Web application more quickly by downloading and storing Java applets on a local hard drive for immediate access. A binary version of J2SE 1.3 is available on Sun's Java site. A source code version will be available in a few weeks, Connell said. Guide
To Graphics Card Jargon. Eurogamer has posted a page explaining all those fancy new acronyms you hear/read on the latest video hardware on the market. Well worth the read if you are getting frustrated with all these names and can't make heads or tails. The last couple of
weeks has seen a frenzy of graphics card announcements and previews, with 3dfx,
ATI and NVIDIA all claiming to have produced the best thing since sliced bread.
To allay your confusion, EuroGamer has cut through the jargon and hype to help
you pick out the contenders from the also-rans.
To start off we will be explaining some of
the most common terms that you will come across when comparing the new
generation of graphics cards, and then next week we will be bringing you all the
latest information on the cards themselves. Microsoft
wins another round in Java battle. This is why there are so many problems with Java compatibility. The Java concept is fantastic but you have all these companies creating their own standards to try and steer the market. A federal judge sided with Microsoft in one portion of its Java license dispute with Sun Microsystems. U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte late today accepted Microsoft's request for summary judgment, dismissing Sun's copyright claims. The decision is the second blow to Sun's case in about a month. On April 7, Whyte rejected select portions of Sun's interpretation of the license with Microsoft for its Java technology. But Whyte's actions are no indication of a Microsoft victory or a sign the case won't make it to trial. In February, for example, he rejected a Microsoft motion regarding the independent development of Java. "We're pleased that the judge decided in Microsoft's favor, even though there are so many issues outstanding," said Microsoft spokesperson Jim Cullinan. "This is one that our legal position was correct on, and we look forward to moving ahead on the other issues." "Love
Bug" suspect freed pending more evidence. MANILA, Philippines--Philippine prosecutors today said police did not have enough evidence to hold a man suspected of being a creator of the crippling "Love Bug" computer virus and ordered him set free. Reonel Ramones, a 27-year-old bank employee, was arrested by the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) yesterday and preliminarily charged with violating the Access Devices Regulation Act, which primarily deals with passwords for credit cards. Intel
plans aggressive 'Willamette' intro. The
Pentium chip's heir apparent is scheduled to come to market in the second half
of the year. Sources said Intel plans to quickly boost production of the chip, code-named Willamette, by rolling out three clock-speed versions in order to establish it in the mainstream of the desktop PC market in the first quarter of next year. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) officials have confirmed that the chip will debut at 1.4GHz in the second half of this year. However, Intel will also deliver chips at clock rates below that speed. Intel, sources said, plans to offer a 1.3GHz version, along with the 1.4GHz clock speed, starting in the fourth quarter.Willamette is the first ground-up processor core design since Intel introduced the current "P6" processor core in its Pentium Pro processor in 1995. As such, the Willamette chip will be an important product for Intel as it continues the megahertz race with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) Willamette's design is tuned to achieve high megahertz ratings, Intel officials have said. As part of this plan, Intel will roll out Willamette chips in 100MHz increments. It will follow the 1.4GHz chip with a 1.5GHz chip in the first quarter of 2001, sources said. This means the company will have three clock-speed variants of the chip available by the first quarter of 2001. By then, Intel expects the lower-speed Willamette chips will begin to penetrate the mainstream PC market. IE5
Browser 'Bug' Detected; E-mail Passwords At Risk? IE 5.x users, take note: A Seattle glitch hunter says he has found a security flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5 browser that makes it possible for a hacker to use a Web page they designed to gather such sensitive data as a Web surfer's browser history, or even their e-mail passwords.Bennett Haselton, who is both an anti-censorship advocate and a glitch hunter, has posted a demonstration of the problem on his Peacefire.org site, (http://www.peacefire.org), which normally is devoted to efforts blocking censorship of content to and from young people. It now contains links to three Internet hacking "exploits," or security risks, that Haselton has uncovered since April 24. Of his latest discovery, Haselton told Newsbytes today, "The main threat is that it can be used to intercept people's e-mail passwords. Just by visiting one Web page, someone could have their passwords intercepted." The exploit can only work in fairly peculiar, though not unheard-of circumstances. To be at risk to the IE 5 bug, a Web surfer must have the Netscape browser set as their computer's default browser - the one that opens automatically, for instance, when they tap on a hyperlink sent to them through e-mail. But they must open Internet Explorer and point it to a Web page into which exploiting code has been written. Many computers use both browsers. Windows
Me Hits RC0. It looks like it's official that Microsoft has reached release candidate-0 with Windows Millennium. Windows Millennium is the sequel to Windows 98SE that features Windows 2000 interface and many other new features. Most notably the MSDOS API has been removed from Windows Millennium. The first Release Candidate, RC0 Build 2525, of Windows Me (Millennium Edition) was released to beta testers a short bit ago. In a message to testers, Microsoft wrote, "Many sources have commented that this is already the highest quality 9x release there has ever been. Thank you for helping us reach this goal through your cooperation, dedication, and quality of feedback. We could not do this without you." BetaNews has received mixed feedback on the subject, with some Windows Me RC0 users touting perfection and others still finding it buggy. Nonetheless, Microsoft is ready to complete testing, stating "we believe we are extremely close to being finished - functionally speaking, what you see today is what we plan to go out to the world in a released product, and we are very interested in hearing your feedback on it." Windows Me is expected to hit RTM the week of June 12th. Testers, what do you think - is Windows Me ready for public scrutiny? Weekly
CPU Prices. Nothing too exciting in the world of CPU prices this week. The only notable changes was the AMD Athlon K7 price drop by $120 down to $1099.00 - which is still incredibly pricey. Take a look at this weeks CPU prices over at Tech-Review if you are in the market for a new CPU or just curious where current prices are at. Tech News for Monday May 8th 2000.Win
Me schedule - "imminent" release candidate. I must say I'm looking forward to the changes in Windows Millennium: No more DOS API! According to the Windows Millennium Edition ("Windows Me") "BugMaster," the first release candidate of Microsoft's last Windows 9x product--which he refers to as "RC0"--is "imminent." And this corresponds nicely with Microsoft's internal timetable for the product, which I embarrassingly misreported last week: Microsoft signed off on Windows Me Beta 3 on April 7, 2000 and gave itself five weeks to arrive at the first release candidate (which this document describes as "RC1", not "RC0"). This places the due date of the first release candidate at May 12, 2000, not May 5 as I previously reported. (This is where my lack of math skills comes into play, obviously). So the final release of the product, which is set for five weeks after the first release candidate, is June 16, 2000."We are at the stage in the product (RC0 is imminent) where we think we are pretty much finished," the Windows Me "BugMaster" informed testers last weekend. Microsoft has asked testers with outstanding bugs to let the company know about any issues that haven't yet been addressed in the product. Microsoft is fast-tracking Windows Me so that it can ramp up to Whistler, the next version of Windows, and one that is based on Windows 2000, not the old 9x code-based used by Windows Me. My apologies for the error: I've corrected the online version of the original article BitMicro
Networks Ships Ultra SCSI Solid State Flash Disk. Here's another technological breakthrough in the news today. Current mechanical hard-drives are power hungry and wear easily because of the high speed movable components. The solid state flash disk should help laptops consume less energy. BitMicro Networks Inc. today introduced their latest E-Disk SUX25 solid state flash disk innovation that delivers high-speed information access performance boost in 2.5-inch form factor.The world’s first and
fastest 2.5-inch all-electronic Ultra SCSI E-Disk SUX25 bridges the performance
gap between CPU and storage by providing fast I/O and high throughput rates.
With less than 0.1 ms access time, SUX25 delivers up to 18 MBytes/sec SUSTAINED
read and write transfer rates, and up to 20 MBytes/sec burst read and write
transfer rates. Due to its unique design, the SUX25 has a performance, speed,
and reliability advantage over other data storage solutions. 'Love
Bug' comes in 13 variants. Just to keep you in the loop on the latest virus chaos: The latest of 13 known variants says: 'I can't believe I have just received this hate email, take a look.' Love turned to hate today when workers returned to work to find yet another mutation of the costly 'love bug' biting their computers.There are now 13 variants of the worm, dubbed the love bug, including a new hate e-mail, which urges recipients to take a peek at the hate mail the fictional person has received. The variant says: "I can't believe I have just received this hate email, take a look." The other worm unearthed today was an e-mail from Arab Airlines asking respondents to check an air ticket bill. The new variants came as Philippines authorities pondered over how they would arrest the woman suspected of creating the virus, with police saying the country lacked the laws to deal with computer crime. "We have no laws on this," Philipines National Bureau of Investigation chief Federico Opinion said. "We have to research." Ellison
to unveil $199 Web appliance. Correct me if I'm wrong here: Hasn't Oracle tried this before and it failed miserably? I remember a lost cost web device unveiled by Larry Ellison around 3-4 years ago that didn't go anywhere. I cannot remember the name of the web-box. Ellison's
startup New Internet Computers, run by Gina Smith, will donate 1,100 machines to
Dallas schools. Ellison, chairman of Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) and currently in the running for world's richest man, will show off the device at an event in Dallas that will include donations of more than 1,100 machines to schools there. The start-up will initially focus on the education market. It will sell machines to schools through its Web site, and allow consumers to purchase and donate them to schools designated by the company. Microsoft
Preps Counterproposal, Open Windows? Microsoft is reportedly drafting a counterproposal to the DOJ's breakup plan which may entail giving software developers access to Windows source code. Sources close to the discussions told MSNBC yesterday that Microsoft will also allow computer manufacturers to modify the desktop or "the area of the computer screen that is seen when programs are not running," and ship versions of Windows that "hide" the Internet browser. The proposal also bars Microsoft from making certain deals with other computer makers to promote Microsoft products. The final document is expected Wednesday and will offer alternatives to each point where Judge Jackson found Microsoft at fault. Without any specific details it is impossible to know how willing Microsoft will be to compromise, however analysts already say this deal falls short of Microsoft's initial out-of-court settlement. Keep checking back for more on this story as it develops. Pioneer
16X DVD-115 Review. At this point there are very few DVD software titles and purchasing a drive this fast seems a little hasty (no pun intended) until more titles trickle down into the market. TechReview has post a article on Pioneer's latest 16x DVD drive. The new Pioneer DVD-115 is a tray loaded DVD ROM that plays CD ROMs at 40X and DVDs at a blazing 16X. Pioneer nick name their new drive "Sweet 16". Right now the DVD-115 is not available on the retail floor. If you want one you will have to buy a brand new system with it as Pioneer is only selling the unit to OEMs. Pioneer plans to ship a slot loaded version later this month. With its 16X DVD ROM speed rating the Pioneer DVD-115 is currently the world's fastest DVD player. NVIDIA
GeForce 2 GTS Manufacturer Guide. There must be at least 10 different GeForce2 manufacturers on the market. Most of them have more or less the same features and SystemLogic was kind enough to post a page comparing these differences. To clear things up we decided to organize everything ourselves with an guide (which will be updated) that organizes information from the plethora of manufacturers that will be selling video cards featuring the GeForce 2 GTS chip. We place all press releases and box/card shots separated by each manufacturer along with any information that comes our way. We add a little twist with comments on each section based on what we see from each company. Voodoo5
Beta Review. 3dfx is in trouble. Haven't we all heard that one before? Regardless of what this company says or does, someone always finds a way to pick on them. Sure, a lot of people may very well have grounds for arguing against 3dfx's tactics and products, it's simply the nature of the business. However, when it all comes down to it, 3dfx candidly provides for a sheer performance product. With the recent race towards video card bliss, 3dfx has entered several new contenders to the arena. Powered by the VSA-100 graphics processors, the Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 line of video cards are 3dfx's latest weapon in the 3D Wars. We have recently gotten our hands on a Beta version of the Voodoo5 5500 AGP, 3dfx's prime-time video card in the entire family (yeah, the 6K is bigger, but this one supposedly gives the most bang for your buck). Now, without any further ado, lets take a look at the board... Second
virus suspect may surrender. Last press report I had heard was that it was a 15 year old boy. Now it's a woman and her live in boyfriend. Here's the latest from MSNBC: MANILA, May 8 — A young woman being sought by Philippine authorities in connection with the creation of the “Love Bug” virus will turn herself in, police said Monday. Earlier, police raided the apartment the woman shared with her boyfriend, seizing computer magazines, diskettes and other equipment. AFTER THE RAID, police held for questioning a 27-year-old man living at the apartment. They were also seeking his 23-year-old girlfriend.
|
|
