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Tech News for Thursday February 1st 2001

The Palm V successor.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: Wired  Added by: Kim Heise

As usual when I decide to upgrade my Palm PDA a newer model shows up just a short time later. No other information is currently available from Palm Computing but expect a press release shortly.

A successor to Palm V is rumored to be on its way. The new line, most likely called "M505," will weigh less than 3.5 ounces, include lithium-polymer batteries and contain a postage-stamp-sized expansion slot similar to rival Handspring's Springboard slot.

First 480Mbps USB 2.0 controller arrives.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: The Register  Added by: Kim Heise

USB 2.0 was supposed to be shipping as part of production line motherboards last Christmas and for some reason (most likely business reasons) we have not even seen pre-production designs. 

Beefing up the USB speeds from 10Mbps to around 480Mbps is a very impressive speed increase but the test will be to see how many devices actually take advantage of such speeds.

The first USB 2.0 integrated peripheral controller, capable of data rates of 480 Mbps was launched yesterday by Cypress Semiconductor, but adoption could be held up by chipset delays.

The EZ-USB FX2 is sampling now, with production quantities coming later in Q1, priced from $8.25 to $9.75 in volumes of 1,000 units.

The Windows 2000 drivers are expected at the end of this quarter, but Windows 95 and 98 drivers will only be ready by Q3 or Q4. Norman Taffe, the director of marketing at Cypress, said that the wait for drivers isn't the biggest concern.

nVIDIA to Take ATI's Seat as Apple's Graphics Chip Supplier.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: Apple Insider  Added by: Kim Heise

NVidia is taking the video market by storm. First 3dfx drops out of the race & is actually purchased by NVidia and now NVidia takes the Apple market share.

Of all the company's computer offerings, only three configurations of Apple's Power Mac G4 product line currently sport an nVIDIA GeForce2 MX card, or a non-ATI branded graphics card. For years ATI Technologies had been Apple's main partner and supplier of graphics cards for the company's pc offerings. This will all change within the next 12 months, sources tell AppleInsider.com.

As we were first to report back in July of 1999, Apple began to turn away from ATI and took its first steps towards pursuing a deal with nVIDIA after ATI produced yet another set of sub-par Macintosh drivers to ship on Macintosh systems sporting ATI's Rage 128 chipset. Relations between the two companies eventually hit the fan this past summer when ATI released advanced information about forthcoming Apple systems via a press release published on BusinessWire.

Beta WordPerfect Suite 2002 is out .
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: Newsbytes  Added by: Kim Heise

The WordPerfect Suite changed hands more frequently than a hot potato but Corel is determined to sweat it out and try to make a dent into Microsoft's market share.

Corel Corp.'s new WordPerfect Office 2002 suite will improve Web integration and compatibility with Microsoft Office formats.

Corel officials said they want to maintain their suite's dominance among federal users at the Labor and Justice departments and the Library of Congress.

The suite will be available this summer after a beta rollout. It will include the WordPerfect 10 word processor, the Quattro Pro 10 spreadsheet and Corel Presentations 10.

The CorelCentral 10 personal information manager will have a Hypertext Markup Language-compatible e-mail client for Post Office Protocol and Internet Message Access Protocol mail accounts, as well as group scheduling.

The PIM will continue to synchronize with devices running Palm OS from Palm Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif.

IBM Wholeheartedly Embracing Linux.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: Internet News  Added by: Kim Heise

For every step back Linux moves in the market it also makes two steps forward. I have no doubt that Linux could eventually be the market leader in the server market because the operating system is extremely stable and highly configurable.

IBM Corp. Wednesday moved to slough off its reputation as a stodgy, slow-moving enterprise by throwing its considerable support behind Linux. And it is evangelizing Linux's readiness to enter the enterprise.

At the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo New York 2001 Wednesday, Big Blue committed to spending $300 million on Linux services over the next three years. IBM has already committed to investing $1 billion in Linux over the next 12 months.

That $300 million will go towards Linux e-business enablement and migration services, open source consulting for the Linux environment, and Web and High Availability Cluster services. Big Blue has also pledged to enhance its services relationships through an international technical support agreement with SuSE, and by building on existing agreements with RedHat and Linuxcare.

Sam Palmisano, president and chief operating officer of IBM, drove home IBM's commitment to Linux during his Keynote address Wednesday, saying that IBM believes Linux will become the dominant operating system on Web servers in the next few years.

First 'VirtuHammer' Simulator At LinuxWorld.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: Yahoo  Added by: Kim Heise

Virtu-what? -AMD's upcoming 64 bit CPU is codenamed "Sledgehammer" and the company is working to help the market embrace the new technology by developing a hardware simulator to allow developers to code next generation software.

AMD announced today at LinuxWorld events in New York and Paris the first public demonstration of ``VirtuHammer,'' the recently announced high-performance tool developed by AMD and Virtutech that allows software developers to write and test 64-bit programs for AMD's next-generation ``Hammer'' family of processors.

Additionally, AMD is showing a dozen AMD Athlon(TM) processor-based servers and workstations running on the Linux operating system at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo shows in New York City and Paris. LinuxWorld is the premiere tradeshow for developers, supporter and end users of the Linux operating system.

AMD is approaching both LinuxWorld events with great optimism as the company, along with Linux operating system vendor SuSE (www.suse.com), reports the achievement of significant milestones in the open-source community's efforts to port Linux to AMD's x86-64 technology. The x86-64 technology extends the x86 instruction set to enable 64-bit computing and is the backbone behind AMD's planned 64-bit processor family, code-named ``Hammer.'' AMD's ``Hammer'' family is planned for commercial introduction in the first half of 2002.

Redhat "Fisher" Beta.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: eFront  Added by: Kim Heise

The recent beta Redhat release features some significant improvements that the IT market will embrace with much appreciation. One the improvements is for "Plug-and-Play" devices and automatic PCMCIA card support for portable computers.

Redhat has released the first beta of its next Linux operating system upgrade, codenamed "Fisher", for the public to download. Version 7.1 features the new 2.4.0 kernel and a wizard to help you set up a basic firewall on your system. Redhat follows SuSE as the second major Linux distributor to incorporate the new Linux kernel in release editions of its software. As you may recall, Linux kernel 2.4 was released less than two weeks ago by guru Linus Torvalds.

Redhat Fisher also includes support for the Intel Itanium processor and improved XFree86 installation and setup guidance. A new setup for laptops has been added which features automatic PCMCIA card support.

In addition to a more extensive driver library, the release notes highlight support for "hot-pluggable" or removable devices has been added, which functions much like the "plug-and-play" in Microsoft Windows where drivers are automatically loaded when compatible devices are added to the system.

For more information click here and download the release notes, or skip directly to the download section on the FTP to grab it now. One known issue is that the minimal install of the system does not support NFS mounting.

Preview of dual-processor DDR Athlon Linux performance.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: NewsForge  Added by: Kim Heise

AMD needs to keep moving quickly before companies and resellers become overly frustrated with the long wait for dual processor motherboards.

For years, dual processor x86 systems have only been possible with Intel CPUs, and for the most part on Intel chipsets. AMD has come up with an answer to this, its 760MP chipset. At LinuxWorld, I was given the opportunity to use a dual Athlon system with DDR memory on a prerelease 760MP board manufactured by Tyan, and initial impressions are very positive.

More updates on Intel CPU price cuts.
Posted: 02/01/2001     Source: The Register  Added by: Kim Heise

This article was originally posted on the Register web site which notes some significant price cuts from Intel's camp on Pentium 4 CPU's in an attempt to beat the competition and push the Pentium III out of the market.

Thanks to the VR-Zone for creating this table based on the data obtained from the Register article.

Table Source: The VR-Zone

Tech News for Wednesday January 31st 2001

Palm eyes perfect complement to its PDA: Tiny printer.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Being able to print information from a miniature printer using a PALM PDA would be useful if the price is right. No word on the pricing at this point.

Palm has invested in Milpitas, Calif.-based SiPix, which said Monday it has completed a $100 million round of funding in advance of its launch next month of a line of low-cost digital cameras. SiPix is also working on a pint-sized thermal printer that can be used with handhelds that use Palm's operating system. A thermal printer uses heat to transfer images to special paper.

First artificial heart transplants.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: Wired  Added by: Kim Heise

Some medical news headlines:

Five cardiac patients will soon receive the first-ever artificial heart implants.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved human clinical trials for an artificial heart created by a company called Abiomed (ABMD) of Denvers, Mass.

Compaq unable to meet iPAQ demand.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: WinInfo  Added by: Kim Heise

The new Windows CE 3.0 PDA's are selling rather well and several vendors are unable to keep up with the demand due to shortages with the newer color displays. 

Just two weeks ago I settled for Handspring's new Visor Prism PDA with 65k colors and I am very happy with it. I did take the iPAQ for a test drive but was not impressed with the size of the applications that needed to be installed and the small amount of Windows CE programs on the market. Windows CE certainly follows the Windows motto: "I need more CPU and more memory".

Compaq CEO Michael Capellas says that his company is experiencing a vexing problem with its iPAQ PocketPC, but it's a problem other hardware makers are envious of: The company can't keep up with demand. In Davos, Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum, Capellas said that demand for the iPAQ is 25 times greater than the supply. To help meet demand, the company has bumped up the specifications on the grayscale version of the device--the best-selling version offers a brilliant color display--and will soon offer an alternate color display, which it hopes will be easier and less expensive to produce.

"Over the next two to three months, we will continue to face demand in excess of supply," Capellas told Reuters. "You'll see us close the gap over the next four to five months." Compaq this week introduced the iPAQ H3150, a grayscale model that features the powerful 206 MHz StrongArm microprocessor that was previously offered only in the color version. And the company will begin fleshing out the iPAQ line with a version that includes a built-in cell phone, though Capellas wouldn't comment on its availability. In the meantime, cell-phone capabilities will be added through add-on cards that support the iPAQ.

Compaq's iPAQ has spearheaded a stunning revival for Windows CE, Microsoft's embedded operating system for portable devices. Windows CE had been on death's door until the release of the version for PocketPC devices, such as the iPAQ. And though it still trails market-leader Palm by a wide margin, this lead would be cut significantly if Compaq could meet demand.

Lucent Unit Takes Storage Into Third Dimension.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

As we approach the limitations on current hard drive technologies companies are going to have to find newer and more efficient methods for storing data. Lucent may have perfected a new optical technology that had been in the works for several years but has shown little promise either due to insane production/sale costs or manufacturing obstacles.

Lucent Technologies Inc. launched a new venture Tuesday devoted to commercializing holographic data storage -- a high-density, high-transfer-rate technology that researchers believe has the potential to vastly improve data storage and allow rapid distribution of digital content.

<SNIP>

Unlike magnetic storage used by disk drives, which read and write data in a fixed, two-dimensional plane, holographic data storage (HDS) uses optical components to read data in three dimensions.

Data can be stored inside a three-dimensional translucent matrix or diffraction grating, which can be read by shining a laser beam through it.

As the signal beam passes through the matrix, the grating creates patterns of light and shadow that can be interpreted by optical sensors as the 1's and 0's of binary code.

Sega Ends Dreamcast.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

Good-bye to Sega's Dreamcast gaming console. We saw this one coming over the last several weeks as the PS2 sales were about to pass the Dreamcast sales in less than two weeks.

Japan's Sega Corp. pulled the plug on its Dreamcast game machine on Wednesday, announcing it would suffer a record $689 million loss by ending production of the unprofitable console. Analysts applauded the end of the 128-bit Dreamcast as a step towards profitability. Dreamcast, launched in 1999 equipped with a 56K modem, faced fierce competition from smoother, faster machines rolled out by Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. Ltd. Sega said it would stay in the software business, throwing a lifeline to Sonic the Hedgehog and other characters that became synonymous with the world's first Internet-compatible game machine.

Cisco releases new routers, optical product.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: Yahoo DailyNews  Added by: Kim Heise

This is the big improvement we have been waiting for. With the new optical routers we can expect leaps and bounds in network traffic performance.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:CSCO - news) announced on Wednesday a slew of new networking products aimed at telecommunications service providers, as the Internet infrastructure equipment provider seeks to fend off small but fast-growing rivals.

The products, including a series of high-speed routers for transmitting data, and an optical networking control box, represent Cisco's latest bid to increase its share of the market for so-called ``next-generation'' telecommunications equipment.

This equipment helps telecommunication operators easily manage different types of traffic, including voice, data, and fax, on the same network, utilize their available fiber-optic bandwidth more efficiently, and more cheaply introduce new services to end customers.

Cisco, which began life selling networking equipment to businesses, has moved aggressively in recent years into providing infrastructure gear for telecommunications firms.

Qualcomm Introduces Open Wireless Platform .
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: NewsBytes  Added by: Kim Heise

I'm not sure what makes companies and consumers nervous about open standards. It may have something to do with the fact that people are concerned that the open standards products will be unsupported due to the fact that no single company/person is generating money from the open source.

Digital wireless Web service and product provider Qualcomm Inc. [NASDAQ:QCOM] today said it has developed an open applications platform for Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)-based wireless devices to help speed the emerging wireless-Internet convergence.

According to a company statement, the platform, known as a Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless, or BREW, will equip applications developers with an open, standard platform for wireless devices on which to develop their products.

End users will be able to download applications over the air through their carrier's network and configure their wireless devices to suit their personal requirements, the company said.

More on Intel's CPU price cuts.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: EBNEWS  Added by: Kim Heise

These price drops are simply outstanding. You can be assured that AMD will not sit still and will accordingly make price adjustments to keep up the competition. I tell people over and over again that you can thank the competition (namely AMD) for seeing these low prices on CPU's in general.

The deepest cuts tended to fall in the Pentium III desktop prices, where price reductions as steep as 42% occurred. Intel also cut prices sharply in its newer Pentium 4 devices.

The 1.5-GHz Pentium 4 was reduced from $819 to $644, a reduction of 21%. The 1.4- and 1.3-GHz Pentium 4 chips were cut by 23% and 18%, respectively.

The 1-GHz Pentium III desktop processor was cut from $465 to $268, a 42% reduction. Other reductions in that line ranged from 31% for the 933MHz chip to 7% for the 667-MHz device.

The Pentium III mobile processors were cut by up to 33%, while Celeron desktop processors were reduced in price by up to 34%.Intel cut the price of its highest-performing Pentium III Xeon chip by 17%, to $425.

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Sun boosts Java on Linux gadgets.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Sun is worried that another company like Microsoft is going to develop Java engines for portable devices or Linux gadgets and steal the market share.

Sun Microsystems has released a version of Java for small gadgets using the Linux operating system, the company said Wednesday.

Sun has a lukewarm attitude about the Linux operating system, which competes with Sun's Solaris and is popular chiefly on Intel computer systems. But Sun is clear that it wants its Java software to run on all types of computers, and Linux machines work in concert to undermine the market power of Sun's foe Microsoft.

Java lets programs run on numerous computer types without having to be rewritten for each one. Java for Linux has been available for months, but Wednesday at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo trade show here, Sun released a version for small gadgets. This version is called the "connected device configuration" of Java, which is designed for set-top boxes, in-car computers and home servers that join computers and consumer electronic devices to the Internet.

Pre-order "Ginger" at Amazon.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: Amazon  Added by: Kim Heise

Now let me get this straight: Nobody knows what "Ginger" is but Amazon is taking pre-orders on the product?

I've never seen so much hype in my life over a product that nobody has any clues about. I'm not saying that "Ginger" will not be impressive but history tells us that when you see so much hype everyone is bound to be disappointed.

"IT," also known as "Ginger," has not yet been released by its inventor, but we'll be glad to notify you by e-mail when we actually know what IT is and if IT will be available for purchase from Amazon.com.

Low voltage Mobile Intel Pentium III.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: Intel  Added by: Kim Heise

I have to take my hat off to Intel for this engineering feat. Imagine a 500mhz Pentium 3 CPU that uses less than 1 volt.

Using Intel's advanced 0.18-micron process technology, the Ultra Low Voltage Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor featuring Intel SpeedStep(TM) Technology is offered at 500 MHz. Other Pentium III processor performance advancements include the addition of new Internet Streaming SIMD instructions, an Advanced Transfer Cache architecture, and a processor system bus speed of 100 MHz. These features are offered in a BGA2 form factor. All of these technologies make it possible to offer this outstanding performance in mobile PCs available in a variety of shapes and sizes.

 

File Name/Size:

24944002.pdf
141393 bytes

Download From:

U.S. FTP Server (Download within North America)

Mirror FTP Sites (Download from international areas)

U.S. Web Server (Available for byte serving)

Microsoft's IE 6 test version leaked online.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Users are taking a major risk trying to use early beta's of Microsoft's upcoming IE 6.0 browser. I suspect many of the users who installed the beta will be re-installing their operating systems.

Microsoft is investigating a leak of its upcoming Internet Explorer 6 browser, which renegade software sites have posted to the Web.

A "beta," or test version of IE 6, Microsoft's browser-in-progress, is meant to be in the hands of a few testers who have signed nondisclosure agreements. But the browser has been posted on The-Ctrl-Alt-Del.com and FileClicks, software enthusiast sites with reviews and downloads.

Those sites became inaccessible shortly after CNET News.com posted news of them Monday afternoon. The-Ctrl-Alt-Del.com said it had pulled the files when it learned that Microsoft was investigating the leak, and that its hosting provider simultaneously pulled the site because of the volume of traffic. FileClicks could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sega Confirms New Business Strategy.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: Eurogamer  Added by: Kim Heise

With the Dreamcast's demise Sega is looking for other avenues of business.

Sega have today announced the radical shift in business plans they have been hinting at since October last year. Sega will team up with British-based PACE Micro Technology, PLC, the leading company in the set-top-box industry, to develop a home gateway product using Dreamcast technology. The product will be introduced to the public by PACE at roadshows, scheduled to take place in Britain and the USA at the end of this month.

The set-top-box will incorporate network connectivity as the main feature of the Dreamcast, enabling access to what it describes as "diverse markets outside the gaming industry." Users with a broadband connection (xDSL, CATV, satellite and so on) will be able to watch television and other subscription-based channels, play games, use the Internet and more using a single box. The product moves Sega away from console-dependant business for the first time.

NVIDIA releases SDK for DirectX 8.0.
Posted: 01/31/2001     Source: NVIDIA  Added by: Kim Heise

To my knowledge NVIDIA still has not released DirectX 8.0 compliant video drivers so I'm not quite sure what the release does. The release of the DirectX 8.0 SDK may be a precursor to the new DirectX 8.0 compliant video drivers.

NVIDIA is extremely pleased to provide developers with NVIDIA's SDK for DirectX 8.0 development within hours of Microsoft's release. Our engineering teams have worked very closely with Microsoft in developing and tuning core functionality for this new, world-class API. In particular, we expect you to find the programmability of the graphics pipeline a defining moment in the history of real-time graphics. For the first time, developers have a standard way to access features such as programmable geometry or vertex shaders, programmable pixel shaders, volumetric texture compression for 3D textures, and support for high order surfaces.

We have encapsulated all of our tools, demos and presentations on DirectX 8.0 in the zip files below. We suggest that you take the time to download these resources to gain a massive head start in your future development. The most exciting demos are in our Effects Browser, which highlights some of the hundreds of vertex and pixel shaders that we have developed to date. Finally, our Unified Driver Architecture means that today's drivers are fully compatible with DirectX 8.0. We expect that you will find these tools very valuable in your rapid adoption of this new API. Check back to this site often, as there are more tools in development and we will be posting weekly.

Tech News for Monday January 29th 2001

Napster to launch subscription service.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

The time for free Napster usage will be soon history.

Germany's publishing powerhouse Bertelsmann said on Monday it was planning for an early summer introduction of a subscription service of Napster music downloads over the Internet.

"I'm convinced we can introduce in June or July of this year a subscription model. With a real working digital rights management system," Bertelsmann chief executive Thomas Middelhoff said at the World Economic Forum here.

Bertelsmann shocked rival music publishers late last year when it said it would cooperate with Napster, which was being sued for breaching copyrights by enabling music to be copied free on the Internet.

Middelhoff said he was confident that many users of the Napster software, of which an average 1.6 million users swap music simultaneously, would be happy to pay for music. "We did market research and asked 20,000 Napster users and the willingness to pay is there," Middelhoff said. He justified his yielding to Napster because the Internet was changing the music industry's business models.

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Nvidia, Others Jumping Aboard AMD's Bus.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

AMD has developed a new bus type and several companies are jumping on board to make use of the new design.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has continued to license its Lightning Data Transport bus, further distancing itself from its roots as a copycat chip vendor.

About 10 companies have either formally licensed the bus or are in negotiations, AMD executives said this week at the Platform Conference in San Jose, Calif., including graphics leader Nvidia Corp (stock: NVDA).

In February, AMD (stock: AMD) will announce some of these licensees and give them a chance to explain the worth of the LDT bus, said Gabriele Sartori, director of technology evangelism for AMD's Computation Products Group, Sunnyvale, Calif. An "LDT Consortium" is also planned.

"We think [LDT] is suitable for a variety of applications, including both computing and networking applications," Sartori said in a brief interview. He said that about 100 companies have expressed interest in the bus, with maybe 20 to 30 exploring LDT-based designs.

While AMD was formed to create cloned versions of Intel Corp.'s microprocessors, the company began moving away from Intel (stock: INTC) with the release of its Athlon architecture.

However, even that chip used the EV-6 bus originally designed by Digital Equipment Corp. and shared with the Alpha microprocessor, said Nathan Brookwood, analyst with Insight 64, Saratoga, Calif. LDT, meanwhile, was crafted to allow AMD to move into the higher-margin server environment.

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Pace To Bring Sega Dreamcast To Set-Tops.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

Sega's demise has been a rumor that has been circulating the net for over the last two weeks. The company may be phasing out the Dreamcast games console but plans to refocus on a new direction.

With the market for PC 3-D graphics saturated -- and, some might say, exhausted -- chip manufacturers are looking to the set-top box and handheld markets as the next revenue opportunity.

A key announcement may arrive Monday, when U.K. set-top maker Pace Micro Technology will announce that Sega Dreamcast console games will now run inside a new set-top box.

"What we're doing is showing operators how to offer game services as part of their set-top services," said Neil Gaydon, president of Pace Americas, Pace's U.S. subsidiary, located in Boca Raton, Flor. Gaydon said the box will be shown running Dreamcast games, although he could not say if they would need to be reencoded for retransmission.

Flaw Found In Critical Internet Software.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

Firewall and network security technicians should take note:

WASHINGTON -- A high-risk flaw in what may be the Internet's most important software package could disrupt the operations of every company that maintains a website, a U.S. Defense Department-funded research center said Monday.

Electronic intruders seizing on the newly-discovered vulnerability could gain control of domain name systems (DNS), which translate names that are easy to remember such as www.reuters.com into numeric addresses read by computers.

Once in control of these devices, attackers could conceivably change and reroute the numeric IP addresses, according to the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

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Rev. 2.5 of the Windows 2000 Hints & Tips Guide.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: Rojak Pot  Added by: Kim Heise

Adrian sends me word that his Windows 2000 hints and tips guide has been updated bringing it to version 2.5.

Adrian's Rojak Pot (http://www.rojakpot.com/) has just posted Rev. 2.5 of the Windows 2000 Hints & Tips Guide! Here are the updates in the new revision :-
  - Added two new tips on how to configure the Windows Explorer shortcut to display alternate directories as the root directory.
  - Updated the CD audio quality tip with some notes on problems with CD writers with digital audio support enabled and using that feature to enable CD audio on multiple CD readers.
  Direct URL - http://www.rojakpot.com/Other_Articles/Win2K_Tips/Win2k_Tips.htm

January Dot-Com Layoffs Set New Record.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: Silicon Alley News  Added by: Kim Heise

Ouch! looks like plenty of employees received pink slips over this month. It's not surprising as investors decide to do away with all the dot-hype. Unfortunately employees take the brunt of all the poor marketing decisions.

The number of dot-com employees in search of new jobs reached 12,828 in January, a new monthly record since the tracking began.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which keeps track of layoffs in the Internet industry, said dot-com job cuts in January represented a 23 percent jump over December's record total of 10,459.

The latest monthly survey from Challenger, Gray & Christmas said 54,343 employees from 610 dot-coms have received pink slips since December 1999, when it first began tracking staff movement in the industry.

"While early dot.com job cuts were dominated by companies selling goods and services via the Internet, recent data suggest the companies that build and maintain the technological elements of the Internet as well as firms providing professional services, such as advertising and consulting, are being hit the hardest," the survey said.

D-Link DI-713 Wireless Router.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

Wireless networking at home and in the office would be a much welcomed addition. If I look at the mess of tangled cables behind my desk it makes me want to cry. I hope one day not to find one of our cats stuck back behind my desk.

Electic Tech reviews one of the first wireless routers on the market and it is being manufactured by D-Link.

D-Link is widely known for making networking products for the home and office. In recent years, D-Link has expanded from its line of ethernet adapters to include gateways (routers), audio, and Internet related video equipment. D-Link's latest expansion deals with the new world of wireless computing. As you probably know, the home broadband market is growing at an alarming rate and home users are jumping onto the bandwagon to take advantage of higher speeds and an overall richer Internet experience. D-Link's first product to tackle this new world is the DI-713 wireless router, but before we cut our wires, let's run through some manufacture stated features.

Microsoft hires Akamai to prevent hacker attacks
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Over the last two weeks Microsoft has been in every hackers crosshairs as the company has been hit at least three times. Microsoft is certainly one the prime targets for hackers because of the companies visibility.

Microsoft, the No. 1 software maker, hired Akamai Technologies to run a back-up directory for its major Web sites to protect its servers from further hacking attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported citing the company.

Akamai, whose service speeds the delivery of data over the Internet, will operate four back-up servers to help direct public Internet data to Microsoft's servers, the paper said.

Microsoft blames technicians for massive outage.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

I would hate to be the technician that made the mistake of taking Microsoft's entire web site offline. He/she would have to move to another country to find another job.

Conspiracy theorists would argue that Microsoft suffered another embarrassing hack but decided to brush it off as an internal error.

Microsoft blamed its own technicians for a crucial error that crippled the software giant's connection to the Internet, almost completely blocking access to its major Web sites for nearly 24 hours.

In a statement issued late Wednesday, Microsoft explained that a "router configuration error" had caused requests for access to the company’s Web sites to go unanswered. Routers are critical pieces of the Internet that direct data between a company's network and the Internet.

Olympus P-330N Digital Color Printer Review.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: PlanetHardware  Added by: Kim Heise

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I walked through Costco and saw $50 dot matrix printers by Epson. The price on printers has just fallen through the floor and I would bet the companies are making very little profit.

With the development of today's most advanced digital cameras, why would someone want to go to the store to get the couple pictures developed that they like, seeing as how you can go through your digital pictures before you get them printed, unlike an analog camera. Printers today are getting more precise, better color, and faster than ever before so why not have your own professional photo lab in your home without the hassle of a darkroom. If you're going to fork out $800-$900 for a digital camera, why not the couple hundred dollars for a digital printer so you can edit and print, right from home?

Microsoft DirectX 8.0a Available - Official Release!
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: Microsoft  Added by: Kim Heise

For those of you that  missed the release last week. The update mainly fixes problems with Windows 2000.

This download contains the DirectX 8.0a redist release. DirectX 8.0a contains updates for issues with international installs on Windows 2000 and issues where input devices could have buttons disabled that were enabled with previous DirectX releases. There are no other changes.

• The DirectX 8.0a Redist download supports Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me or Windows 2000 and requires 25,332 Kb of free space to download (25 MB)

New Whistler Build Released.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: Active Windows  Added by: Kim Heise

It's about six months away until Whistler should be available for the public.

Microsoft released a new build of Whistler to testers late last night. Build 2419 includes a few new bits and pieces.

• New splash screen.
• Faster booting.
• Again more new icons
• Improved, new installation
• New look Control Panel with new icons
• New Personal Bar button added to IE 6

Product Keys Needed for Whistler Betas.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: Active Windows  Added by: Kim Heise

Everybody knows that this sort of security measures will only be asking every hacker to bear arms.

It is obvious to security is starting to pick up. "Beginning with Whistler build 2419 a product key will be required to complete installation. At your earliest convenience you may wish to get a key assigned to you. The product key issued to you will work for setting up Personal, Professional and Server family products. These keys are unique and assigned per beta ID and should not be shared with other beta sites or people outside the beta program."

Intel Itanium sneak preview.
Posted: 01/29/2001     Source: Tweakers.net  Added by: Kim Heise

Producing 1ghz processors is now old news as AMD and Intel gear up for the next generation 64 bit processors. Microsoft will also be shipping the first 64 bit Windows OS sometime later this year.

The release of Intels 64 bit Itanium processor is getting closer and closer, very soon we'll see the pilot release of 733 and 800MHz systems. Intel has been quite secretive about the performance of the chip and the few machines that are at this moment lent to software developers are heavily guarded, not just physically, but also by threats of lawsuits in non-disclosure agreements. But being Tweakers we are naturally curious about the Itanium. What kind of processor is it? Why has it taken Intel such a long time? What are the future plans for it?