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Site News Update.
Posted: 07/20/2001  Source: N/A  Added by: Kim Heise

Just finished building my new system but it did not come without a steep price. On the first AMD 1.33ghz chip I placed too much weight on the chip while installing the heat-sync and damaged it beyond repair. The little "accident" set me back another $169. All I can say is if you plan on build a AMD based PC be very careful when installing the heat-sync. I had no idea the chip was so fragile. Maybe somewhere here is a hint for AMD's R&D division.....

I will start posting news posts as soon as possible again. Now that my system is up and running and when my family moves back out of town I can find time to update the web site.

Microsoft changes Windows license terms.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

This is outstanding news for the consumer as well as computer companies wanting to get their foot in the door directly via Windows. The fact that Microsoft claims Internet Explorer has to be shipped with Windows in order to function as a system is bogus. Several users have easily managed to install and operate Windows without Internet Explorer integration. It's not a trivial process to remove Internet Explorer integration from Windows but it can be done.

This way third party companies can offer their products as alternative offerings to Microsoft.

Microsoft on Wednesday changed the licensing terms it imposes on PC manufacturers to install its Windows operating system, responding to a recent ruling in its antitrust case.

In a dramatic shift, Microsoft will allow PC makers to remove Internet Explorer icons and entries from the Start menu and provide the ability to remove user access to Internet Explorer in the new Windows XP. The company also will extend this to Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows 2000.

Microsoft's licensing changes come as some state attorneys general have raised concerns about Windows XP, the new version of the operating system, which could become the focal point of future proceedings in Microsoft's antitrust case. In late June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously ruled that Microsoft had illegally maintained a monopoly in Intel-based operating systems.

The court found that Microsoft's commingling of Internet Explorer with Windows 95 and Windows 98 code was anti-competitive.

Space probe sees signs of water around distant star.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: Yahoo DailyNews  Added by: Kim Heise

Stumbled on this interesting news clip this evening while browsing Yahoo news. It it is very intriguing and I hope this leads to further discoveries. Let's also hope these discoveries also lead to more enthusiasm from the general public on space travel and research.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly detected signs of water around a distant star are the first evidence that planetary systems outside our own might be able to support life, NASA (news - web sites) scientists said on Wednesday.

``In the search for other worlds like the planet Earth where life might have started, the mantra has been, 'follow the water,''' NASA's Alan Bunner told reporters at the U.S. space agency's headquarters. ``You're about to hear a story about a star system that is, like ours, rich in water.''

It is not, however, very hospitable to life, at least not now. And there is no evidence that there ever were planets orbiting the star, which is in its death throes.

The star is a dying giant called CW Leonis, located some 500 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Leo. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles.

A small NASA probe known as SWAS, short for Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite, looked at the star to check for signs of water around it, part of the SWAS mission of looking for water throughout the Milky Way Galaxy that contains Earth.

They did not expect to find much around CW Leonis, a big carbon-rich star where any spare oxygen atoms would have been bound up in the form of carbon monoxide -- one carbon atom and one oxygen atom -- with little left over to form water.

Instead they found 10,000 times more water vapor than they expected, in the form of ice being vaporized by the intense heat of the dying star.

Intel halts sales of defective server chip.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Intel did not sell huge amounts of the Pentium III Xeon (2MB L2 cache version) so this should not affect too many IT professionals. Most users couldn't afford the Intel Xeon processor in any form so the damage is most likely minimal.

Intel has stopped shipping its top-end server chip because of a bug that could cause servers to crash.

Intel began shipping the chip, the Pentium III Xeon with 2MB of high-speed "cache" memory, in March. But about a month later, a company that sells computers using the chip notified Intel that it found a problem while testing the chip, Intel spokesman Bill Kircos said Tuesday.

Intel was able to reproduce the problem but unable to patch existing systems, Kircos said. Accordingly, the company stopped shipping the chip in mid-April.

Intel is changing the chip's manufacturing process, and a new version of the processor is expected to begin shipping in mid-August, Kircos said. Until then, Intel will swap out the defective chip with the slower 700MHz version.

The problem is comparatively minor because few customers had the chip at this early stage in its life, Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood said.

"It's very contained. I doubt any end-users have experiences or are likely to experience this problem," Brookwood said. In addition, the customers buying the chip are comparatively rare and often are satisfied with a 700MHz chip.

Inside Windows XP product activation.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: Fully Licensed WPA  Added by: Kim Heise

If you are curious as to exactly how the Windows XP product activation system works then this article is a must read. This excellent article on Windows XP product activation is well worth the read for anybody who is nervous about Microsoft's possible privacy invasion tactics within Windows XP.

The bottom line is that it looks relatively harmless from my perspective and Microsoft is not scanning your hard drives for critical and private information. Watch out for media hype.

The current public discussion of Windows Product Activation (WPA) is
characterized by uncertainty and speculation. In this paper we supply
the technical details of WPA - as implemented in Windows XP - that
Microsoft should have published long ago.

While we strongly believe that every software vendor has the right to
enforce the licensing terms governing the use of a piece of licensed
software by technical means, we also do believe that each individual
has the right to detailed knowledge about the full implications of the
employed means and possible limitations imposed by it on software
usage.

In this paper we answer what we think are currently the two most
important open questions related to Windows Product Activation.

SGI announces new Silicon Graphics F180 flat panel display.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

Not much news has been flowing in from the SGI front so this news is welcome news. No price was posted for the new SGI flat panel display.

Merchants can now find the cybersource of fraud.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: IDG.net  Added by: Kim Heise

I'm curious to know how well this works and if so how long would it take the online "scum" to circumvent the system.

The rule of thumb in the real world is to be suspicious of any guarantees especially when it comes to security - no guarantees are made by Cybersource but just a general comment.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. - CyberSource has unveiled Java-based software that lets online retailers filter out fraudulent credit cards from Web-based orders and transfer alerts about those cards directly to customer service representatives using customer relationship management systems from PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems or SAP.

The CyberSource Enterprise Risk Management Solution expands the earlier CyberSource fraud-screening software that ran a 2-second risk analysis of credit cards directly on the Web or application server, but required customized programming to share the risk data with call center CRM systems. CyberSource works by making an "accept, reject or review" determination based on 150 factors, including shipping address, phone number, IP address and product amount.

"Some orders that fall into the gray area on our scale can now be fed to the customer service representative," says Jeff King, CyberSource's director of risk product management. "You don't want to blindly turn away orders." The call center representative can be prepared to interact by phone with people when they submit an order online with a credit card number flagged as risky by CyberSource.

Experience has shown that certain parts of the country - New York and California in particular - are high risk in terms of chargebacks (the cost that merchants have to swallow when they accept phony credit cards for goods). The two main card associations, Visa and MasterCard, hold the merchants liable for the costs and fine them, too.

It's hard for smaller retailers to get permission from banks to accept online credit cards because of the high risk. Often the banks print the merchant's toll-free number on credit card bills so that if a consumer opens his bill to discover his credit card was used fraudulently, he can take up the matter with the merchant rather than the credit card companies, King says.

The CyberSource software, which costs about $100,000, runs on the Web or application server.

Top 10 security mistakes.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: IDG.net  Added by: Kim Heise

If security issues fall in your area of business or pleasure then you may want to read this article. Some of the security mistakes seem rather obvious but are often overlooked. They are so obvious that hackers most likely attempt to exploit all ten or more rather obvious security flaws before moving on to the more complex.

People regularly lock their houses, demand airbags in their vehicles and install smoke alarms in their homes. But put them in front of a computer, and you'd think the word security was magically erased from their brains. People are more careless with computers than perhaps any other thing of value in their lives. The reason is unclear, but observers agree that end users—and even some IT departments—can be pretty dumb when it comes to protecting computers and their contents.
The following are some notable, less-than-bright errors that people and IT professionals commit when it comes to computer security:

Bogus Microsoft Bulletin Spreads Internet Worm.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: NewsBytes  Added by: Kim Heise

This reminds me of the bogus email floating around stating that if you forward the email to ten users Mr. Bill Gates will send you a $500 check. What boggles the mind is that people actually forward these emails.

You have to admit the virus creator in this particular case was rather smart for embedding the bug in a email labeled as a security patch from Microsoft. Most users would readily open the email and fall to easy prey.

Anti-virus experts today warned of program masquerading as a security patch from Microsoft Corp. [NASDAQ:MSFT] that contains a new variant of a dangerous Internet worm.
The worm, which security researchers have named W32.Leave.B.Worm, is the latest incarnation of Leave, a mysterious, self-propagating program that prompted an advisory from the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center last month.

The new malicious code is offered for download in a bogus Microsoft security bulletin distributed July 7 with a forged Microsoft.com e-mail return address.

Following the standard format used in legitimate advisories from Microsoft, the fake bulletin warns recipients of a new, unnamed virus that can "destroy documents, delete MP3 files (and) movie files, infect .exe files" and wreck a PC's Basic Input Output System (BIOS).

A hyperlink in the bogus document advises recipients to download and install the patch from a Web site with an address which begins "http://www.microsoft.com@ " and is followed by hexadecimal values - a technique used to conceal the true location of a Web resource, according to Russ Cooper, editor of the NT Bugtraq security mailing list.

The site containing the Trojan horse program, a file called "cvr58-ms.exe," is hosted by Internet Gateway Connections, a Web hosting firm in Florida. IGC representatives were unreachable by Newsbytes.

Headers of a copy of the e-mail obtained by Newsbytes indicate that the bogus bulletin was sent from an e-mail account at GMX.net, a free, Web-based mail service based in Germany.

Taiwan chipmakers feel downturn's bite.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: NewsBytes  Added by: Kim Heise

Now is the time to upgrade your computer and purchase all the memory/CPU and drive space you can afford. The market will climb back up around Christmas and into the new year. Certain items will be priced at higher premiums to ride the market surge.

Crucial is selling 256MB of DDRAM memory for $49 (plus shipping) a piece! What are you waiting for?

Taiwan's huge chipmakers continued to feel the effects of weakening global demand in June, with the value of net sales plummeting by up to 52 percent in some cases.
Taiwan's second-largest semiconductor foundry and the world's second-largest custom chipmaker, United Microelectronics Corp. [NYSE:UMC], on Monday reported unaudited net sales for June were down 51.95 percent on June 2000's results.

UMC said June revenues slipped back to 4.24 billion New Taiwan dollars ($122.04 million) from 8.82 billion ($253.99 million) in June 2000.

The June figures were down 14.4 percent on May's net sales, and January to June revenues were 11.79 percent off revenues in the same period last year.

Only last October, UMC was reporting record profits in the third quarter on higher revenues.

UMC shares slipped 5 cents on the New York Stock Monday to close at $8.14. The American Depositary Shares have steadily fallen from the initial public offering price of $14.35 last September.

Meanwhile, Taiwan-based Advanced Semiconductor Engineering [NYSE:ASX] - also on Monday - announced unaudited net revenues of 2.6 billion New Taiwan dollars ($74.94 million) for June.

The figures are down 8.9 percent on May's net revenues, and 41.4 percent lower than June 2000 revenues of 4.44 billion New Taiwan dollars ($127.88 million).

Napster Use Down 95 Percent From Peak - Webnoize.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: NewsBytes  Added by: Kim Heise

This is the obvious reason why Napster is going to go bust when the company unveils the new charge by the song business strategy. I may be wrong on this but the signs are fairly obvious.

There are a handful of other free online file sharing systems that will be the first stop for most veteran Napster users.

Napster's download count in June was down 95 percent from its peak just four months earlier, Webnoize said today, and the rogue song-sharing site Napster hasn't shared anything for 10 days.
The decline of Napster use since a federal court lowered the boom has been faster than its meteoric rise that took it to world prominence.

Analyst Matt Bailey told Newsbytes that June downloads using the Napster system came to 140 million, just a fraction of the nearly 2.8 billion in February, the month of a court ruling that started the song-blocking wheels rolling.

On Feb. 11, the day before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its ruling, 130 million songs were downloaded - just shy of the total for all of June.

The simultaneous user average of 120 million for June represents a 90 percent decline from 1.57 million in February.

Napster has been out of service for ten days now, updating its court-mandated file-identification technology. The company acknowledged prior to the blackout that the latest database was having difficulty. At that time Webnoize said users were sharing, on average, a mere 1.5 songs each, down from a peak of 220 titles available for swapping from each user in February.

Dust storm envelops Mars.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: Wired  Added by: Kim Heise

Here's a little news tidbit that is not computer related but never the less very interesting.

PASADENA, California -- A huge dust storm raging on Mars since last month has spread more than halfway around the Red Planet, NASA said Monday.

The storm is the largest seen since NASA's Mars Global Surveyor went into orbit around the planet in 1997, said Philip Christensen of Arizona State University in Tempe, a principal investigator.

Amazon.com forced to remove Windows XP.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: WinInfo  Added by: Kim Heise

This looks very much like Amazon was trying to beat the sales bandwagon for Windows XP by putting the "carriage before the horse". Unfortunately it backfired for Amazon and Microsoft was left unimpressed.

Just days after Amazon.com revealed packaging and pricing for Windows XP, the company has been forced by Microsoft to remove the product from its Web site. The company admitted that it had posted the information too early, noting the final pricing had yet to be determined. According to Amazon's site earlier this week, Windows XP Home Edition will cost $99 and $199.99 for the upgrade and full versions respectively, while XP Professional will cost $199.99 and $299.99.

"We made a mistake by taking preorders too early," an Amazon spokesperson said Tuesday. "Those were preliminary prices." Amazon says it will repost the product closer to its October release date, and after Microsoft has announced final pricing.

 

Users that ordered Windows XP from Amazon already may be in for a price break: If Microsoft's final pricing is lower than the prices quoted previously on the Web site, anyone who ordered it already will get the lower price. But if Microsoft's prices are higher, Amazon will honor the previously published price.

Maxtor Atlas 10k III review.
Posted: 07/11/2001  Source: Storage Review  Added by: Kim Heise

Keep in mind that these 10k RPM drives will cook your system if you do not allow for adequate cooling. I'm curious to know how much faster they can spin the drives before we reach a "melting" point.

Even if you own two 7,2k RPM drives do not stack them physically one on top of the other in your PC case unless you don't mind the smell of burning circuits in the morning.

The Atlas 10k III unit reviewed here features an Ultra160 interface. Maxtor plans to ship Ultra160 and eventually Ultra320 versions of the drive. The performance differences yielded by the Ultra320 version should be negligible in all cases excepting only huge multi-drive arrays servicing applications that require high transfer rates. A single 10k III won't come close to saturating Ultra160.

Maxtor's drive represents an intriguing entry into the SCSI world. As the manufacturer's only SCSI product, the Atlas 10k III is positioned as a "one model fits all" solution. Hence the 10k III not only pits itself against the Cheetah 73LP as a "mainstream performance" SCSI product, but also against high-performance 15k RPM offering as well as applications that traditionally require 7200 RPM drives due to heat and noise concerns... not to mention filling high-capacity situations! Quite a tall order- is the Atlas 10k III up to the challenge? Let's take a look!

Lexmark introduces its first sub-$200 laser printer.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

Now if only a company could release a color printer under $200 then we would be set. Not that $199 is a bad deal for black and white laser printer - in fact it is incredible.

Acknowledging the growing demand among home users, students and small businesses for fast and affordable laser printing, Lexmark International, Inc. today introduced the E210, a fast, easy-to-use laser printer priced at $199(a).

``At less than $200, the Lexmark E210 breaks a critical price barrier for many customers,'' said Paul Rooke, Lexmark vice president and president of its Printing Solutions and Services Division. ``With the E210, home users, students and small businesses can print black and white documents with the speed and quality once affordable only to medium and large businesses.''

The Lexmark E210 prints at a quick 12 pages per minute (ppm) and gives users the high-quality laser output they demand. The Lexmark E210 ships with both a parallel port and Universal Serial Bus (USB) for easy connection to home and office PCs. The E210's small footprint will accommodate almost any home or office, where space is at a premium.

Plextor Introduces SlimLine CD-RW Drive.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

Plextor is the number one CD recordable company in terms of quality and features. Plextor recorders do cost a premium but they are worth every dime.

Plextor Corp. today announced the immediate availability of the PlexWriter 8/8/24A SlimLine CD-RW drive. The new PlexWriter drive breaks new ground as Plextor's first product offering in a slimline form factor and the industry's first slimline drive to deliver professional-level speed and performance.

The internal PlexWriter SlimLine measures just 12.7mm in thickness and weighs 0.62 lbs. Now end-users can benefit from Plextor's award winning CD-RW drive platform in a form factor that fits inside portable laptop-computers, information appliances, and legacy-free desktop PCs where space is at a premium. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) of these systems can now build the performance and reliability of a Plextor drive into their products.

Intel launches 1.8-GHz P4, plans 2-GHz chip by September.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: Silicon Strategies  Added by: Kim Heise

Not much to add to this news post other than we appear to be hitting the 2GHZ mark before the predicted December time frame. Also note how the new Celeron CPU's still use 100mhz FSB speeds compared to the AMD Duron at 133mhz.

AMD Issues Warning, Cites Chip Pricing.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: Yahoo Biz News  Added by: Kim Heise

Just checked AMD's stock ticker about 10 minutes (9:00am MST) ago and watched the stock slowly begin to climb back up again. It has been sometime since I have built and delivered an Intel based PC and cannot understand how the sales have been so low for AMD. My experience is certainly not unique and I suspect the low overall demand and cheap cost of CPU's it taking the toll on both Intel and AMD.

Why has the slow market not bitten Intel as hard? Well, for one reason Intel has many other sources of income.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD - news) on Thursday warned that its fiscal second-quarter earnings would be a fraction of what Wall Street had forecast, hurt by pricing pressure in the personal computer-chip and flash memory markets.

Sunnyvale, California-based AMD said net income would be in the range of 3 to 5 cents per diluted share, rather than the 27 cents analysts expected. Sales for the quarter ended July 1 posted a 17-percent sequential drop, instead of the 10-percent decline the company had forecast earlier.

AMD shares, which finished Thursday's regular trading session $1.12 lower at $28.64, fell to as low as $24 in after-hours trade on Island. Shares of rival chip maker Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) shed more than $1 from their close of $29.84 following AMD's warning.

Apple pulls the plug on the Cube.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: Yahoo Biz News  Added by: Kim Heise

I know I will be taking serious flak for stating that it was a smart idea for Apple to discontinue the Cube. While the Apple Cube does look "interesting" it is not very practical with very limited expansion options and you have to admit the machine looks like a toy which would scare away most businesses.

Apple should focus on the customers and not direct too much energy/resources at trying to be too different.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:AAPL - news) ultramodern Cube computer became an antique on Tuesday when the icon of stylish computers abandoned the PC that consistently failed to meet sales hopes.

Apple said it had suspended production, and although there was a small chance it would reintroduce an upgraded model, it had no plans to do so.

It had upgraded the Cube at least once already, but the tiny translucent plastic box dropped off the charts rather than becoming a crossover hit between consumers and creative professionals.

The Cube got many rave reviews when it debuted last year, but some buyers called it square when the housing developed a fine web of cracks that Apple said were mold marks that were beautiful like wood grain.

High-end users who liked the top of the line Power Mac G4 microchip were disappointed that the form's function did not include an internal disk drive at the start.

 Microsoft Windows XP Boxshots.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: ActiveWin  Added by: Kim Heise

If your Monday is starting off as slow as mine you can take a look at the box shots on Microsoft's upcoming Windows XP operating system.

Some new stuff for you... Here are the two different boxshots for the Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition and Windows XP Home Edition. Nifty looking. Check them out!

Power line networking standards nearing completion.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: Anandtech  Added by: Kim Heise

Using existing power lines for network traffic is very cost effective since most of the infrastructure already exists. Looks like we are getting close.

Many users looking to an alternative to running Ethernet wiring through their home often turn to technology such as HomePNA (phone line) and IEEE 802.11b (wireless) networking products. Although Power-line networking has been available for several years, implementations have been mainly proprietary and also quite unreliable. Power-line networking utilizes the electrical power lines in your home to transmit signals, much like PNA uses the phone lines. Current products, however, have disclaimers stating “up to 90% of the lines in your house,” which doesn’t seem so bad at first, but the problem is that it is not always the same 90%. Current implementations are seriously affected by harmful interference from electrical appliances and devices, which can render a large portion of a house temporarily or permanently unreachable by current power-line networking solutions.

In May, Intellon Corp. announced a new chipset which promises to bring reliable power line networking to the home. Dubbed the INT5130 PowerPacket, Tuesday it became the first chip to support the new power line networking standard protocol, HomePlug 1.0, and it is the only HomePlug compliant chipset commercially available. Several networking companies, including Linksys, Netgear and Cayman have announced products based on this chipset. HomePlug 1.0 compliant products should be available on the retail market before the end of 2001.

Adaptec & Highpoint collaborate to develop future ATA RAID.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

Adaptec and Highpoint are developing joint products to support ATA IDE RAID services. Take a look at this press release.

Joint development of an ATA RAID technology roadmap is an expansion of the existing relationship between the two companies. HighPoint's state-of-the-art HPT 370 chipset is currently designed into Adaptec's recently announced ATA RAID 2400A and ATA RAID 1200A products. The Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A is targeted for use with entry-level servers and workstations with up to four ATA disk drives, and is the industry's first ATA RAID controller to offer advanced RAID functionality previously only found in SCSI RAID products. Adaptec's ATA RAID 1200A is ideally suited for sub entry-level and rackmount server applications. HighPoint's HPT 370 chipset, integrated into both of these products, supports two independent ATA channels with 100 MB/sec transfer rate per channel. Both Adaptec ATA RAID products are shipping now.

MSN Messenger outage in seventh day.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

FYI for those users who are still having problems using MSN messenger. I wonder how many users signed up for the Yahoo Instant messenger over the last several days.

The MSN Messenger outage spilled over into a seventh day Monday, with many users of the free service complaining of inaccessible accounts, despite Microsoft's claims most had been restored.

MSN Messenger users started experiencing trouble Tuesday, with the most commonly reported glitches being connection problems and missing buddy lists of friends. Microsoft temporarily took MSN Messenger offline around 3 p.m. PDT Thursday in an attempt to fix the problem. Although the company had partially restored the service in many countries by Friday morning, problems still plagued many customers on Monday.

After MSN Messengers complained about poor communication, Microsoft on Friday--the fourth day of the outage--started posting routine service updates on the messenger support page. In a statement released around 4:30 p.m. PDT Saturday, MSN Vice President Richard Bray acknowledged Microsoft had failed to make good on its promise "to restore all service to MSN Messenger customers by end of day Friday, July 6. At this point, we are pleased that we have been successful in restoring service to nearly all of our customers."

But frustrated MSN Messenger customers continued to send e-mail to CNET News.com about the same rate as Saturday, with most complaining of having no access to their instant messaging accounts. The first reports of restored service, including recovered buddy lists, started trickling in on Sunday morning.

The outage appears to be widespread, with problem reports coming from people in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Egypt, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and at least a half dozen other countries.

Comcast makes bid for AT&T broadband.
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Do you remember that just over a year ago we heard about buy-out's almost every Monday? Now with the market slow down the buy-out's have been few and far between.

Comcast, a major cable television operator, made an unsolicited offer Sunday worth $44.5 billion in stock to buy AT&T Broadband, the communications giant's cable unit, and assume $13.5 billion in AT&T debt.

The offer follows months of negotiations between Comcast and AT&T, which is in the process of splitting its company into four separate businesses. Spinoff AT&T Wireless began trading Monday.

Napster clones: Who's ready to step in?
Posted: 07/09/2001  Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

The prediction that we are witnessing the end of Napster is opening the doors for all sorts of file sharing services. Read this article on ZDNET if you are interested in other file sharing services.

As Napster collapses slowly into a musical black hole, millions of people who once searched painlessly for free music on the Web are hunting for the next online file-swapping utopia.
At least a half-dozen services have picked up large collections of Napster émigrés over the past few months. No single service has emerged as a standout that offers the same breadth of obscure music as Napster once did. But many of them are closing in, with hundreds of thousands of people at a time offering their music collections.

Interest has spiked in recent weeks as Napster has struggled to remain a viable service while complying with a court order that it block copyrighted music. Adding to the company's woes, it has been offline for several days this week--forcing traders to look for alternatives.