News for the Week of June 15 2002

Technical, Business and Product News from the Modern Computer World... Updated Once Per Month

This service allows corporations to install their own Windows Update server on site. Thereby reducing internet usage and unwanted patches. The problem with it is that MS strongly recommends that it be installed on a dedicated PIII 800 W2K Server (or better) machine (i.e. buy another W2K Server licence and CALs!).

A friend of mine will be running a Guarenteed Microsoft Certified Professional Boot Camp Course including MS Exam for only $500! This Calgary Based one day course will be held on a Sunday in the next few weeks and will be followed on the Monday with a 90 minute MS Certification Exam held at a fully accredited testing centre which will be immediatly followed by your own career enhancing Microsoft MCP Card and documentation.

If there is sufficient interest there will be a 6 day Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) Boot Camp held in Mid July or August for only $4850 - This is about half of the going rate for NON-Guarenteed boot camps.

Included are all exam vouchers, texts, and training materials. In the highly unlikely event that you fail the MS exams 50% of the course fee will be refunded. Send a message to patrickbergen@commodore.ca for more information.

Port Blocker, Packet Sniffer, Web Server, CGI site search engine, MP3 Streaming engine... this site has a number of very useful FREE utilities for Windows Servers. I will add the link to my DOWNLOAD tab.

NewsFactor - Unbranded PCs Threaten Major Vendors
Lisa Gill, www.NewsFactor.com

A research company has credited so-called "white box" computer manufacturers with nabbing more than half of the worldwide PC market, beating out such major companies as IBM ( NYSE: IBM - news), Hewlett-Packard ( news - web sites) ( NYSE: HPQ - news) and Compaq ( news - web sites). White box PCs are machines built by little-known companies, and they are generally far cheaper than major brands.

Research firm IDC found that more than 500 unbranded PC vendors accounted for fully 58 percent of the total worldwide PC market, adding 8 million units to last year's total PC sales estimate in 55 countries...

BetaNews - AOL Still Using IE in Next Version Contrary to Previous Announcements
By Nate Mook, BetaNews

America Online this week released a beta version of its upcoming AOL 8.0 client, code-named "Spacely." Version 8.0 sports slight enhancements over its predecessor, but lacks the company's Gecko browser engine that was expected to be included in lieu of Internet Explorer. The update instead puts an emphasis on broadband support as more users make the switch from dial-up Internet connectivity.

AOL has been aiming to integrate Gecko, which lies at the core of Netscape, into its client ever since an agreement with rival Microsoft to include IE was not renewed in early 2001. The company began testing a browser agnostic technology dubbed Komodo shortly thereafter, which allowed CompuServe to switch between Internet Explorer and Gecko.

Although CompuServe 7.0 eventually shipped with Gecko last fall, the feature was left out of AOL 7.0 for compatibility reasons. Not only did AOL have a hard time ironing out stability issues within the technology, but switching to a new engine meant AOL had to ensure a browsing experience similar to that which millions of customers enjoy with Internet Explorer. AOL opted to wait and in March released a refresh beta of AOL 7.0 containing Gecko.

The decision to leave Gecko out of version 8.0 thus far may indicate that AOL is hesitant to rely on the fairly new technology. Although Gecko has been in development for over four years, Mozilla -- the browser suite from which Gecko was born -- only made its first official 1.0 release last week. An AOL spokesperson declined to say whether Gecko would be included when the final version of AOL 8.0 ships this fall...

The round of dueling banjos between AMD and Intel, played in silicon, continues apace, with PC makers releasing ever-faster machines based on the chip makers' latest advancements. Here we review four machines: two that use AMD's 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+ chip (code-named Thoroughbred) and two that have an Intel 2.53-GHz Pentium 4 coupled with the 533-MHz front-side bus (FSB) we reported on last month ("Faster Bus, Faster Processor from Intel").

Although direct head-to-head comparison is difficult with these machines—they use different memory and hard drives, which affects performance—we can make some comparative statements. Most notably, while the AMD-equipped boxes deliver good performance for the money, the new Athlon chip can't overcome Intel's advantage in MHz and bus throughput when it comes to pure speed.

The Athlon XP 2200+ is AMD's first desktop chip manufactured using the 0.13-micron process. While the Thoroughbred chips are smaller and use less power than the Athlon chips based on the Palomino (0.18-micron) core, not much else has changed, other than a speed bump from 1.7 to 1.8 GHz (with higher speeds sure to follow). Notably, the front-side bus remains at 266 MHz, and the L2 cache is still anchored at 256K. AMD plans to boost the L2 cache to 512K with the release of the next-generation processor (code-named Barton) later this year...

Quick, what's the most widely distributed virus or worm of all time? It's the Klez worm, which continues to top the virus tracking charts...

According to recent data from several sources, the widely reported Klez worm and KaZaA file-swapping software virus have become increasingly pesky security threats because of their unusual methods of propagation. In fact, a variant of the Klez worm called Klez.H has taken on the distinction of being the most widely distributed virus or worm of all time, according to e-mail tracking data from MessageLabs' service VirusEye.