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Modern PC News for the Week Ending June 30, 2003

DeadTroll.com | A Video Sneak Peak at Whistler, The Next Version of Windows

whistler-three-trolls.JPG (46646 bytes)In the future Microsoft will control more than just the PC's and laptop's, it will control TVs, parking meters, cheese graters, bird cages, and pants. 

All Microsoft wants is love.  Well they also want billions and billions of dollars.

BetaNews.com | MS Enters Antivirus Market by Acquiring GeCAD Software

In the latest move as part of the company's Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft announced it will acquire antivirus technology assets from GeCAD Software. GeCAD makes an antivirus engine called RAV, which is currently supported across multiple platforms. Microsoft plans to enhance Windows with native antivirus support, while allowing third-party antivirus vendors to better integrate with the operating system. Company representatives said Redmond intends to offer Windows users a paid antivirus subscription service.

SanJose.BizJournals.com | Intel Ships Billionth Chip

Remember the 8086? That was Intel Corp.'s first microprocessor for personal computers in 1978, back when a "hand-held" was a transistor radio, computers were immobile mainframes, and the Internet was a project by a handful of research scientists.

A quarter-century later, Intel has shipped its 1 billionth computer chip, according to figures compiled by semiconductor industry analyst firm Mercury Research and verified by Intel...

...Introduced in 1978, the original 16-bit 8086 chip contained only 29,000 transistors and ran at 5 megahertz. The original IBM PC shipped with a version of the 8086, the 8088 in 1982, ushering in a new age of PC computing. In comparison, today's Pentium 4 processor contains 55 million transistors and runs more than 600 times as fast at 3.06 gigahertz.

...Mercury Research calculates that the next billion X86 CPUs could come as early as 2007.

TomsHardware.com | Interactive Pin-Mod guide for AMD Athlon XP, T-Bred and Barton CPUs

A small enthusiast website called Overclocked Inside have posted a very handy interactive pin-mod guide, showing you in a very easy-to-understand manner the pins that need to be soldered in order to modify an AMD CPU's multiplier settings. There is a large variety of processor types and multiplier settings for you to select from, and it should prove to be very useful for those that are relatively new to the overclocking scene, specifically on the AMD front.

Feel free to give it a try here.

ZDNet.com | Spam Now Accounts for 51% of All Business Mail

Spam has officially overtaken legitimate e-mail in the workplace, and there’s little relief in sight.

The month of May marked the first time that commercial e-mail comprised 51 percent of all messages received by workers, according to MessageLabs, a provider of managed e-mail security services. MessageLabs only analyzed 133.9 million messages sent to its global network of business customers.

"The volume of spam now facing computer users every day has now far surpassed the point of being a nuisance and is now causing significant productivity losses and (information technology) costs at businesses across the world," MessageLabs Chief Technology Officer Mark Sunner said in a statement.

...MessageLabs uses a global network of "control towers" that filter e-mail for viruses and unwanted solicitations. The network--which spans the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong--is centrally managed and scans millions of messages each day.

MessageLabs has more than 6,000 business customers, including the British government, The Bank of England, Conde Nast Publications and Fujitsu.

Associated Press | Microsoft Stops Future Production of Internet Explorer for the Mac

Microsoft Corp. said Friday it will no longer develop versions of its popular Web-browsing software for Apple Computer's Macintosh system, saying Apple's own browsing software is a logical choice for Mac users.

It makes more sense for Mac users to use Apple's Safari Web-browser, she said. Although still in beta testing, the browser has already gained attention for its speed and some of its features.

...Sommers said Apple is in a better position to create a browser with more features and that offers a smoother experience because "Apple has access to functionality in the (operating system) that Microsoft doesn't."

It's a complaint that has been leveled at Microsoft in the past by outside software vendors, who said Microsoft's access to its underlying code gave it an inside track on making its own add-on products run more smoothly than others.

Microsoft is not backing away from the Mac and will continue to develop other software, she said, including a new version of Office business software for the Mac...

MSNBC.com | eBay Loses $35 Million Patent Lawsuit

federal jury on Tuesday ordered eBay Inc. to pay $35 million for violating patents filed by a Virginia attorney in a ruling that could change how the online auction house operates. Jurors ruled for MercExchange, based in Great Falls, Va., which had claimed that its founder, Thomas G. Woolston, filed three patent applications for programs and procedures to operate an Internet-based auction

Jurors found eBay had acted “willfully,” meaning U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Friedman can triple the damages. The verdict involved eBay’s Half.com business and “Buy it Now” service and does not involve its auction operation.

...At the core of the dispute is one of three patents issued to Woolston in 2000 and 2001 that were spawned from an original, or “parent,” application he filed in April 1995.

The 1995 filing was several months before eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched the auction site using a combination of his own programming and software obtained for free over the Internet.

A San Francisco patent attorney, Neil Smith, called the $35 million damages a “drop in the bucket to eBay.” He noted, though, that the judge could order the company to halt parts of its business affected by the verdict...

Reuters.com | US Attempts to Legislate Internet Gambling Fail

U.S. lawmakers abruptly canceled a vote to block Internet gambling on Tuesday after it became clear the bill did not have enough support to pass the House of Representatives...

...The bill pulled from consideration Tuesday would block credit-card payments to gambling Web sites, an approach that has found widespread support in Congress and been taken up voluntarily by many credit-card providers.

But squabbles between the House Judiciary and Financial Services committees resulted in three competing versions of the bill. After the Judiciary Committee took out language that would have exempted lawful casinos and state lotteries last month, the Financial Services committee passed another version that removed criminal penalties, a move which enabled the new bill to bypass Judiciary.

NewsFactor.com | Texas Intruments Announces Blue Tooth, 802.11x Combo Chip

...TI's package comprises existing chips with new software that manages voice and data traffic on the two different systems, both of which operate on the 2.4 GHz radio frequency that also is used by cordless phones and other consumer devices.

The result is that both Wi-Fi data transmissions -- 802.11b or the newer, faster 802.11g -- and Bluetooth voice communications can be transmitted without interference.

...TI has targeted manufacturers of mobile phones, next-generation smart phones and PDAs with the new technology, company spokesperson Marisa Speziale told NewsFactor. "Bluetooth has become a big part in the phone space, and now Wi-Fi is moving into that area as well, with our customers demanding WLAN connectivity in their phones and PDAs," she said.

And while there are other Bluetooth/Wi-Fi coexistence products out there, Speziale said, most of those deal with data traffic only. "Our technology prioritizes voice traffic over data, addressing the poor quality of voice transmission on Bluetooth."

..."Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are complementary technologies, and getting them to work together is a significant step because there is a demand for both functionalities," he said. Previously, manufacturers needed multiple-chip configurations to embed both types of systems, which drained more power and took up valuable space on the device...

MSNBC.com | New File Swapping Tools Faster and Harder to Track

...A new generation of peer-to-peer tools is gaining traction on the Internet, spelling tougher times ahead for movie studios’ attempts to quell online piracy. Going by names like eDonkey and BitTorrent, many of the latest generation of file-swapping tools have been designed specifically to increase the efficiency and speed of transfer for large files such as movie files.

...Kazaa has been downloaded more than 229 million times, according to that site.

The new generation of tools has been designed much like the old, by individuals or small teams of programmers working to correct the perceived shortcomings of earlier software.

eDonkey is largely the product of programmer Jed McCaleb of New York. His initial plan was to make file search and distribution more efficient, while keeping the same basic network-searching functions seen in Napster and its successors.

The final eDonkey product is different in two primary ways from earlier file-swapping services. The first is to do with decentralized search. When a file is shared on the network, the technology gives the file a “hash” identifier — essentially an address based on the characteristics of the file itself. Each computer logged onto the network has a certain range of addresses assigned to it, so it can act as an index.

This allows searches to be carried out more efficiently than in earlier decentralized systems. With Gnutella, for example, a search query for “Radiohead” or “Madonna,” for example, ripples out through the network, asking each node if it has or is close to those files.

With eDonkey, the “Radiohead” query would be directed quickly to the computer that is temporarily responsible for keeping track of the location of files in that category, and a response would be returned more quickly.

The second — and main — advance is that the system can break up each file into tiny pieces, allowing them to be distributed independently. As soon as one person starts downloading these pieces, he or she starts offering them to the network at large. That means a movie does not have to be downloaded in its entirety before it can be offered to other people, making distribution of these and other larger files much more efficient.

McCaleb has been offering various versions of eDonkey for several years, but in the past few months in particular it has been catching on more quickly, especially in Europe, he said. The tool has been downloaded close to 50 million times...

...Dubbed BitTorrent, the tool was written by San Francisco programmer Bram Cohen, again as a way to make the distribution of large files more efficient. Unlike Napster, Kazaa or eDonkey, the tool concentrates on distribution rather than search. But what it lacks in search capabilities, it makes up for in speed, its supporters say.

BitTorrent works in the background of a Web browser, assisting with the uploading and downloading of files. If users — maybe a software company or a file swapper — want to distribute files, they have to set up a “tracker” Web site. A tracker is essentially a low-level server that keeps track of requests for a given file and directs the requests to the users offering the file. These users will have posted links to the tracker on a Web site, and these links will trigger the properly formatted BitTorrent downloads.

Like eDonkey, BitTorrent splits files into tiny bits. Once someone has started downloading a file, that person’s computer immediately serves as an upload server for anyone else looking for the file. The technology automatically balances upload and download speeds, ensuring that people downloading give back to the network, Cohen said.

Unlike other file-swapping networks, if the number of people searching for a single file increases, it means faster downloads — not traffic jams — as the individual pieces get spread quickly around the community....

RIGHT SIDE OF THE LAW The BitTorrent technology isn’t intended for movie piracy. Indeed, open-source advocates recently used it to distribute a new release of the Red Hat Linux software, making an end run around clogged company servers. One Web community that specializes in swapping high-quality recordings of live jam bands such as Phish, usually with the bands’ permission, also uses the technology.

“It’s definitely a technological marvel,” said Wayne Chang, a Massachusetts college student and system administrator for PickATime.com who has used the technology. “The more people using it, the faster the whole system is.”...

Adobe.com | How to Push Adobe Acrobat 6 via Group Policy or SMS

...There are six different methods Three for per-system and three for per-user. With in these there are attend, unattended and a uninstall process each with their own command line. Simply Download the AR 6.0 install file and run it. It will create a folder under your Cache folder called “Adobe Reader 6.0\ENUBIG”. Here you will find the MSI file needed to create an Administrative installation. Run the following command line with quotes.

msiexec /a "C:\%root%\Cache\Adobe Reader 6.0\ENUBIG\Adobe Reader 6.0.msi"

This will create an Administrative installation of AR 6.0. Make sure not to use the root of a drive for the install path. It will create three sub folders. I suggest creating a new folder for this purpose.

After the folder has been created, in SMS create a new package using the “compressed” option. Do not use a UNC path. I have seen some failures in the distribution using this method. Simply browse to the root of the Administrative installation folder that you created earlier. SMS will take care of the rest. The MSI files for AR 6.0 contains the command lines necessary for SMS to provide the six types of installations.

If you are not using SMS 2.0 or later to install AR 6.0 then you can use the same command line that SMS uses in a logon script. I have provided all six.

Per-System Attended:
msiexec.exe ALLUSERS=2 /m MSILA3H3 /i "Adobe Reader 6.0.msi"

Per-System Unattended:
msiexec.exe /q ALLUSERS=2 /m MSILA3H3 /i "Adobe Reader 6.0.msi"

Per-System Uninstall:
msiexec.exe /q /m MSILA3H3 /x "Adobe Reader 6.0.msi"

Per-User Attended:
msiexec.exe ALLUSERS="" /m MSILA3H3 /i "Adobe Reader 6.0.msi"

Per-User Unattended:
msiexec.exe /q ALLUSERS="" /m MSILA3H3 /i "Adobe Reader 6.0.msi"

Per-User Uninstall:
msiexec.exe /q ALLUSERS="" /m MSILA3H3 /x "Adobe Reader 6.0.msi"

Make sure that you use the quotes.

ITWorldCanada.com | Peoplesoft Sues Oracle Over Interference with JD Edwards Merger

...PeopleSoft accuses Oracle of unfair business practices, trade libel, and tortious interference with PeopleSoft's customer relationships. Oracle launched its bid only to undercut PeopleSoft's business operations, undermine its viability and interfere with the proposed takeover of J.D. Edwards & Co., PeopleSoft said in a statement Friday.

The announcement of the suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court in California, comes a day after J.D. Edwards filed two lawsuits against Oracle. J.D. Edwards is seeking damages and an order that will block Oracle's bid for PeopleSoft.

PeopleSoft on June 2 announced it had agreed to buy J.D. Edwards. Oracle launched a hostile US$5.1 billion takeover bid for PeopleSoft on June 6. PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards both compete with Oracle in the enterprise applications market. Combining the two companies would create a bigger competitor for Oracle, analysts have said...

MSNBC.com | MS Yanks WinXP Patch After It Collapses 600,000 PC's

Microsoft Corp. withdrew a security improvement for its flagship Windows XP software after it crippled Internet connections for some of the 600,000 users who installed it. Microsoft officials said Tuesday the update — which had been available as an option since Friday on its “Windows Update” Web site — apparently was incompatible with popular security software from other companies, such as Symantec Corp...

...The glitch occurs amid a debate in Washington among cybersecurity experts whether the technology industry should test the reliability and security of such updates more aggressively. Hackers can easily attack government systems where updates aren’t installed routinely, but some experts install them only reluctantly because of worries about unintended consequences of some updates....

Dunkels.com | Network Card, TCP/IP Stack & Internet Browser now Available for Stock Commodore 64 Dreamcast or Playstation

The possibility of connecting the Commodore 64 to an Ethernet local area network has been a collective dream in the Commodore community for decades. A C64 Ethernet adapter would make it possible to connect the C64 directly to the Internet, making it possible to download software, transfer data to and from the C64, play network games over the Internet; the possibilities are endless.

With our TFE cartridge (The Final Ethernet cartridge) this is now possible.

Contiki was originally written for the Commodore 64 system (1 MHz 8-bit 6510 CPU, 64 k RAM) but ports to a lot of systems are currently being developed by a bunch of developers: 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment system, PCEngine, Gameboy, Atari 8-bit, Atari Jaguar, Atari Lynx, Apple ][, VIC-20, CBM PET, Plus/4, Tandy CoCo, Sharp Wizard, Casio PocketViewer, Sega DreamCast and the Sony Playstation.

The first version of Contiki includes the following:

All of the above is included in the self-contained Contiki binary, which is 42 kilobytes large and runs comfortably in 64 kilobytes of memory. More applications are under development.

Contiki can be downloaded from the downloads page. Contiki is almost entirely written in C and the source code is released under a BSD-style license and may be used and modified freely.

Contiki works directly from memory and does not need any secondary storage like disk drives for caching or loading. This makes Contiki fast, portable, and also makes Contiki accesible for tape drive users.

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