W.I.L. Tech-News Highlights for H2 July 2004

Hardware

Systems

Shuttle says sales of Small Form-Factor PCs continues rapid growth -- link.

Soltek’s Qbic EQ3801 nForce3-based SFF system has its pluses and minuses -- review.

AnandTech’s August overclocking buyer’s guide -- here.

An all-around Athlon 64 system for $1,500 -- link.

CPUs/motherboards/chipsets

AnandTech’s July CPU and Motherboards price guide -- here.

Sempron vs. Celeron D: Budget CPU comparison -- link.

-- AMD

AMD Sempron specifications appear -- link 1, link 2.

How AMD positions FXs, Athlon 64s and Semprons, and how the sockets work out -- link.

AMD boosts performance of mobile microprocessors with Athlon 64 3400+, Athlon XP-M 2200+ -- link.

Socket 939 roundup, representing the top performance level for the Athlon 64 -- here. Shuttle unveils its first Socket 939 Athlon 64 model, claims it is the best-performing SFF PC available, a quiet as well -- link.

Opteron exposed: Reverse engineering AMD K8 microcode updates -- link.

AMD ships Sempron -- link 1, link 2.

AMD Sempron: A fresh take on budget computing -- review.

AMD’s Sempron 2800+ not that exciting, but the 3100+ part may be the chip to have -- review.

-- Intel

Intel’s 90nm Pentium M 755 “Dothan” investigated -- here.

Intel “delays” Centrino 2 chipset to Q1 2005 -- link.

Taiwan’s Elitegroup reveals that Intel is planning to release 2.13GHz Pentium M 770 this autumn -- link.

4-bit WinXP set-back forced Intel to delay 4GHz P4? -- link.

An architectural history of the Pentium -- Part I: From the Pentium to the P6, Part II: From the Pentium 4 to the Pentium M and Prescott.

Graphics

Rambus targets graphics cards with XDR DRAM memory -- link.

Graphics cards with 512MB memory on the way? -- link.

ATI Mobility Radeon 9800 unveiled -- link.

nVidia GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 6800: Overclocking and Modding -- link.

Power consumption of contemporary graphics accelerators. Part I: Graphics cards on ATI chips -- results here.

ASUS AX800 PRO/TD graphics card’s outstanding accessories set, low noise level and crystal-sharp image quality are its major trumps -- review.

The evolving 3D graphics landscape -- link.

Easy-to-use graphical buyers guide to buying graphics cards -- here.

Memory, storage

AnandTech’s July price guide to video cards and DDR memory -- here.

The evolving memory landscape -- link.

Mega-roundup of 21 160GB hard disk drives -- here.

Samsung’s SpinPoint P80 hard drive series investigated -- here.

Seagate warranties jump to 5 years -- link.

Kingwin’s aluminum 3.5” hard drive enclosure reviewed here.

MSI’s DR12-A DVD-/+R drive aspires to 12X speeds, but needs some work -- link.

Toshiba, NEC promise HD-DVD in 2005. Japanese DVD distributor endorses format over Blu-Ray -- link.

M-Systems speeds up USB flash drive, brings advanced performance to 2GB keychain-size storage -- link.

Miscellaneous components and periferals

Closer look at 17” LCD monitor features, Part IV -- here.

Operating Systems

What is the best OS for my parents? -- link.

Linux, Unixes

Installing Linux on removable drives -- link.

Linux.com’s “CLI Magic” series continues -- Midnight Commander, laying down the law with edict and File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Series index here.

KDE 3.3 beta 1 experiences -- link.

A Windows die-hard confronts Linux -- link 1, link 2. One user’s experience with Linux in regards to Windows -- link.

Installing Linux on removable drives -- link.

Linspiration Technology: What’s in a name? -- link.

Red Hat exec: Linux desktops must stand out to thrive -- link.

4 alternative Linux window managers -- link. IceWM, the cool window manager -- link.

Linux takes on Windows gaming -- link.

What is new in GNOME 2.8? -- link. Why GNOME has got it right -- link.

2.6 kernel tree to be kept for the foreseeable future, starting a “development” 2.7 tree only when enough patches are submitted that could seriously disrupt the kernel’s stability. -- link. Discussion here. What is the holdup in moving to Linux kernel 2.6? -- link.

Comparing Linux and AIX -- link.

Can GNU ever be Unix? -- link.

An informed rant about desktop UNIXes -- link.

Linux Certifications can pay off big -- link.

Move over, Intel. Linux and PowerPC are in the fast lane -- link.

Two Windows-to-Linux migration utilities promise savings in money and time -- link.

How I spent my summer vacation: Bringing Linux to Nicaragua -- Part I, Part II.

Ottawa Linux Symposium coverage -- Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

This is war: Microsoft hugs Linux in order to crush it -- link.

Unix’s founding fathers -- link.

FreeBSD 5.3 on the horizon -- link.

BSD Hacks -- book review.

Other OS’s

Inside Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger”, Part 4: A Look at Safari 2.0 -- link.

MenuetOS 0.77 released -- link.

SkyOS, The 7th Beta, plus interview with creator Robert Szeleney -- link.

Experiences with RISC OS 5 and new XScale-powered hardware -- link.

Amiga Inc. bought/sold again -- link.

Athene Desktop Edition 4.0 released -- link.

Applications

Free (as in speech) software on Windows -- link. Open Source apps for Windows -- link.

Game companies reissue classics -- link.

Firebird relational database 1.5.1 final released -- link.

Video production with Linux -- Part 1, Part 2.

Digital music jam -- link.

Blinkx search tool combines online, local data -- link.

Reaching fever pitch on Doom III -- link.

Gnutella on the rise -- link.

Google: The Missing Manual -- book review.

Desktop applications

Open source Photoshop alternatives-- link.

Opera 7.53 released for all supported platforms -- link.

Professional DTP on Linux with PageStream 5.x -- link.

Pine vs. Mozilla ThunderBird -- review.

Will Firefox repeat Netscape’s mistakes by emulating IE and adding unnecessary and potentially insecure features? -- link.

Vendors can learn a lot from Mozilla’s open-source adventures -- link.

Setting up page styles in OOo Writer -- link.

New snapshot the upcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0 release is ready for download -- link.

“The Grumpy Editor” looks at graphical mail clients and GPG -- link.

Programming

Why Mono is significant -- link 1, link 2.

Programming tools for the hobbyist -- link.

Paul Graham on “Great Hackers” -- link.

Graphical user interface

Ruby/Tk Primer -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Connect KDE apps using D-BUS -- link.

Qt 4 technology preview released -- link.

Why you should use XHTML -- link.

More FUD from Macromedia about SVG -- link.

C/C++/Java family

Functional programming in Java -- link.

Version 1.6.2 of Ant, a build tool for Java, has been released -- link.

Scripting and high-level languages

Smalltalk/VM allows code modification on the fly -- link.

PHP 5.0 goes for Microsoft’s ASP-dot-Net jugular -- link. PHP and ASP.NET go head-to-head -- link. Discussion here.

What’s new in PHP 5? -- link.

Error reporting in PHP -- Part I.

Power Python: Do more with less code -- link.

IronPython now Open Source, version 0.6 released -- link.

Creating games with Pygame -- link.

ActiveState releases Komodo 3.0 -- link.

Linux symposium examines technicalities of upcoming Perl 6 -- link. Worried about Perl 6 -- link.

Security & Privacy

Cybercops seize Russian extortion masterminds -- link. Russian cyber-extortion gang faces 15 years -- link.

Securing Mac OS X -- link.

Securing Linux, Part 1: Introduction -- here.

An introduction to elliptical curve cryptography -- link.

Rise in “phishing” causes alarm -- link. Phish scams fooling 28% of users -- link.

Cryptography and the Open Source security debate -- link.

“Building The Next Generation” -- Part 3: Security and Files.

The battle for email privacy -- link.

Hackers trade tool tips -- link.

Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Scammers in the Internet Age -- book review.

Holes, patches, defenses

MyDoom.0 hammers search sites -- link.

More major security holes found in Internet Explorer 5.01, 5.5, and to IE 6.0 -- link.

70% of viral activity in the first half of this year can be linked to just one German teenager, according to anti-virus firm Sophos -- link.

More than 90% of Linux systems have never been infected -- link.

Miscellaneous

And the bad intellectual property laws just keep coming -- link.

Massive waves up to 100 feet in height more frequent than previously thought -- link.

Ross King wanted a research assistant who would work 24/7 without sleep or food. So he built one -- link.

Business

What will Novell do with its $600 million war chest? -- link.

What went wrong at Wright State when Napster arrived -- link.

Who is going to buy MySQL? -- link.

Why Sun stock does not improve in value -- link.

Why Novell needs a breakout event -- link.

Why “slower” is the unnoticed new frontier -- link.

Making Open Source software pay -- link.

Dumpster diving: Boom times for tech trash -- link.

The Internet

ICANN crunch meeting begins -- link.

Your domain name dollars at work -- link.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales responds -- link.

With no office and no formal organization other than a website and a handful of staff, MoveOn.org has become a powerhouse, grass-roots organization members -- link.

Unleashing the Web Police -- link.

Internet users reshape 9/11 Commission Report in a hurry -- link.

Telecommunications

Symbian founder on mobile past, present and future -- interview here.

Verizon dangles cheap VoIP for US land grab -- link.

Verizon to launch fiber-based broadband service, offering up to 30 mebabits per second starting at $34.95/month -- link.

Skype prepay service will allow users to connect with any phone number worldwide -- link.

Federal Video Voyeurism Prevention Act aims to protect privacy in public places -- link.

Broadband is the secret to South Korea’s success -- link.

The next big thing in the comics world is a small cell-phone screen -- link.