Industry News

The United Nations Seeks Control of the Internet

From the Op/Ed pages of the Washington Times... "The people who brought you the oil-for-food scandal now want to get their hands on the Internet. On Tuesday, a U.N. organization called the Working Group on Internet Governance proposed that the United Nations take control of regulating the Internet's inner workings. Apparently, U.N. leaders think their failures in global security and humanitarianism qualify them to regulate the engine of the high-tech industry." Read the full article via this link: www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050720-091741-1312r.htm

Is Intel's Prescott P4 too hot to handle?

Here is another report regarding excessive heat and power consumption problems with the latest Intel Prescott model Pentium 4 processor. Read the full story here: www.theinquirer.org/?article=16952

Latest IE flaw may boost rival browsers

A major security hole discovered in Microsoft's Internet Explorer last week has become a golden marketing opportunity for alternative browsers such as Mozilla, Netscape and Opera that are unaffected by the flaw. www.zdnet.com.com/IE flaw.html

HP says as many as 900,000 notebooks buggy

HP estimates that a memory controller defect in a an Intel chipset combined with a defect in certain brands of memory modules could result in blue screens and loss of data in up to 900,000 of their notebook computers. The memory modules in question, which came in 128 MB, 256 MB and 512 MB capacities, were manufactured between March 2002 and July 2003 by four companies, including Infineon, Micron, Samsung and Winbond. HP has a utility program users can download to test their laptop for the problem.

HP is to be commended for coming forth with this costly information. It is suspected that many other laptop brands using similar Intel chipsets with the same defective SODIMMs, likely suffer from the same problems. AMD CPU based laptops are not affected. Follow this link for more information: www.zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-5248097.html

Users fume over Yahoo-Trillian scuffle

According to this article on C-Net News, consumers are claiming they are the victim's in this latest of the IM (Instant Messaging) wars. Previously it was AOL and MSN butting heads. This time its Trillion and Yahoo. Read the full article here: www.news.com

2004 Las Vegas Comdex Show Canceled

Falling attendance and lack of vendor interest blamed for the cancellation.

Microsoft creating Windows for super computers

Be sure to read the reader comments underneath this story. I don't think I saw a single positive reply in any of the comments I read. Here is one reader's response that got me laughing and I quote: "(P.S. Will it have a cute little "My Super Computer" icon on the desktop?)" Another reader cautioned that once MS makes up their mind to attack a particular market---lookout! This should be an interesting story to follow-up on. Here is the article link:

http://www.zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5219282.html

Mystery attackers strike Linux super computers - ZDNet UK News

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39151519,00.htm

Witty extinction

The new Witty Worm virus accomplishes in 637 bytes what used to take 12,000 bytes to do last month. This kind of progress scares me. One of the new attack schemes is to hold off delivering the payload (damage) to the host (infected computer). Rather use the host to help spread the Worm that much further, then do in the host at a later date.

Another new tactic is to slowly change a few bytes here and there randomly on the infected host over a period of several months. This way all backups become infected and suspect. Eventually the host collapses under this slow chipping away type of attack after a period of months.

I wonder if in the near future we will need to own two computers. One stripped down machine for communicating and browsing the Internet with and another for saving our life's work on. The Internet system would need to be booted off of a CD-ROM or something similar, so that the OS could not be attacked by a virus. If it is brought down, no important data is stored on this system so the damage is minimal. A second PC behind a hardware firewall would be the one you use for word processing and storing personal data on.

Be sure to check out the link to the 12K Bomb article inside of the attached article on the Witty Worm, follow this link:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/07/witty_evil_firsts/

Where AMD leads, Intel follows

While I work with both AMD and Intel hardware, AMD has many price/performance advantages over Intel currently in the hardware arena. These advantages include: Lower CPU cost/performance ratio, reduced system obsolescence due to fewer socket and spec changes, better upgrade ability, lower power draw and heat output, 64-bit versus 32-bit only architecture from Intel. Intel is currently struggling to catch-up to AMD, read all about it here:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15029

NewsForge | Analysis: Microsoft, SCO have a lot more explaining to do

http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/03/08/0457259.shtml

Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Install Knoppix Linux, Keep Windows Installation - Introduction

Very nice article on Knoppix Linux. I did not know it had so many disk/recovery tools in it. I have used it to recover files from Windows systems that would not boot up by copying them over the network using SAMBA. I could have really used the new 3.4 version that will write to NTFS (Windows XP ) file systems on the PC I am currently fixing. The version 3.4 is rumored to be coming out soon. Update: Its out and its cool! Here is a link to the Knoppix home page: www.knoppix.org Hint click the little American/British flag icon to view it in English.

Please note this ISO download is almost 700 MB. If you want a CD copy, I can sell you one for $5.00. You can either email, or call Bill Woelk at User Friendly Computers of Royal Oak at: 248-585-9132.

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040303/index.html

Printer ink seven times more expensive than Dom Perignon

This title is nothing to laugh about because its true. Since the printer companies took a marketing cue from razor blade manufacturers. Razor manufacturers sell their razor handles for under $5.00. They then charge in excess of $10.00 for a set of refill blades to go with your new razor. Printer manufacturers are now following a similar marketing principle by ripping off consumers by overcharging for printer ink cartridges, according to a study by the Consumer Association's Which? magazine. www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07/04/printer ink 7x more.

Typically the manufacturers sell the printers at or even under the cost to manufacture them when rebates are included. They then make up that loss over time by over charging for ink refills. If you can handle black and white output, laser printers are much more cost effective than inkjet printers.

Note If you do a lot of color printing, there are now ways around the high costs associated with color inkjet printer refills. Stop getting ripped off! Feel free to call for information on ink cartridge refill kits and bulk ink feeding systems. Call Bill Woelk at 248-585-9132.

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