[H]ardNews 10th Edition

Burned Turkey Or Demon Head?

Everyone knows the story behind the DOOM series and how UAC opened a portal to hell on Mars…but what if that portal to hell was the oven in your kitchen? Check out this eBay auction submitted to us by Cal Morton Jr. and you will see that the DOOM story isn’t so far fetched. This is way cooler than that grilled cheese sandwich with the image of the Virgin Mary on it.

No longer a mere turkey breast, but the charred head of some kind of unknown demon--a condemned soul in eternal agony. It appeared to be screaming.

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

Phel Threatens WinXP SP2:

There is another Trojan out there called Phel that exploits how help files are called from web pages. There is still no patch for this exploit, originally found a couple months ago by a Chinese security company.

The program--dubbed Phel, an anagram of 'Help,' by antivirus firms--infects visitors to a maliciously-created Web site through Internet Explorer's Help controls, security firm Symantec stated in an advisory. A bug in the program may prevent it from infecting some computers, the firm said.

Tax Break For Old PCs:

A reminder to all of you who are looking to get rid of older computers, you can donate the PC write it off on your taxes. Thanks Blair.

A number of charities and charity clearinghouses -- such as the National Christian Foundation and Gifts In Kind America -- accept used computers. The clearinghouses match your donation with an organization that can use it and will, in turn, send you a receipt. The receipt is important for a tax write-off.

2D Holograms:

Are 2D holograms the wave of the future? Maybe we will see laptops and devices with built in 2D holographic projectors in the near future. Thank Joe for the heads up.

The concept of a holographic projector is not new, but up until now technical issues have prevented development of an actual product based on this technology.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

More CPU Facts & Fantasy:

For those of you AMD Athlon FX fans, it does not look that we will see much core speed scaling in the coming year, although we are hearing rumors of a possible 250Mhz FSB Athlon FX. AMD roadmaps show to be sticking at "FX-57" through Q4'05. I would assume this to be a 2.8GHz part. The same roadmaps do however show the “Plain Jane” Athlon 64 939-pin CPU at 4200+ ratings and possibly above by Q3'05. As we have mentioned here a few times before, AMD's Sempron line of mainstream CPUs will take over the socket 754 line of products completely in late 2005 with the 3700+ being the last 754 socketed Athlon 64.

On the Intel single core side of things we should see a 3.73GHz 1066MHz bus driven Pentium 4 EE kicked off in Q1'05, likely February. Also we have seen some talk about Intel's EDB or Execute Disable Bit. This is a CPU feature that can help stop buffer overflow attacks. Also this Intel CPU will have EM64T support for WinXP Pro x64. This EDB feature is offered in current Prescott E Stepping processors now. EDB is designated by a "J" suffix in the 5XX and 3XX processor models. WinXP SP2 is needed to enable this feature. You can find out more about it here on Intel's site.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

Mozilla Optimizer:

Several of you have pointed out that the FireFox pipelining tweak I pointed earlier is just one of the tweaks done by Mozilla Optimizer 1.6.3. The utility is free, weighs in at a mere 230k and works with Mozilla, FireFox and Netscape.

Mozilla Optimizer is a tool which optimizes Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox and Netscape settings in order to considerably boost page loading. For example, it enables HTTP Pipeling and Keep Alive to keep the TCP overhead low while retrieving the website content.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Gigabyte GF 6600GT:

Bjorn3D is having their way with the Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT GV-NX66T128D today in the review labs. If you think I am kidding when I said “having their way” with this video card, here is a quote from the review as the guys try to get to second base on the first date:

I jumped right into aggressive territory when I started overclocking the GV-NX66T128D, and it did not agree with what I was trying to do to it.

ASUS Extreme AX800XT PE:

If you have the cash and the determination to find one, this ASUS Extreme AX800XT PE might be the card for you. The usual factors of “price” and “availability” are the only things holding this card back from a higher rating.

A number of extraneous factors take away from the package's attractiveness. Firstly, finding an ASUS X800 XT-based card is hard enough, and that's one we reviewed a couple of months back. Locating this Platinum Edition is that much harder.

HiS X700Pro IceQ Turbo:

Legion Hardware has posted a 16 page review of the HiS Radeon X700Pro IceQ Turbo. This certainly is a card to keep in mind if cooling is high on your priority list, you gotta love those HiS IceQ coolers.

Without a doubt the HIS Radeon X700 Pro IceQ Turbo is certainly the best X700 product that I have had the pleasure of testing. There are so many impressive aspects of this product that help this Radeon X700 Pro sell itself, none though are more so than its uniqueness.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

Intel Includes EDB In 2005:

Intel plans to incorporate EDB in its processors by 2005 according to DigiTimes. EDB technology is able to prevent certain classes of buffer overflow attacks in systems that run Windows XP and SP2.

Intel plans to incorporate its Execute Disable Bit (EDB) security technology in several lines of CPU, including the 600-series 64-bit Pentium 4 lineup, Pentium M and 775-socket Celeron D models, in 2005, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers.

Speedier FireFox:

Broadband users can now use this trick to speed up FireFox by enabling pipelining. This should speed up your browsing by allowing FireFox to request 30 files at a time instead of just one…worked for me.

After you get past the beginner stage with Firefox, try this "power-user" trick to make it download pages faster by allowing multiple connections so it can download more than one file at a time.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

[H] Christmas Presents:

We just wanted to say “Thanks” again to all of you who sent well wishes for the holidays but I also wanted to take this time to share some of the things your fellow [H]’ers gave me for Christmas. First of all, finding a blow-up doll under the Christmas tree is one thing but getting a MALE blow up doll is another thing all together. Also, getting a hand cooler-massager for sweaty palms at the same time you get a blow up doll is also pretty interesting too. Thanks guys, you really outdid yourselves this time. I’m touched...I think. Did you get something weirder than this for Christmas? Let me know.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

OCLabs B3 PlexyBlock @ PCModdingmy - Thermalright SI-97 Heatsink @ OCIA - Zalman VF700-AlCu GPU HSF @ Adrian's Rojak Pot

Etc.:

LiteOn SOHW-1633S 16x DVD Writer @ VelocityReviews - Sunbeam Lighting Accessories @ Overclock Intelligence Agency - Logisys Computer Pitbull 500W PSU @ Big Bruiin

Cases & Modding:

Lian-Li PC-V1000 Case @ Viper Lair - Sunbeam Samurai Case Review @ XYZ Computing - SilverStone Lascala 10M HTPC Case @ Overclocker Café

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

AMD Radio Ads Banned?

According to X-Bit Labs, Holland has asked AMD to pull ads touting AMD’s Enhanced Virus Protection claiming that it is misleading. I find it odd that, according to this article, the commission did not have any complaints against Internet, television, print-magazine ads...just the radio ads.

The organization that regulates advertising in Holland recently asked chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices to stop at least some of its radio ads aimed to promote AMD’s Enhanced Virus Protection (EVP) capabilities. The association said one or all of the EVP radio clips were misleading, as the technology did not substitute the real antivirus software.

Sub $500 Mac?

Think Secret says they have info on a new Mac, codenamed Q88, that will retail for less than $500 without a monitor. The 1.25GHz specs are pretty tame, especially considering that the market is full of sub $500 complete systems (with monitor) from the likes of companies like Dell and Gateway.

With iPod-savvy Windows users clearly in its sights, Apple is expected to announce a bare bones, G4-based iMac without a display at Macworld Expo on January 11 that will retail for $499, highly reliable sources have confirmed.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

AMD & Intel Dual Core Update:

Information on dual core systems is getting a bit more solid now days. AMD is telling partners in Taiwan that dual core AMD Athlon 64 processor will launch in Q3'05. As expected, it will follow the same infrastructure as a their single core 939-pin CPUs. While not tested, this tells us that we should be able to simply upgrade a current 939-pin motherboard with a AMD dual core CPU. The first AMD dual core CPUs will utilize a DDR1 memory controller, but will later transition to DDR2. Each core will also have its own L2 cache. As for gamers, AMD admits that this segment of the market will be best served with a maximum frequency, single core solution until 2006. AMD's single and dual core CPUs will coexist in the market throughout 2006.

Intel's first dual core processor, that has yet to be branded, is also currently scheduled to appear in Q3'05 and will possibly come in 2.8GHz, 3GHz, and 3.2GHz speed bins. The Intel 90nm Smithfield cores (think 2X Prescotts), much like the AMD solution, will have a dedicated 1MB L2 cache for each core. The Intel dual core CPUs will debut in a LGA 775 socket configuration and carry a 800MHz bus. A platform transition will take place as a new northbridge chipset will be needed for Intel dual core processor support. The dual core supporting 955X (codenamed Glenwood) and 945G/P (codenamed Lakeport) northbridges should launch in Q2'05 and will both have support for DDR2-667 as well. These new processors will have "EM64T" support as well and are timed to be launched around the arrival of Microsoft’s Windows XP Pro x64.

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

Gigabyte GeForce 6800:

Need a cool and quiet GeForce 6800 for your silent PC project? Check out this Gigabyte GeForce 6800 review at Neoseeker. It doesn’t look like this card is for overclockers though, check out what Neoseeker says:

We weren't surprised to find that the Gigabyte GV-N68128DH has absolutely no overhead which we can use to overclock the core or memory.

Athlon XP HSF Roundup:

The Athlon XP platform is alive and kicking and to prove it, those crazy crustaceans at Mad Shrimps have whipped up another Athlon XP heatsink roundup.

None of the heatsinks tested today are bad and when combined with a high output fan they will give you enough cooling power overhead to experiment with overclocking, without worrying about overheating.

JVC develops BD/DVD:

It looks like JVC has developed a Blu-ray / DVD combo disk. The Blu-ray/ DVD combo disc is a single sided disc with two DVD-ROM layers in the middle and one BD layer on top. These two platters are pasted together like a dual layer DVD disc, with a 0.1 mm cover layer on the BD layer side.

Hoping to ease the transition from DVD to Blu-ray Disc, JVC has developed a Blu-ray/ DVD Combo ROM Disc, containing two DVD layers and one BD layer.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition - Blair's Tech Ed.

MS Antitrust Money Unclaimed:

I can’t believe that almost $1 billion dollars will go unclaimed in the California vs. Microsoft antitrust case. All those people complaining but none of them collecting. Anyone taking bets on how much money doesn’t get claimed?

California companies and consumers who purchased Microsoft PC software may be leaving more than $1 billion on the table as a deadline for filing in a California class action approaches.

Korea #2 Spammers:

Well, we know that the U.S. is the number #1 spammers in the world, but did you know Korea is number #2 with about 13.5% compared to our 42%.

One in seven spam mails worldwide was sent from South Korea this year, according to a security software firm which tracks the online nuisance.

Cool New Nano-lubricant:

Nanotechnology is everywhere…even in your lubricant. Israel has developed NanoLub that outperforms all other lubricants. Before you guys get any bright ideas, this isn’t for “personal” use so you won’t see Slick50 by Vaseline any time soon.

Imagine buying a new car and driving it for 10 years without once taking it for an oil-and-lube job. The engine won't even have a dipstick to check the oil.

Die Spammers, Die!

The Dutch have a great thing going, fining spammers into oblivion. I still say we should shoot the more serious spammers but I guess fining the small spammers is OK for a first offense. Shoot them on the second.

The highest single fine -- euro45,000 (US$61,000) -- went to a person involved with four spam e-mails, including one message praising Hitler's book Mein Kampf that was disguised to appear as if it were sent from a Dutch anti-spam activist.