Content and news by Rob Williams

Novell today announced that its SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10, the next-generation platform for the open enterprise made available just 10 days ago, has experienced a substantial worldwide reception in the market and from the media.

165,000 people! It’s true, Enterprise is looking to be far better than openSuSE by a landslide. You can expect our full look in the coming weeks. You can read the full press release also, right here.

Mozilla Corp. on Thursday gave users a first look at the next version of its Thunderbird e-mail client by releasing an alpha of v. 2.0. Thunderbird 2.0 Alpha 1, which can be downloaded in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X editions, is suitable for developers only, Mozilla said on its Web site, although there are no actual barriers that block others from trying the software.

Alpha only means one thing… that you do not want to try using it as your primary client. However, if you are impatient and do want to give it a shot, you can grab it here.

Microsoft plans next week to charge a nominal fee for Office 2007 Beta 2 downloads, in a move that runs counter to the practice held by most software companies. Consumers who download the 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2 will be charged $1.50 per download, beginning next Wednesday at 6 p.m. PDT, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

Is this a cheap way to earn extra cash before final release, or a way to pay for all the money they lost on bandwidth during Vista Beta 2 season. Obviously, Office Beta 2 is not going to skyrocket like Vista… but charging people to test your software just seems wrong.

While specifying instrumentation tag names on a flow drawing my attention is turned towards the haze building up on the other side of the engineering area. I started hearing some distant prattle about “fire”, “hmmm… what could this possibly be?” I think to myself. Upon further investigation I’ve come to the conclusion that someone’s Dell laptop just freakin blew up and started a cozy little desktop fire!!!

This is absolutely incredible. It didn’t only affect the laptop, but the desk and a computer monitor. Hopefully Dell will be footing the bill to clean that mess up…

I read over and over about how we haven’t actually added any new features to Media Center this time around and that there is no compelling reason to upgrade from Media Center 2005. Puzzled by this I decided to pull together a list of what’s changed (not an exhaustive list by any means, we still have a few key features hidden up our sleaves).

This couldn’t be any more clear. A few features are rather minor, but there are some notable ones, such as “New start menu to get you to where you want to be faster”.

Codenamed Santa Rosa, the Rev. F Opterons will include the company’s Pacifica virtualization and Presidio security technologies. Santa Rosa will also bring support for DDR2 to the Opteron lineup for the first time as well. Aside from that, Santa Rosa marks a gradual evolution in the company’s server lineup.

The question of whether these will be favoured by enthusiasts as the 939 versions were is yet to be seen. Regardless, Opterons have proved to be a great asset to AMD, so I can’t wait until we see how these ones deliver.

During the recent Senate hearings on video game violence, one expert claimed that the ESRB underrated violent games. They went on to say that Pacman was 64% violent. To some, this means you shouldn’t play Pacman; to others, it highlights what’s wrong with Senate hearings. Whether a game is violent or not depends on how you classify violence, and the ESRB has the job of doing just that. They’re not regulated by the government, they let the game makers recommend their own ratings, and don’t play every game they rate. Is the ESRB to be trusted?

Wow. After reading this, you may just go sit down with your family and explain to them the horrible things that may spawn from playing such a profane game.

Lacking from the list of Core 2 Duo SLI system manufacturers is Dell, which hasn’t officially announced Core 2 Duo XPS systems yet. Since Intel’s 975X Express chipset is only compatible with ATI’s CrossFire dual graphics card configuration, Intel users seeking Core 2 Duo and SLI compatibility are forced to use NVIDIA chipsets. NVIDIA offers a variety of Core 2 Duo compatible SLI chipsets including the nForce 4 SLI X16 and nForce 590 SLI chipsets.

It’s good to see some selection on Intels now, and there is a ton of support so that’s a good sign.

Intel’s Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors were announced two weeks ago with much fanfare from the hardware editors and the enthusiast community. Intel had brought a great-performing chip to the market that was faster than every processor currently available and was much cooler than its Pentium-D predecessor. Today, there were a slew of new desktops and workstation announced that use Intel’s new Core 2 processors for desktops.

If you have cash to burn and don’t mind buying a pre-built system, then there are a few good ones to choose from. In terms of looks, Dell seems to have a winner here, while Alienwares offering looks like something that was caught in a ugly warpspeed.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 27, 2006 – Intel Corporation today unveiled 10 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo and Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processors for consumer and business desktop and laptop PCs and workstations, reshaping how computers perform, look and consume power—and most importantly—transform how people use them.

You can read the full press release here.

Cooling
• OCZ Tempest – FrostyTech
• SilverStone NT04 Cooler – 3D Gameman

Memory & Storage
• Corsair TwinX2048-4400Pro – techFEAR

Motherboards & Processors
• ntel Core 2 Duo E6300 & E6400 – AnandTech
• Foxconn C51XEM2AA 590 – Technic3D
• Foxconn C51XEM2AA 590 – Virtual-Hideout
• Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 –

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Cooler Master eXtreme Power 650W – Modders-Inc
• Silverstone Zeus ST56ZF – Cooling-Station

Displays & Video Cards
• Sapphire Radeon X1900 GT – HotHardware

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• Bart – The UV Head Step Child (Build your own Robot!) – Gideon Tech
• Microsoft Zune, AMD Buys ATI, and Other Fun News – Digital Trends
• NZXT Apollo Giveaway – Overclocker Cafe
• Voice Buddy 3.0 – GameApex
• Wolf Claw Devour and ZBoard Fang Gaming Boards Competition – XS Reviews

With C2D and AM2 out, many are looking for the right DDR2 kit to choose. If you are on a budget, then you will want to check out the Mushkin EM6400, which retail for around $200. Though they are surrounded with a ‘value’ cloak, they deliver surprising overclock-ability.

Presence-pc at reports that France Telecom just announced they are offering 2.5 Gb/s Internet connections to select cities in the Paris region. For … $85(70 Euros) a month you also get free phone and TV. From the article (in French): ‘The historical operator opted for a GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) FTTH architecture (Fiber To The Home). This technology allows up to 2.5 Gbits/s download and 1.2 Gigabits/s upload.

Umm… wow. This is seriously incredible. If only we could get something like that on these shores…

Under the terms of the deal, Kazaa owner Sharman Networks will pay the world’s four major music companies–Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group and Warner Music–more than $100 million and commit to immediately going legal, the international recording industry organization IFPI said.

Whoa… people still use Kazaa? That’s a lot of money, and it’s going to be interesting to see how they plan to go legal and survive. Many have tried, but few actually gain any real popularity.

We were all beginners once, but it’s easy for experts to forget how much they didn’t know at the outset of their journey. So, even as Tom’s Hardware Guide constantly publishes motherboard comparisons, it’s easy to forget that many newcomers lack the requisite knowledge to take advantage of the advice we give.

This can be of benefit to those who consider themselves experienced.. like a little refresher! The article not only explains various features on a motherboard, but notes what you should look out for… such as layout.

From the pictures, you can plainly see the new model will be called the Nikon D80, not the D90 as some speculated. There are a few extra buttons on the camera, such as a physical self timer, IR remote button, an autofocus button, and it looks like the D80 uses SD flash memory cards instead of the CompactFlash cards used on its predecessor.

If you’ve been looking for a reason to chuck your ‘old’ D70, this may be it. The new model has a much larger LCD, which could prove useful to some.

If you are a Firefox user, you should have already been prompted to upgrade. If not, go and grab the latest version. This is primarily a bug fix release, and these were squashed:

• chrome: scheme loading remote content
• Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.0.5)
• XSS with XPCNativeWrapper(window).Function(…)
• UniversalBrowserRead privilege escalation
• PAC privilege escalation using Function.prototype.call
• Privilege escalation using named-functions and redefined “new Object()”
• JavaScript engine vulnerabilities
• JavaScript new Function race condition
• Native DOM methods can be hijacked across domains
• Memory corruption with simultaneous events
• Javascript navigator Object Vulnerability
• Code execution through deleted frame reference

The mod that I’m about to show you is again somewhat different from the mainstream. For some reason I seem to like to work with computer mice and try to come up with different ways on making them… well, different. Combining unusual items together can produce very interesting results and hopefully you will find this little project of mine worth a read.

Japala has done it again… this is one sweet mod. He gives a pretty good idea of how everything was done, in case you want to start a similar project.

The MMCplus flash memory cards are based on Samsung’s 8Gb NAND flash memory that will alow it to hold up to 8GB of data on a single flash card. The 8GB version, along with the 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB cards, will be based on multi-level cell NAND flash.

There’s no word on pricing yet, sadly, but the 40MB/s read is sure a welcomed feature.

Orlando, Fl – Freescale Technology Forum – July 26th, 2006 – Futuremark Corporation, a leading provider of system performance-analysis software and services for PCs, smartphones and other handheld devices, announced today that Freescale Semiconductor is joining its handheld benchmark development program.

You can read the full press release here.