Content and news by Rob Williams

It appears as though DDR2 memory is becoming more and more mainstream. It also appears OCZ, with its EB Platinum Edition, is serious about staking the claim of performance in this arena. With CL timings that you would be hard pressed to match, especially at PC2-5400 speeds, looks like the stake is driven deep.

Looks like some solid memory, and great timings! Check out the full review over at Viper Lair.

SilverStone has been focusing a lot on HTPC cases and their Lascala LC13 is a great choice. The style is sleek and will blend into a home theatre setup without a problem.

SilverStone makes some clean looking cases, and this is no exception. Check it out at InsaneTek.

For years, university administrators have faced a growing challenge: fighting copyright infringement on campus networks. Confronting this challenge has not been easy and neither has choosing the right tool for the job. Universities that choose to take on this task have employed a range of strategies, from education in the residence halls, to increased enforcement of network use policies, to cooperating with the recording industry in its controversial litigation campaign against peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharers. Others have chosen to resist these tactics and stand with their students in motions to quash record industry subpoenas for student identities. Others are looking at adopting a different strategy: implementing technical solutions such as Audible Magic, Packeteer, or ICARUS. Some combine aspects of all the above.

As always, it’s a very interesting, and long read. You can read it all at the EFF.

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, said on Friday it was interested in offering an online music subscription service, sending shares of online music rivals lower on Friday.

Microsoft, which launched its MSN Music download service last year to rival Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes, said on Friday that “offering a subscription service was an important step in helping people find and discover great music online.”

People have to realize that people are not likely just leave established online music stores to go to a Microsoft based one. But, we’ll see how well they do. Read about it Reuters.

Greetings from the Central Wastelands! We are proud to announce that earlier this week we were presented with Yahoo’s “Best MMO of E3” award. The full story is available on the Yahoo! Games site at http://gamesdomain.yahoo.com/feature/118658 and we’ve added it to the Auto Assault at E3 page on our own site, http://www.autoassault.com/e3_2005.html, Comment (0) -->

This Hard Drive enclosure fits any standard 3.5″ parallel or serial ATA Hard Drive. It’s all aluminum, internally lined with copper, & installs in a 5.25″ drive bay. The inside also has noise dampening foam which reduces Hard Drive noise dramatically. This is an excellent product for those wanting to keep their systems as quiet as possible. Watch the Video to find out more…

You can check out the full video review here. It certainly cuts down on HDD noise, so that’s a plus.

Thermaltake’s passive Sonic Tower was not only great because it was fanless, it’s one of the best coolers available today in terms of performance. Can the Schooner do the same for GPU cooling? Perhaps.

Very interesting to see the heatsink hang out of the back of your case. May not be that safe to use if you had kids around. Check out the full review over at InsaneTek.

Seagate this week hinted at several new storage breakthroughs, including hard drives for the automotive market, a 2.5-inch drive for DVRs and game consoles, and an 8-GB drive for portable media players.

Seagate also said that it will debut later this year a 2.5-inch drive that will use perpendicular-recording technology, a relatively new storage technique that relies on placing data at the edge of a disk.

Sheesh, that’s a LOT of hard drive space. That’s great, but how about some more battery life please? Still, that’s serious space. Check out the full story at CIO-Today.

A Windows e-mail virus is trying to ensnare victims by claiming that Michael Jackson has attempted suicide, say computer security firms. The message hopes to catch people’s attention because of the huge interest in the on-going child abuse trial.

The fake message contains a web link that supposedly links to Mr Jackson’s suicide note. But anyone clicking on the link will have their PC invaded by a virus that gives others access to that machine.

Yeah.. people actually care enough to click the link? Read about it here.

Seven security bulletins and fixes apply to the Windows operating system, and at least one of those is deemed “critical,” Microsoft’s highest risk rating, the company said in a notice posted to its Web site on Thursday. The Exchange e-mail server will get one bulletin, rated “important,” the company said.

Get ready for Tuesday, then your computer will be THAT much more secure ;) Check out the full story here.

The product up for review today is the NU 17″ 8ms response LCD Monitor. This Monitor delivers performance that could be advantageous to gamers with a response time of only 8ms; also the price tag is a very affordable $230. Other features include built in stereo speakers, low power consumption and 1280×1024 maximum resolution.

Not a bad looking monitor at all! Check it out at 3DXtreme.

It is with great pride that HEXUS.net announces the launch of the new HEXUS.gaming channel; a site dedicated to all things gaming, from hardware and software to interviews and screenshots.

Despite the segregation into its own channel, HEXUS.gaming still has close ties with HEXUS.core. After all, you’ll want to know what hardware is up to running the games we review, won’t you? Gaming has even had an influence on DV editing, with editing programs like Tenomichi 3D Edit, (as reviewed by DVdoctor), using the same DirectX 9 acceleration for effects as the latest PC games! We can safely say that gaming has earned its own HEXUS.channel.

The site looks like it’s already off to a great start. Love the color scheme especially. Check it out at Hexus.gaming.

Are you in need of more connectivity in your PC? Logisys recently released a new media panel which attempts to give us the connectivity we are looking for, and more. See how it made out in our review.

According to the latest Catalyst 5.6 OpenGL Driver, it seems ATI has added support for a Radeon X850 SE.

In other news, Ferrari next week is going to unveil their 150BHP Hatchback. It seems as though in the new driver, a X850SE is included. Very, very interesting, but odd none the less. Source: NGOHQ.

From the side you can clearly see this is a twin fan setup with a push pull setup, most of these tower type coolers are made for this, but Ultra decided (yet again a first from my experience) to ship their cooler with both. Although the front has a built in sensor the rear doesn’t, but 2 fans working in a push pull layout like this should work well. You may also notice the coolers fan casing is finished in titanium, very much like Ultras power supply we see a while back.

A cooler called “Fire” is funny, but how well does it keep your CPU cool? Check out the full review at Xtreme Computing.

The NGO nVidia Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the nVidia Forceware driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with a better performance and better image quality. The Driver has support for all Geforce cards.

If you love testing out unofficial drivers, definitely check out these ones at NGOHQ.

Having a computer configured to be the ultimate gaming system with all the latest and greatest hardware could easily cost several thousand dollars. Guess what? Within a few months, all of those cutting edge components will be old news, and a whole new batch of products will be available with even greater performance. But, if you are like most consumers, you have a budget and picking components that provide decent performance is possible without mortgaging the house.

If you want to know what you should have as a gamer, Big Bruin has the answers. They go through everything, from Sound Systems to peripherals. Check it out!

Today we are going to be looking at a cool little product that can help you type better, and more comfortably on your laptop. For some this product may seem strange or weird, but for people with laptops it may be something of interest for you. Lapworks, has come up with an interesting product that is missing from a lot of laptop/notebook computers, a way to elevate the rear of your computer for more comfortable use. Most laptops today come with folding legs, but there are some that do not, for those there are Lapworks Laptop Legs! I would like to thank Lapworks for the chance to review their product, Laptop Legs. So, now let’s take a look at the Lapworks Laptop Legs.

I would be more concerned with an improvement in cooling, rather than elevation, so I may consider a pair of these. Check out the full review over at Think Computers.

For months now at Phoronix we have been ranting about poor ATI Linux performance, as they simply haven’t offered comparable drivers to that of NVIDIA’s. However, today we may finally be able to change our stance regarding ATI’s fglrx drivers, as they have released an all-new driver set (8.14.13) in addition to their monthly Windows Catalyst (5.6) release. Among other things, these new Linux drivers contain a much-improved installer.

Better ATI Linux drivers? About damn time! Seriously, Nvidia has always been pretty decent, so there is no reason why ATI wouldn’t be. Check out the full article over at Phoronix.

Although the outlook for dual-core processors in affordable laptops appears to be gloom for the time being, as they are fairly expensive, produce a good amount of heat, and consume a hefty amount of power, dual CPUs on the other hand may offer a different fate. In this article, we’ll be exploring the possibility for two processors appearing in consumer-grade affordable laptops before you know it!

Interesting concept for sure. But two CPU’s would mean more heat.. so one would figure. Check out the article at Phoronix.