Content and news by Rob Williams

“Sony has banned more than 700 EverQuest II accounts in the past two weeks, in response to cheating and exploitative practices. The company found many accounts using bots and macros to gain unfair advantages over other players. Sony will continue to ban such accounts going forward.” Wow, that’s definitely nice to see. Comment (0) -->

“Having a home network and traveling with a laptop, cables are an important part of everything I do. The hardware only takes up space without good cables. So when the LAN Ranger cable arrived I was thrilled to see the UV reactivity and blue LED ends. The LAN Ranger cable comes in a retail package with good specifications listed on it. These cables are rated at Cat 6 – Gigabit network, compatible with T100/10 networks, with a length of 3m (9.8 Ft).”

Check out the review at CaseModGod.

“You’ve seen the raw figures behind Quocirca’s look at why companies choose Windows over Linux or vice versa. Now, you’re ready for the rationale – the real decision-making meat and potatoes that push a company toward or away from Linux.

Quocirca, working off responses from thousands of Register readers, discovered a couple things you might already suspect. Companies often consider moving away from Microsoft’s Windows operating systems because of security concerns, issues with Windows stability and complex licensing agreements.”

Check out the read at The Register.

“We know that Dell is getting some of these cards and selling them in its high end systems but all other players are lacking them. Still it should not be as bad as it was with X800 XT Platinum edition. You should be able to get them for a hefty price from at least e-tailers. It’s not that rare but you can not get big quantities of it.”

Check out the posting at The Inquirer.

“The newest version of MSN Messenger instant messaging product, released late Wednesday, allows consumers to download free backgrounds, pictures and other content tied to specific ad campaigns. The hope is that users will then share those downloads with other consumers — providing another boost to advertisers, who pay Microsoft for the privilege.”

You can read up on the features of the new MSN Messenger here, and check out the news posting at Yahoo.

” It’s no secret that gamers, who try to keep up with the ever increasing requirements to system resources, make up a significant share of people buying hardware for desktop PCs. That’s why it’s not surprising that Abit decided to sign a contract with a famous figure in the world of virtual sport, namely Johnathan (Fatal1ty) Wendel. This alliance has yielded fruit — a series of computer hardware under the title Abit Fatal1ty, which should draw gamers’ attention to Abit products. In fact, there have appeared only motherboards with the nick of this famous gamer so far. The first such model is Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE.”

Check out the review at Digit-Life. They have hi-res images of the board as well.

“There isn’t much difference between the X850XT PE and the X850XT. They both use the same GPU and the memory on them is the same. The biggest difference is the slight slower GPU and memory speeds as well as being less overclockable.”

Check out the review at Bjorn3D.

“For anyone who might read the more high-brow broadsheet newspapers, there’s been an interesting wrangle going on that concerns us gamers. Eidos, that UK publishing house that brought us Lara Croft’s undisputed assets to delight our joysticks as well as big games such as the Thief series, Championship Manager and the soon to be released Lego: Star Wars, have been in a take over battle for the last two weeks following their announcement earlier this year of an operating loss of £29.2 million up to the end of 2004.”

Check out the read at Hexus.

“Online search-engine leader Google has unveiled a new feature enabling users to zoom in on homes and businesses using satellite images, an advance that may raise privacy concerns as well as intensify the competitive pressures on its rivals.”

What an insanely cool tool. Very scary when you can zoom in and see where you live, or have been. Check out the news at Denver Post.

“MICROSOFT’S Jason Matusow, director of the company’s Shared Source initiative bravely went where no Vole has gone before yesterday — an Open Source Business Conference.

You have to admire such bravery. He must have known it was going to be tough, in the same way that the handful of soldiers at Rourke’s Drift knew that dealing with the rampaging Zulu nation was going to be a bit tricky. According to Infoworld, here, he does not seem to have done too badly and managed to be heard over the sound of knives being sharpened.”

Haha.. check it at The Inquirer.

“The Google Search Appliance, on the market for more than three years, now searches up to 500,000 documents for $30,000, with two years of support. Previously, it searched up to 150,000 documents for $32,000.”

For larger companies who use this, it’s a huge value gain. Read more information over at Information Week.

“Every month more than 155 million users log in to the MSN Messenger service.

New “theme packs” in MSN Messenger 7.0, which include backgrounds, emotions, dynamic display pictures and Winks, will now provide marketers with more opportunities to position their brands on MSN.

Advertisers including Sprite and Adidas have signed up to deliver theme packs with the service.”

Viva la Trillian. It’s one thing to enjoy a pop.. but to have it skin your Messanger? Check out the posting at Computer Weekly.

“The Fatal1ty AN8 has 1 PCI-Express x16 slot, 2 PCI-Express x1 slots, 3 PCI slots, and an audio riser card slot. The audio riser card slot is located to the left of the rear panel assembly. Just below the 2 PCI-Express x1 slots are the NBFAN1 header and the nForce4 Ultra chipset. Notice that the chipset itself is actively cooled with a good-sized copper HSF unit. The AUXFAN1 header is located just above the PCI-Express x1 slots.”

I wonder if we will see an SLi version of the board in the future. Check out the review at Hard|OCP.

“Although there are endless varieties of NVIDIA overclocking utilities for use in Microsoft Windows, when using Linux, it’s a bit of a different story. In this article, we’ll share our NVIDIA Linux overclocking successes and failures as we load LinuxHardware’s NVClock on a Prolink 5900XT, Gigabyte 6600GT, Leadtek 6600GT, and even a Riva TNT2.”

Check it out at Phoronix. I’m waiting to just get my 9800 Pro to work in Linux :(

“With so many colors available to each, it can sometimes be hard to decide what color to order for a particular project. Sunbeam has harnessed the cost effectiveness and small size of LEDs to bring a product to you that is both bright and flexible. No matter the case or idea, the concept behind the Chameleon allows you to “dial in” the right amount of each color to fill your case. Change it to fit your case, change it to fit your mood, turn it off all together. Whatever your wish, Sunbeam designed the Chameleon to fulfill your wishes.”

Check out the full review at Think Computers.

“With a choice of versions for all AMD Athlon & Intel Pentium 4 processors Titan have certainly covered all the bases with this Siberia heatsinks range. Our only gripe as such is the Siberia colour. Unlike the Vanessa S-Type review we reviewed earlier which is a snappy bright metallic blue colour this Titan Siberia is a rather matt blue colour. Maybe it is just our eyes.”

Check out the review over at A1 Electronics.

“Laser pointers, there is just something about them that peaks our interest.
Officially, they are used in presentations, business or otherwise, for
drawing attention to certain things. There is only so much you can do with
an inferior red laser pointer that is found in any electronic or corner
drug store. Sure, when you first get it, it’s exciting. You use it for a
few days, but once the nostalgia of holding a laser wears off, it ends up
in a drawer somewhere never to be seen again.

A much better alternative to the average boring red laser pointer exists;
introducing the Bigha Jasper green laser. Just how and why is the Jasper
better than the average laser pointer? What can you do with it? Read on and
find out.”

Check out the review at A True Review.

Today, MikhailTech announces a new contest. This time, you have a chance to win a prize pac from XTrac.

Check it out at MikhailTech.

Who like’s driving around in their car blowing up everything in their path? The folks at NetDevil of course! They’ve put all that excitement into their upcoming MMOG, Auto Assault. We ask the questions, so you don’t have to, so check it out!

“The Secunia security company has announced the discovery of a vulnerability in the Mozilla suite and in Mozilla Firefox. If a hacker exploits this vulnerability, he is able to obtain private information stored in the computer or typed in the browser. This time we are not dealing with a phishing attack, which are
so common these days, but with the hacking of memory systems, the result being the unauthorized access to stored information.”

I am sure we will see a patch for this in the days to come. You can test your Java vulnerabilities at Secunia, and read the posting at SoftPedia.