Content and news by Rob Williams

“Csaba Richter, a 26-year-old IT consultant, pleaded guilty to accessing sensitive documents on Ericsson’s intranet. If the case had gone to trial he stood to go to jail for up to six years on charges of “industrial espionage and illegal use of secret information”.”

Ouch.. three years. Better than six years, I suppose. Check it out at The Register.

“Sun Micro President Jonathan Schwartz attacked the GPL at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco yesterday.Other than the same old arguments (you can’t make it proprietary later) he adds that it imposes on developing nations “a rather predatory obligation to disgorge all their IP back to the wealthiest nation in the world” — but fails to mention that the converse is also true: the wealthiest nation in the world is similarly, under the GPL, forced to “disgorge all its IP back to the developing nations” as well. Duh!”

*shrug* Check it out at Slashdot.

“Microsoft will next week discontinue a feature that allows organisations to block the downloading of its Service Pack 2 (SP2) security update for Windows XP.”

Now they assume that SP2 is good enough to be used on computers in larger companies. Oh what fun this could bring. Check it out at VNUNet.

“Designed for quiet PCs, the new Scythe Shogun features the unique Heatlane technology and a speed-adjustable 12cm fan. This design gives you leading-edge cooling performance, without the noise. This is an ideal solution for those who wish to enjoy the silence of a water cooling system but cannot afford one!”

Check out the review at Rojak Pot.

“Aigo’s P880 is pitched at the iPod Photo, matching the latter’s picture and music playback facilities, and throwing in a heap of other features for good measure. The P880 is certainly an improvement on Aigo’s other hard drive-based player, the more standard-iPod oriented P750. It’s better looking, sports a funkier user interface and, like the Photo, boasts a colour display – in spite of which, it still manages to offer a better battery life than its stablemate.”

Check out the full review at The Register.

“If you are looking for a quiet PC, it doesn’t help if your hard disk cooler is noisy. AC Ryan takes a different approach with their new XTOR Tanky hard disk cooler by making it from a massive block of aluminium! This allows the XTOR Tanky to passively cool your hard disk!”

Check out the read at Rojak Pot.

“A survey of Register readers, carried out by analysts Quocirca, reveals you love Linux on the desktop, but you love Windows XP too.

Almost half the companies surveyed had deployed Linux on the desktop to some extent, with 43 per cent having at least some fully deployed Linux desktops. Another 24 per cent are experimenting with Linux, leaving 33 per cent using only Microsoft operating systems.”

There’s no doubt that Linux popularity is growing.. and that’s awesome. Check out the very interesting report over at The Register.

“There’s good news about phishing: The growth of new attacks has slowed. But that’s only because attackers are building more sophisticated traps and using advanced technology to perpetrate online fraud, researchers say.”

Not good at all. It’s good that some are legally taking action against this.. but people keep finding new ways to exploit phising.. even now in IM. Check out the read at Comment (0) -->

“HEXUS has learned that we are close to seeing the first ‘multi-threaded’ benchmark available for consumers. This will enable consumers to see performance of a threaded gaming environment. This benchmark, commissioned by Intel, will be called Mechanoids. It is based on a series of droids moving around the screen which stresses the system in different ways. “

Check out the posting at Hexus.

NGOHQ have released some tweaked sound drivers.

MusicDVD Edition:
* Based on the Creative Audigy 2/ZS Beta Driver v5.12.2.1042
* Optimized for Music and DVD Playback.
* EAX may not function correctly for SB Live! Cards.
* Recommended for Creative Audigy I cards.

Gamer Edition:
* Based on the Creative Audigy Driver v5.12.1.383
* Optimized for Gaming and EAX.
* Recommended for Creative SB Live! cards.”

Check them out at NGOHQ.

“The ability to hear is one of the greatest things we have. In addition to being the primary indicator of approaching danger, we use our hearing to enjoy all forms entertainment. Unfortunately, our hearing is one of the most sensitive and delicate components of our body. This is why proper hearing protection during long exposure to a noisy environment is very important. But hearing protection usually means high priced musician earplugs that the average Joe cannot afford, or cheap foam earplugs that muffle sound  until now. EarLoves are high fidelity earplugs at an affordable price. Just how well do they perform? Read on and find out.”

Check out the review at A True Review.

“Multi-colored cathodes are nothing new; they’ve been around for years. However Logisys’ approach is quite different. They opted to fit two separate, entirely independent bulbs inside one tube. The white one is blue, the black is UV. There are three wires coming out of the tube: one positive for each bulb and a ground. Also in typical Logisys fashion, the tips of the bulb make use of square end-blocks. These are ideal for mounting anywhere in a case.”

Check it out at MikhailTech.

“RAID undoubtedly offers more data protection than non-RAID disk systems. However, the management of the disks and the data distribution across them can be complex. Complex redundant systems can suffer failure, most often not a fault of the technology used or the design of the array, but most likely because of its failure to correctly apply these systems which leads to a single point of failure causing disastrous data loss.”

Check out the article at Viper Lair.

“There’s a new player in town though, and nVIDIA’s core logic chipset for the Intel Pentium 4 platform is the ‘Crush 19’ nVIDIA nForce4-SLI Intel Edition. In this exclusive review, PCSTATS is benchmarking Gigabyte’s initial offering, the regally named GA-8N-SLI Royal motherboard. Like AMD-based NF4-SLi boards, this motherboard sports dual PCI Express x16 slots which can be used singly or together with SLi-compatible nVidia graphics cards. The Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Royal motherboard has all the makings of a great motherboard – SLI for the Intel Pentium4 processor has arrived!”

Check it out at PC Stats.

“XGbox provides a nice set of simple mods in the Mod Kit for anyone looking to improve the appearance of their case. Though there is certainly more out there in the realm of modding, the Mod Kit provides a decent start.”

Check it out at InsaneTek.

“Those who go to LAN parties with pimped out systems now have an extra piece of hardware to show off–the keyboard. What we have today is an LED keyboard from Sansun. The keyboard has built in blue LED’s that glow when the system is turned on.”

Check it out at InsaneTek.

“A-Top Technology has recently released the Gladiator. The A-Top Gladiator is designed to be the “gamer’s dream machine” with its car paint like finish, brushed aluminum front panel door, and tool-less features. In this review, we’ll be trying out this case for ourselves as we see if the Gladiator is really a dream come true for gamers.”

Check it out at Phoronix.

“Is SLI worth the money? Yes, definitely, if you have a bottom-less pocket. The performance increase from going to SLI on 6600GT PCI-E is anywhere from 20% to 64%, depending on the resolution and benchmark/game.”

Check it out at Overclockers New Zealand.

“Well we have a new case gallery! We want to get some good cases in there so we are giving the first 50 people to submit a case a free Gmail account! It’s as easy as that! So Jump in the Case Gallery and submit your case!!”

Check it at at Think Computers. The new design looks great!

“This external all aluminum enclosure fits a standard SATA HDD up to a whopping 400GB, is available in 2 different colors (black/silver), & is stackable. This is not a USB2 product but rather gets connected to a SATA connection; resulting in speeds up to 3x faster than USB2. It looks great, is affordable & fast. Fantastic backup option! Watch the Video to find out more…”

Check it out at 3D Gameman.