17th January 2001 Archive

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MS using the old Blue Screen to sell Win2k

'Get rid of that crap OS we sold you'

A two-page Microsoft ad in the 6 February issue of PC Magazine proudly features the classic Win9x & NT blue screen of death bordered by a dotted line and scissors icon, next to a boxed suggestion that one should cut the familiar screen out and save it for old times' sake after upgrading to Win2k Pro. "If you find yourself …

Software 17 Jan 2001, 07:41
Martha ‘Most Overrated Businessperson’ in UK

Shirley there's some miss stake

Martha Lane Fox is Britain's "Most Overrated Businessperson", according to a nation-wide survey of 1000 office workers by Web site business365. The co-founder of bucket travel shop lastminute.com picked up a third of all the votes making her the clear winner. Virgin chief Richard Branson and easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou …

Business 17 Jan 2001, 10:24
RedHotAnt refuses to talk to Trading Standards

Doesn't look good

Directors at RedHotAnt refused to open the door to Trading Standards officials yesterday after the inspectors visited the company in response to complaints about the failed ISP. According to Clive Bainbridge of Kent County Council, only one director was on site. "[And] he wasn't very anxious to talk to us," he said. RHA has …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 10:26
Next-gen iMacs to hit 700MHz

Mac Rumour Roundup And more MacOS X features revealed

No sooner did news of Apple's declaration that the current iMac line has reached the end of its sales life than hints of what the next machines will contain. CD-RW drives, obviously, though MacOS Rumors notes that the entry-level iMac won't contain one. Not a big surprise, that - the basic iMac is primarily aimed at the …

Mac Channel 17 Jan 2001, 11:05
MS and Amazon advertise on Islamic Resistance site

Accidentally back anti-Zionist psychological warfare...

Microsoft and Amazon have been caught advertising on a Hizbollah-backed Web Lebanese Web site. Both companies protest that, er, they didn't know, and have had the advertising pulled. The goofs were reportedly spotted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which noted the ads on the site of Al-Manar Television, which styles itself as …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 11:49
Porn probe at Ford plant

Three workers suspended for unauthorised access to systems

Three workers have been suspended at Ford's largest UK factory on suspicion of downloading porn from the Internet. An investigation has been launched at the car maker's Dagenham plant into what a Ford spokesman would only describe as "the misuse of company systems". The inquiry is expected to last a "few weeks" during which …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 11:55
First Tuesday going for a song

Sums up the market

First Tuesday, the networking organisation which gets dotcoms together with VC cash, is up for sale and could be got for a knock down bargain price of £2 million. It was bought for around $50 million (£36 million) six months ago. Israeli incubator Yazam is pulling out of Europe because it's got itself in some financial …

Business 17 Jan 2001, 11:56
Handspring sales up 630 per cent

PDAs consumers' Christmas favourites

PDA maker Handspring vaulted over Wall Street expectations when it posted its latest quarterly fiscals last night. The company's loss for the three months to 30 December 2000 narrowed to seven cents a share rather better than the 16 cents a share analysts had been anticipating, at least according to First Call's consensus …

Business 17 Jan 2001, 12:03
StepStone sets precedent with hyperlink ban

No, you can't link to our pages

Online job site StepStone has obtained an injunction against German rival OFiR which prevents it from linking to StepStone pages. The injunction was granted thanks to new European database laws that essentially assume data to be copyrightable. StepStone was offended because OFiR was linking to pages within its site and …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 12:24
Infidels deface Iranian presidential site

Script kiddies court possible fatwah

A team of script kiddies have invited a possible fatwah by defacing the Web site of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The site , which normally carries pieces on President Khatami latest weighty pronouncements, was replaced with a smiley face and taunts by the hackers, mOsad and R.S. (infernoZ), that "your security …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 12:30
RIP not a problem thanks to police stupidity

ISPs bothered with daft questions

Well, the RIP Act may be Draconian but we shouldn't worry at the moment because the police haven't got a clue what they're doing. That at least is what representatives of the ISP Association said at a forum in the House of Lords yesterday. It would seem that ISPs are being dogged by stupid questions from police forces, pointing …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 13:22
Ginger in action!

Only click if you have a sense of humour

We've been sent an undercover movie of Ginger in action by Reg reader Dermot O'Connor. Labelled TOP SECRET, Dermot has uncovered the truth behind the standable carpet sweeper. Click on "I want to believe!" and you too can see the incredible technological revolution, patented by Dean Kamen and blinkedly hyped by the press. …

Bootnotes 17 Jan 2001, 13:25
PC industry needs to ‘consolidate or die’

Barking mad?

The PC industry will remain an unattractive investment segment, unless there's some serious consolidation, according to Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff. And boy, does he mean serious consolidation. Among the suggestions contained in his provocative 'manifesto', are that: IBM sells its PC business to Compaq or Dell and cut a …

Business 17 Jan 2001, 13:42
Police to investigate RedHotAnt?

Depends...

Trading Standards officials at Kent County Council are due to meet with police later today to discuss whether to take any action against RedHotAnt. Asked about RHA's rapid demise, a spokesman for Trading Standards said they were "taking the matter very seriously". "We're exploring [with police] whether there is anything we can …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 14:50
Users weep at RedHotAnt's demise

Crocodile tears more like

RedHotAnt has got it customers to write the ISP's obituary, according to farewell messages published on its Web site. Here's what some of RHA's "happy customers" have to say: "You have saved me a great deal of money since last March, and I would be happy to sign up again if any new arrangement you propose isn't too expensive. …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 14:51
Police swoop on more Net child pornographers

Largest ever UK operation - 13 arrested

Police have arrested 13 people in relation to child porn and seized 27 computers in the largest raid seen so far in the UK. The suspected paedophiles were nabbed by the Met following a huge operation involving 13 forces. The material seized is said to be particularly distasteful and the officer in charge - Bob McLachlan of the …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 15:25
MS Whistler copy protection climb down begins – in Germany?

If we do it they might not buy our software - there's a worry...

With Whistler Microsoft plans to introduce a new form of copy protection involving compulsory registration and resulting in 'single use' software. But there are signs of revolt among the troops - at least in Microsoft Germany. In today's edition of the Financial Times Deutschland, Microsoft Germany spokesman Tomas Jensen is …

Software 17 Jan 2001, 15:27
Mobile phone suspected in plane crash inquiry

Ten died in light aircraft disaster

Investigators are exploring the possibility that mobile phone use may have been behind the crash of a light airplane, which killed ten people. An inquiry into the crash of Crossair flight LX 498, which crashed just after take-off from Zurich airport on 10 January last year, is focusing on a link with mobile phones after tests …

Data Networking 17 Jan 2001, 15:29
Mesh hit by dim computer thieves

Move along, nothing to see

Computer thieves hit Mesh Computers last night and swiped its office admin PCs. The break-in was discovered at around 8.00am this morning but the company had replaced and networked the missing kit by 11.00am. "It was bloody inconvenient, but we just had three hours disruption and it had no affect on our business," said …

Business 17 Jan 2001, 15:30
Epox mobo rox

HWRoundup 'A bang-up job'

EPoX, clearly dejected after recent reviews from HardOCP, put together a board even Kyle could love. Quoth Mr. Bennett: "EPoX has done a bang-up job on the 8KTA3. This is the third KT133A board we have had the pleasure of testing, and I have to say it is certainly a board you will want to look at when and if you go to buy …

Hardware Roundup 17 Jan 2001, 15:49
More corporate domain name bullying

This time it's American shopping network QVC

The clean sweep of fat, rich companies in domain name ownership (thanks mostly to WIPO) has given them unjustifiable confidence in their own omnipotence. How else could you explain the fact that American cable company QVC believes it has the right to the URL www.n7qvc.com. Well of course it does! After all, the letters Q, V and …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 16:31
France to tax recordable media

CD-Rs now - hard drives later, maybe

The French government is to slap a levy on recordable digital media to help compensate artists for the potential use of tapes, CD-Rs, Flash cards, recordable DVDs and the like to duplicate their works without permission. France has levied a tax on audio and video tapes for some time. The new tax, which the Government will begin …

Business 17 Jan 2001, 17:17
Maggs departure revives Palm-Symbian prospects

Palm window-shopping again?

Could the Palm/Symbian dream ticket be on? Giga analyst and VP Rob Enderle stoked rumours today that Palm is again shopping for a new operating system, the very day after the company announced that its CTO Bill Maggs was leaving the company. Maggs had emerged as Palm's most prominent opponent of a technology alliance with …

Business 17 Jan 2001, 17:24
Oftel calls summit to discuss LLU apathy

Can't be bothered to attend

The winged watchdog has called an emergency meeting for tomorrow to discuss ongoing problems with the roll-out of local loop unbundling (llu) in Britain. The Oftel meeting follows in the wake of a newspaper report earlier this week that Irish telco, Eircom, was the only outfit to begin operating unbundled services to its …

Data Networking 17 Jan 2001, 17:26
Internet baby-buy saga goes on

Get your babies here! Two for the price of one!

The incredible story of the twin baby girls advertised over the Internet, nabbed and driven across America and then finally brought to the UK (with their third set of parents) is still going on. For those of you that haven't heard the tale: two baby girls were put up for adoption by their natural mother and advertised on the …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 17:30
Warning issued over Windows Media Player 7 bug

Exploit that gets under the skin

Veteran bug hunter Georgi Guninski has identified a potentially serious security vulnerability affecting Microsoft Windows Media Player 7 "skins", which control the look and feel of the application. The bug is said by Guninski to allow hackers to read "local files and browsing directories which in turn allows executing …

Software 17 Jan 2001, 17:34
How the hell does the Govt meet all its cybertargets?

Stuff and nonsense

The Cabinet Office has been heartily slapping itself on the back for not only meeting targets for e-government but surpassing them. Now, 40 per cent of all government services are online - set to rise to 75 per cent by next year. And the Office for National Statistics says that one in five adults with Internet access use it to …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 17:59
P4 volumes to ramp up Q3 2001 – Intel

All according to plan

Intel doesn't expect Pentium 4 take off until the second half of the year, the company said yesterday. The reason? Chipzilla will get its Brookdale chipset finished off in Q3. Brookdale supports SDRAM rather than Rambus' pricey RDRAM - it's roughly four times the price of SDRAM. So Brookdale systems won't cost as much as …

Channel 17 Jan 2001, 18:14
What Whistler looks like

Strangely familiar....

A reader directed us to a large gallery of Whistler (Beta 2?) build 2410 screen shots at the Savage News Web site. While the basic Win9x interface remains, we detect an effort to manipulate graphical details so that the desktop more strongly resembles the Microsoft Web site. This subtle change may reflect hopes that visual …

Software 17 Jan 2001, 18:15
Mobile phones: now it's eye cancer

What next - tongue lesions?

Prolonged mobile phone use can make you go blind, a German report claims. Researchers at Essen University took a group of 118 patients already suffering from uveal melanoma, cancer in the iris or base of the retina of the eye, and investigated their mobile phone use history. They compared the results against a control group of …

Data Networking 17 Jan 2001, 18:16
‘Mad’ Maggs to quit Palm

Calling all CTOs

The ever-entertaining Bill Maggs is to quit Palm Computing, leaving the company in search of a new Chief Technology Officer. Maggs had spent less than a year in the hot seat. CNet cites an internal email from Palm CEO Carl Yankowski informing staff that Maggs is resigning to "pursue outside opportunities related to the next …

Software 17 Jan 2001, 18:16
Redhat worm touts instant noodles

What real hackers live on

An Internet worm cobbled together from pre-existing scripts is spreading rapidly through Redhat Linux systems, leaving in its wake a trail of defaced Web pages touting the virtues of instant Oriental noodles. The so-called 'Ramen' worm is a bulky, but effective, collection of hacking tools rolled up into a package. A modified …

Music and Media 17 Jan 2001, 22:06