The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

23rd February 2001 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Microsoft ducks DOJ by ditching Corel stake?

    .MAYBENOT

    Microsoft has given itself the option of ditching its 24 per cent stake in Corel, eight days after it confirmed the deal was part of a new investigation by the Antitrust Department of the US Department of Justice. If it converts the new shares, Corel keeps the cash that Microsoft paid for the shares in October, but Microsoft …

    Software 23 Feb 2001, 07:51

  • America sneezes, Sun catches cold

    Capital downturn

    Sun Microsystems is slashing Q3 sales forecasts - and it's all the US economy's fault. The company projects sales growth at 10-13 per cent, compared with previous forecasts of 30 per cent, and profits of 7-9 cents a share, against the previous analyst consensus of 15 cents for the quarter. In a conference call, COO Ed Zander …

    Business 23 Feb 2001, 08:39

  • Itanic locked Inattic for IDF

    'Hideously ugly' baby makes all the other children cry

    Next week's a big week for Intel: it's when we finally reveal the winners of our Gelsinger Coefficient challenge. Meanwhile, down in San Jose, Chipzilla will be hosting its biannual Intel Developer Forum. We were surprised to read reports yesterday that IDF would be a kind of coming-out party for IA-64. A month ago Intel told …

    Channel 23 Feb 2001, 10:33

  • Will Phoenix keep your disks and OS CPRM-free?

    Mr Hedrick has a plan

    The Phoenix Technologies proposal before the T.13 committee, which may pave the way to copy restrictions for users, shouldn't be seen as the son of CPRM, argues Linux ATA/IDE guy Andre Hedrick. Although the proposal - which has not yet been published outside the open meeting - does not specifically prevent any command sets such …

    Software 23 Feb 2001, 10:40

  • Chip industry faces almost zero growth in 2001

    Sales to rise no more than 1.2 per cent - analyst

    The global chip industry's rapid expansion isn't merely slowing down - it will practically grind to a halt this year, a US market research company has predicted. Industry players and watchers have been anticipating a slowdown this year, but even the most pessimistic predictions have thus far assumed double-digit growth. The …

    Channel 23 Feb 2001, 11:24

  • Flash ad clampdown slur

    Bitching? Us?

    Reg in flash ad clampdown Jeffrey J Holt wholeheartedly approves of our stand against irritating ads: Glad to hear you resisted temptation! I HATE animated ads! I have animations turned off in my browser, but that only protects me from animated gifs. I don't go to CNET as much any more, those ads really annoy me to the point …

    Letters 23 Feb 2001, 11:40

  • Smoot – can you handle the truth?

    All the facts, right here, right now

    Flame of the week MOOT wtf is a MOOT? Q: Wtf is a moot? We're obliged to all those readers who sent in clarifications on the word 'smoot'. Guy Harris explains: The official length of the Harvard Bridge is 364.4 Smoots plus one ear, as measured by the MIT fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha using pledge Oliver Smoot, class of 1962. …

    Letters 23 Feb 2001, 11:43

  • McCarthy sees the light

    Reg hack in profound mystical experience

    We all have those kind of days where we are worried by profound questions. You know the sort of thing - 'where do I come from', 'what does it all mean?', 'where's my flying car?' So it is for our very own Kieren McCarthy, a troubled youth prone to periods of self doubt and despair. Only last week the lad was gripped by the ' …

    Letters 23 Feb 2001, 11:45

  • Apple fobs off non-US iMac buyers with lesser CPU

    US gets faster 500MHz machines than rest of world

    European and Japanese buyers of the new 500MHz iMac should beware - they're going to get and older, less powerful version of the PowerPC chip than their US counterparts. When we originally wrote up the specs of the new iMacs, unveiled by Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday during his MacWorld Expo Tokyo keynote, we noted that the …

    Mac Channel 23 Feb 2001, 12:13

  • Kyocera punts £60 dealer cash back deal

    And a hoax virus alert

    Kyocera Mita is giving its Ecosys printers a hard push by offering its dealers £60 cash-back on its FS-1800 and FS-3800 models. Any reseller buying one of the printers will automatically receive the money, as their distributor contact will confirm the order with Kyocera. The FS-1800 16ppm large workgroup printer has an RRP of …

    Business 23 Feb 2001, 12:29

  • Phone-call dentist guilty of manslaughter

    And how to lose your job, by the texting bus driver

    The dental surgeon whose patient died while he chatted on his mobile phone has been given a suspended sentence. Richard Kaul, a 36-year old anaesthetist, was found guilty of manslaughter and given a six-month jail sentence, suspended for a year. He was talking on his cell phone instead of monitoring his patient, 56 year-old …

    Data Networking 23 Feb 2001, 12:35

  • Microsoft offers support services for RTFM

    Nah, it doesn't really, but then it's quite funny

    Microsoft Product Support Services. HOWTO: Read the Fucking Manual. The information in this article applies to: General Lamers Prerequisites: The ability to Read Basic Brain Function It's a spoofed URL of course, purportedly heading to www.microsoft.com but ending up at www.hwnd.net - see the little "@" sign? …

    Bootnotes 23 Feb 2001, 12:38

  • Red Hat partners on Linux GUI for PDAs

    Offshoot of Sharp Zaurus Linux port

    Red Hat's Japanese subsidiary has signed a deal to market and sell a new Linux GUI aimed at PDAs and other mobile devices. The GUI, dubbed Sikigami, was developed by Japanese software developer AXE as a broader version of the Linux code it used to port the open source OS over to Sharp's Zaurus PDA. Developer 10art-ni is also …

    Software 23 Feb 2001, 12:53

  • Lookout for major Outlook bug

    MS advises browser update

    Microsoft has warned of a potentially devastating security vulnerability involving its popular Outlook and Outlook Express email clients. It could allow attackers to trick users into running malicious code so giving them control of a victim's machine. The security bug concerns the vCard, or virtual business cards, component of …

    Security 23 Feb 2001, 13:02

  • Kiwi cops pay to access encrypted phone calls

    They want it for free

    Police in New Zealand will pay Vodafone NZ$1.1 million to be allowed access to encrypted cell phone calls. According to Stuff.co.nz, the Crimes Act in New Zealand already allows the police to intercept phone calls, but they can't decipher the encrypted calls made on the Vodafone network. Paul Swain, the communications minister …

    Security 23 Feb 2001, 14:20

  • Your moonrock's in the post…

    Astronauts in stamp fraud scandal

    Apollo 11 crew quizzed by US Customs So, what exactly were the US customs looking for when the lads splashed down in the Pacific? Steven, who is clearly not a man to waste words, has offered the following: I believe some of the crew secreted US postage stamps which they franked and sold when they returned to earth. Short and …

    Letters 23 Feb 2001, 14:40

  • MSWorld® – An Orwellian vision of the future

    Jim Allchin cops some sarcasm

    Open Source 'stifles' innovation We reckon that Malcolm Moore was having one of those days when he read Lucy's recent piece. It seems unlikely that Jim Allchin is on his Xmas card list: I enjoyed your article on Jim Allchin's view on the 'American Way'. Perhaps you should take the theme further and try to imagine a MSWorld® …

    Letters 23 Feb 2001, 14:50

  • Fish fancier rescues liquid PC

    Developers no longer all at sea

    The liquid PC If you ever need clarification on anything aqueous, better ask a fish fancier. Like Stuart Capewell for instance: It may be a sad and nerdy piece of information, but the article in question mentions using an Eheim pump to force the water through the cooling block, but says the guys trying this can't locate the …

    Letters 23 Feb 2001, 14:51

  • Readers' letters Proud Canadian slams Reg

    The pen is mightier than the baseball bat

    MS Canada on slippery slope Be funny and win a toboggan Oh dear, we've upset the Canadians again. Ric Bresee, who declares himself to be 'a proud Canadian' has got himself all discombobulated over our bit of toboggan fun: While I understand your notable envy with the recent promotion offered to Canadians by Microsoft, I find …

    Letters 23 Feb 2001, 15:09

  • Dealers still selling Office 97 better make sure it's legit

    Not likely to be

    Microsoft is touting the success of its anti-piracy hotline as a way of stamping out counterfeit software, which it said accounts for 26 per cent of the market in the UK. The freephone hotline, which is receiving more than 500 calls a month, is designed to allow people to blow the whistle on companies or resellers whom they …

    Business 23 Feb 2001, 15:58

  • BTinternet boasts 1 million users

    Reg in 'nice' BT story shock

    BTinternet, the narrowband ISP from BTopenworld, is crowing today because an independent survey reckons it's notched up one million customers. Quoting from the latest NOP Bi-Annual Internet User Profile, BTinternet claims it enjoys the "second highest usage rates in the country". BTinternet won't say who's out in front (no …

    Music and Media 23 Feb 2001, 15:59

  • breathe expected out of rehab soon

    Modern Urbanists gathering on street corners...

    Slip on your baggy trousers and hooded sweatshirt, pop on your wrap-round shades and oil the bearings on your microscooter - modern urbanists are back. The word among the metropolitan elite busily SMSing one another is that trendy ISP, breathe.com, is back six weeks after being bought by Great Universal Stores (GUS) for £1.4 …

    Music and Media 23 Feb 2001, 16:47

  • Power converter makes for extra flash screens

    Nat Semi 'coolness' claim

    National Semiconductor has developed a series of current-regulated power converters, optimised for white LED backlighting of mobile phone screens, PDAs and digital cameras. Nat Semi says the drivers eliminate the need for inductors or resistors by regulating the power output through each LED, so that they are matched to within …

    Business 23 Feb 2001, 16:55

  • Taiwanese engineer pleads self defence in hacking case

    Magic web site unwitting host of Trojan horse

    A Taiwanese computer engineer has pleading self defence after he allegedly hacked the server of a magic teaching Web site. According to a report in Taipei Times, the engineer attacked the unnamed magic Web site in the belief that its administrators were attacking his servers. However the Criminal Investigation Bureau in Taiwan …

    Security 23 Feb 2001, 16:59

  • Dell ships Precision boxes with 3DLabs card

    Claims first P4/Wildcat II 5110 combo

    Dell has struck a deal with 3DLabs to make its Wildcat II 5110 graphics accelerator available for order with Dell Precision workstations. Dell claims it is the first company to ship the Wildcat II 5110 on Intel P4 workstations. Pricing for a Dell Precision 330 workstation with the Wildcat II 5110 begins at £2,260. The …

    Business 23 Feb 2001, 17:25

  • Online baby muncher is an artist

    Foetus on your breath

    You've got foetus on your breath Why kill time when you can kill yourself You've got some foetus on your breath, baby    --Scraping Foetus off the Wheel The man pictured apparently eating a small roast baby in our previous story turns out to be an 'artist' named Zhu Yu, who performed a conceptual piece called "Eating People …

    Music and Media 23 Feb 2001, 17:37

  • Shufty at first Asus socket A DDR board

    HWRoundup All your hard bases are belong to us too

    Overclockers Online take a look at the inner workings, so to speak, of the Asus A7M266 mobo, based on AMD's 760 chipset here. This is Asus' first socket A DDR board, so it should be interesting to see how it goes. Sharky's posted the "Ask AMD" stuff here. The second in their "readers ask the questions" series of interviews …

    Hardware Roundup 23 Feb 2001, 17:48

  • Sun trophy site ManUtd.com uses MS technology

    Posh Spice takes it up the IIS

    The firm handling the web site for Manchester United has insisted on using Microsoft technology to run the web servers for ManUtd.com - despite Sun's high-profile technology partnership of the club. A number of readers have drawn our attention to the fact that Manutd.com, which is hosted by TWI, uses Microsoft's IIS 4 on NT4 - …

    Music and Media 23 Feb 2001, 18:11

  • Motorola issues profit warning

    Sales, earnings lower than expected - again

    Motorola isn't going to garner as many sales this quarter - the first of the current fiscal year - as it had hoped, the company admitted today. Citing "weakness in first-quarter order input across its business segments", Motorola said its previous sales target of $8.8 billion and earnings expectations of 12 cents a share just …

    Channel 23 Feb 2001, 18:16

  • WIPO disgraces itself over CelineDion.com

    All pretence of objectivity goes down toilet

    WIPO has ruled on the case of CelineDion.com and, would you believe it, has decided that Celine's record company should be given the domain. The difference here is that the so-called cybersquatter isn't having any of it and decided instead to expose the gross complacency of an arrogant organisation that is building a monopoly …

    Music and Media 23 Feb 2001, 18:39

  • DoJ sticks its nose in 2600.com DeCSS appeal

    Keeping the Net safe for commercial exploitation

    The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has been granted permission by the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene in the case of Eric Corely aka Emmanuel Goldstein, publisher of hacker zine 2600 which got into hot water for posting, then linking to, copies of the banned DeCSS utility which defeats the hopelessly-trivial CSS …

    Music and Media 23 Feb 2001, 18:56

  • McHackers use DNS exploit to poke fun

    McDonald's UK surfers redirected to parody site

    Computer hackers with a grudge against McDonalds have used a subtle hacking technique to embarrass the burger chain online. Activists redirected surfers visiting McDonalds.co.uk to an insecure box in a US university on which they placed a message mocking McDonalds. The hacker, who called himself Fluffy Bunny, put up a Web site …

    Security 23 Feb 2001, 19:41