16th May 2001 Archive

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Eazel pulls plugs after cash quest fails

Time to go Gnome...

After a year of singing its praises, Eazel's richest backers weren't around to save it when the going got tough. The company that promised to make Linux easy for technophobes to use is to close. Bart Decrem announced the news on a Gnome developer's list late afternoon Pacific Time, after much speculation. The company laid off …

Software 16 May 2001, 01:26
Yet another IIS exploit reported

Pretty nasty, too

It's been a rough two weeks for IIS security. On 1 May it was our solemn duty to report the IIS .printer ISAPI vulnerability; on 8 May we reported the sadmind/IIS worm; and today we have to inform you of a brand new stuff-up affecting IIS 4.0 and 5.0, handily exploited with a simple Unicode trick. An easily malformed file name …

Software 16 May 2001, 06:33
Intel Tualatin to replace Coppermine, fast

Intel Roadmap 2GHz P4 to come in at $562 - plus more desktop and mobile info

Further choice items from Intel's latest desktop and mobile processor roadmaps have leaked out - including the 2GHz Pentium 4's launch price-point: $562. Much of the information is well known - it essentially follows the roadmap Intel set out earlier this year (see Chipzilla gears up for 2GHz-plus PCs and Chipzilla readies 1GHz …

Channel 16 May 2001, 09:42
MS tips its hand on WinXP protection system

Suddenly, the builds got a lot less crackable...

Microsoft's adoring public in the unofficial beta distribution channel seems to be awarding null points to the latest escapee from Fort Redmond, WinXP build 2469. This might have something to do with 2469 being seriously harder to crack than previous efforts, but problems with DirectX seem to be turning them off as well. 2469 …

Software 16 May 2001, 09:59
Intel Xeon to hit 2.4GHz in 2002

Intel Roadmap Tualatin to replace Coppermine too

Prestonia, the 0.13 micron Xeon die-shrink, will ship during Q1 2002 at 2.2GHz before rising to 2.4GHz during the following quarter. That's according to the latest leaked addition to Intel's dual-processor server chip roadmap, posted over at Web site Digit Life. Prestonia is the successor to Foster, the first Xeon based on the …

Channel 16 May 2001, 10:13
Email is top cause of workplace stress – report

'Technological paradox'

Email is the biggest headache for tech support staff and a major cause of stress in the workplace, according to a survey out today. More than a third of IT managers quizzed for the report in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific said email software was the top support problem, says software company Support.com. Around 23 per cent …

Music and Media 16 May 2001, 11:05
Le Freeswerve hikes DSL prices, whinges at BT

Pathetic attempt to bash BT and Oftel

Freeserve has blamed BT and Oftel for its decision to increase the price of its home ADSL product to £49.99 a month - an increase of around 25 per cent. The price rise comes into effect from June. In a statement, Britain's biggest French ISP said: "This has been forced upon Freeserve because we have no confidence in BT or the …

Music and Media 16 May 2001, 11:14
Azlan profits shoot up 74%

Surfing Europeans fuel growth

Azlan Group reported profit up 74 per cent thanks to growing Internet use in Europe. The UK networking distributor recorded pre-tax profit of $16 million for the year ended March 31 2001, compared to $9.3 million the previous year. Sales grew 44 per cent to $592 million, with fourth quarter revenue rising ten per cent …

Channel 16 May 2001, 11:38
Banish bandwidth blues with Win2k SP2, slimline version

Still not officially official though...

After a couple of days of general and widespread access to the final but not announced Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 network code, Microsoft now has a slimline express version available. And still hasn't announced it. As a matter of fact, Win2k SP1 currently seems to have billing in the "new downloads" section of the microsoft. …

Software 16 May 2001, 12:56
BT rebuffs Le Freeswerve's no confidence vote

Sticks and stones...

BT has hit back at claims that Britain's biggest French ISP has been forced to increase the cost of its ADSL service because the wholesale price is simply too expensive. Rebecca Webster, of BT's wholesale broadband division, dismissed Le Freeswerve's claims saying: "We think [our wholesale price] represents good value for money …

Music and Media 16 May 2001, 13:01
Pentium 4 price cuts fuel RDRAM mobo demand surge

Taiwanese mobo makers report shift to Rambus

Intel's Pentium 4 price cuts have driven RDRAM mobo shipments well ahead of boards that use Rambus' rival memory technology, DDR SDRAM, Taiwanese motherboard makers have said. Since Intel hacked P4 prices right back last month, mobo makers are shipping on average 40 per cent more RDRAM boards than DDR units, according to a …

Business 16 May 2001, 13:37
BT Cellnet PUKs up phone security

Updated A mobile unblocking free-for-all

A new BT Cellnet automated phone service has left security observers and mobile operators despairing. The company has brought out a touch-tone service that will give you the PUK for any BT Cellnet phone - all you need is the mobile's phone number. PUK stands for Personal Unblocking Key, and is the eight-digit number you get on …

Data Networking 16 May 2001, 13:56
Beenz denies it's about to be canned

Global 'Net' currency devalued big-time

Beenz - the outfit that created a "currency" for the Internet - has denied it is to shut down within the next three weeks but it has confirmed it is seeking a buyer for all, or part, of the business. The loyalty scheme-based dotcom was responding to an email sent to users from a Beenz-trading outfit last week. The email said …

Music and Media 16 May 2001, 14:02
PCs to bundle more memory as suppliers cut prices

Fixed-transaction prices trimmed to match spot prices

Memory bundled with new PCs could soon become much cheaper - freeing vendors to offer more RAM with their systems - when suppliers Samsung, Hynix and others cut the prices they charge high-volume customers. Samsung and Hynix representatives yesterday said both companies will soon cut the fixed-transaction prices for PC-133 …

Channel 16 May 2001, 14:40
Apple planning rack-mount Mac OS X server

Mac Rumour Roundup Thing Different

Apple may be planning to break into the enterprise server market with a new rack-mount model based on the next major release of Mac OS X Server. Mac OS X Server 2.0 - or Mac OS X 10.0 Server, as it will be called, according to eWeek sources - is expected to be announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference next week. It …

Mac Channel 16 May 2001, 14:44
Sun admits ASP better than Java for Web

So its Cobalt appliance division reckons

A little quiz for you. Consider the following quote: "ASP is faster and more effective for simple Web applications than Java." Which company said it? Microsoft would be the obvious choice, since it's the one that came up with ASP (Active Server Page) technology in the first place and it has a spotty record on Java support. But …

Software 16 May 2001, 15:29
HP sets sights on Europe No. 2 PC spot

Chops P4 desktop prices

Hewlett-Packard says it will soon inch past Dell to become Europe's number two PC vendor. "This is the first time we've been so close to the number two position in Europe," said HP EMEA business desktop manager Stephan Wippermann. According to figures from Gartner Dataquest, HP's market share in EMEA grew to eight per cent in …

Channel 16 May 2001, 16:53
Tory Party site ‘practically unhardened’ – a hacker playground

Any file on server browsable

The UK Conservative Party has been slammed for Internet naivety after it emerged that it hadn't taken even the most basic precautions to secure its Web server. The site, Conservatives.com, surely a top target for crackers in the run-up to the UK general election on June 7, was left insecure to the extent that any file on its NT …

Music and Media 16 May 2001, 17:11
Ex-Royal aide found guilty over sexy email murder

Life sentence for Jane Andrews

The former aide to the Duchess of York, Jane Andrews, has been found guilty of murdering her fiance and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ms Andrews, 34, had denied murdering her fiance Tom Cressman, 39, last year. He had been hit over the head with a cricket bat and stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife. At the start of the …

Music and Media 16 May 2001, 17:16
Xbox launch & price confirmed

Just in time for holiday shopping, naturally

Microsoft will launch the Xbox game console on 8 November, just in time for the holiday shopping rut, and sell it for a modest $299, the company announced Wednesday. Now it has to get kids to pester Santa for it, instead of a PS2 or Nintendo's new GameCube. For that, MS is prepared to spend a whopping $500 million marketing the …

Software 16 May 2001, 18:20
Dotcom guru predicts harder times for online ad sector

Will bottom out in Q2 or Q3

Dotcom guru Henry Blodget has warned there is worse to come for the online advertising market. Blodget, an analyst with investment bank Merrill Lynch, said in a report that the Internet media and advertising sector could hit rock bottom in the second or third quarter of the year. But the overall decline in Q1 was not as great …

Business 16 May 2001, 18:31
Eurocops want seven-year retention of all phone, Net traffic

PINs and passwords too

The official EU body that represents the member governments will recommend the long-term retention of personal data at a meeting with the European Commission later this month, according to documents leaked to London-based civil liberties journal Statewatch. The Council of the European Union, which represents the 15 member …

Data Networking 16 May 2001, 20:32
An Outlook worm to jam NSA's Echelon

Well, sort of....

UK-based anti-virus outfit Sophos is reporting a new variant of the LoveBug Outlook worm which contains a large amount of hidden text, apparently designed to attract the US National Security Agency's Echelon spy satellite network and overload it. Comments within the executable file include large swaths of text such as: "NSA …

Music and Media 16 May 2001, 20:42