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1st June 2001 Archive

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  • Xerox accountants are squeaky clean

    But they don't understand GAAP rules

    Good news for Xerox creditors and shareholders. The bluechip-to-pauper imaging biz has not been cooking the books. CEO Paul Allaire reports: "After rigorous reviews of Xerox's accounting, no fictitious transactions were found and the company's liquidity is not impacted." However, Xerox accountants have got their knickers in a …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 08:02

  • Pay to Play with the Mandrake Team?

    Linux fans, sports fans - what's the difference

    The dust is still settling over at MandrakeSoft. The company dumped its CEO, dismissed rumors of financial troubles, assured NewsForge's Robin Miller that the company was "on course to break even within a few months" and continuing to plan for a future IPO. That may sound like brave talk and little else, but co-founder Jacques …

    Software 1 Jun 2001, 08:27

  • Plucky leukemia Weblog girl ‘dies’

    Too good to be true

    A plucky, selfless, desperately ill nineteen-year-old girl captured the hearts of thousands with a Weblog detailing her struggles with leukemia, her romantic aspirations, her pain, her disappointments, and her exemplary courage. The girl, Kaycee Nicole Swenson, a former high-school athlete, wrote frankly and with skill as she …

    Music and Media 1 Jun 2001, 09:31

  • Sharp signs Intel for Linux PDA's processor

    StrongARM muscles out Hitachi chip

    Sharp is ditching Hitachi for Intel, breaking with tradition to equip its upcoming Linux-based Zaurus PDA with StrongARM, the company admitted yesterday. The reason? StrongARM offers "because it offers the lowest power consumption and the best functions", Sharp's head of mobile systems, Hiroshi Uno, said in an interview with …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 10:01

  • Networking job cuts hit deepest Surrey

    50 jobs go at Nortel

    Nortel Networks is shutting down two of its English offices as part its wider plan to restructure its business after disappointing sales that have pushed it into the red. The Canadian networking firm is looking for a buyer for a research and development unit in Camberley, Surrey. Failure to sell this small division by Nortel …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 10:43

  • BT still keen to split UK operation

    Get on with it

    BT is actively pursuing plans to split its UK operation into separate networking and retail divisions. The Telegraph reports that finance director, Philip Hampton, is leading the project internally amid hopes that such a move would free BT's retail division from over regulation by telecoms watchdog Oftel, although whether it …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 11:08

  • More DRAM woes

    Spot market prices threaten to fall below $3

    There were more DRAM woes this week as memory chips looked likely to fall below the $3 mark on the spot market. The price of units in 128Mb PC 133 modules dropped to between $3 and $3.20 per chip on Wednesday, Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper reports, via Asiabiztech.com. Prices of 64Mb PC-100 chips fell by 6.7 per cent to …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 11:10

  • Light up my keyboard

    Dr John the Nite-Surfer

    Do you need to compute in the dark or low light environments? Has your mum told you to go to bed but you want to keep tapping away all night without her being able to see you've still got the light on, because its shining under your bedroom door? Then you need an illuminated keyboard. Twenty-First Century Technologies has made …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 11:11

  • Handspring offers developers 15% discount

    Top-end models going cheap

    Handspring is borrowing Palm's tactics and offering a special discount on its high-end PDAs to its developer community, according to a email that dropped into The Register's Inbox this morning. Developers are being offered 15 per cent off the retail price of the Visor Prism, Visor Edge (in all three colours) and Visor Platinum …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 11:13

  • US Feds can hack overseas boxes – judge

    It's sleazy, not illegal

    The Feds have as much right to be creeps as anyone else, a US judge has ruled in connection with a motion filed by busted Russian computer enthusiast Vasily Gorshkov. The resourceful Gorshkov, we may recall, is charged with breaking into numerous networks and downloading credit card details with associate Alexey Ivanov, and …

    Music and Media 1 Jun 2001, 11:15

  • Office XP: all your hyperlinks are belong to MS

    The software that thinks it's smarter than you are

    One of the noted characteristics of Microsoft software is that it has a tendency to behave, with absolute assurance, as if it knows better than you. Our attention has been drawn to a particularly striking example of this unearthed by Woody's Watch - essentially, Office XP autocorrects hyperlinks you 'mistyped,' hides the …

    Software 1 Jun 2001, 11:21

  • HP CD-RW/DVD Combo 9900ci

    Review Attractive option

    Drives that combine the facilities of DVD-ROM and CD-RW have gained a foothold in the consumer market. Potential buyers initially held off because the drives were expensive and had lower specifications than standalone CD-RWs and DVD-ROM devices. However, the benefits offered by combining all the features of a CD-writer and a …

    Hardware Roundup 1 Jun 2001, 11:51

  • Govt hints at greater broadband spend

    Empty election rhetoric

    Minister for Textiles and part-time e-commerce minister, Patricia Hewitt, has hinted that public sector investment in broadband could be "significantly higher" than the £500 million that was estimated to be spent on the technology. Speaking to the FT she said: "I think it will be significantly higher than that." She also said …

    Telecoms 1 Jun 2001, 12:00

  • Truants caught in text-message hell

    Teachers tip off parents via mobiles

    Teachers at a London primary school have started using Internet-enabled mobile phones to try and catch kids who are playing truant. The "Citizen One" system lets teachers hook up their mobile to the Net before they take the morning's registration. If a child is absent, it automatically sends an email or text message informing …

    Music and Media 1 Jun 2001, 12:01

  • NAI belatedly joins OpenPGP Alliance

    Phil Zimmermann writes to thank The Reg

    Network Associates (NAI) has joined an alliance designed to promote interoperability between email encryption packages after a Register article pointed out its conspicuous absence from the group. The move means that the OpenPGP Alliance, created by Phil Zimmermann, now includes PGP Security, the NAI division that is the main …

    Security 1 Jun 2001, 12:08

  • MemoWatch Get touchy-feely with EMC and Lucent

    'Dear all: Well done - we love you. PS: You're fired'

    EMC to chop 1,100 staff Lucent jilts Alcatel at the Altar Anyone who has been following our LogoWatch campaign will doubtless enjoy the two internal emails below, distributed to all Lucent Technologies and EMC employees, respectively. To recap, LogoWatch closely monitors corporate makeovers - the assumption being that such …

    Bootnotes 1 Jun 2001, 12:12

  • Billg's dream? Honey, I disappeared the emails…

    Catch: you can only do it when you're not being sued

    Down at the bottom of the Microsoft Office eServices home page you'll find an intriguing link to Disappearing, Inc. The sites linked to in this area appear to be largely Office eServices partners, some of them Microsoft-owned, some apparently paid-for ad links, but presumably what they have in common is that it has been deemed …

    Software 1 Jun 2001, 13:10

  • Cypriots draw the line

    Greeks and Turks provide Cyprus enlightenment

    Microsoft! Beware of Greeks (reading maps) Having right royally flamed Reg Editor Drew Cullen for his Cypriot insinuations, the Greeks also felt the need to establish the facts. 'A Greek' writes: Nicosia is the last divided Capital in Europe. Following Turkey's invasion in 1974 the Greeks were kicked out of their homes, which …

    Letters 1 Jun 2001, 14:02

  • UK Govt stinks

    Pooh!

    We've just received this received this from Clare Allen, a positively polite IT PR from Profile who claims that Downing Street, the official residence of the British Prime Minister, is a bit whiffy. In fact, she says that having cycled past for the last three weeks it smells like rotten eggs. Now, her email has nothing to do …

    Bootnotes 1 Jun 2001, 14:02

  • Manager sacked for ‘grrrreat shag’ email

    Only a joke, m'lud

    A British recruitment manager has lost his case for unfair dismissal after being sacked for an email in which he called a colleague a "great shag". John Crook sent the email in response to his operations manager Angela Brunton asking why he had recommended an employee for a pay rise. The 37-year-old said his reasons were that …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 14:04

  • MS uses hammer to crack piracy nut

    What next - helicopter gunships?

    Disabled mother of four beats off MS, Mounties in piracy case So, were Microsoft and the Mounties a bit heavy-handed in dealing with 41 year old Brenda Avery and her pirated software? Frankly yes, says Mark J. Hayman: This sort of story and the zealous nature of the anti-pirates (shouldn't they be patrolling the South China …

    Letters 1 Jun 2001, 14:06

  • Netcraft posts May 2001 Web survey

    Data frenzy

    The Netcraft Web Server Survey is a survey of Web Server software usage on Internet connected computers. We collect and collate as many hostnames providing an http service as we can find, and systematically poll each one with an HTTP request for the server name. In the May 2001 survey we received responses from 29,031,745 sites …

    Music and Media 1 Jun 2001, 14:11

  • Nvidia to rethink Crush chipset's official moniker?

    nForce already trademarked

    If Nvidia does indeed name its upcoming Athlon-oriented chipset nForce, as documents seen by The Register suggest, it may rapidly run into trademark trouble. nForce is said to be the official name of the chipset codenamed Crush. UK-based data security specialist nCipher already uses nForce as a product name, and has trademarked …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 14:32

  • What's this button here do?

    A case for idiot-proof OSes?

    Windows XP will make Internet unstable - top security expert In the above article, Steve Gibson claims that Windows XP threatens to make the Internet unstable. Apparently, the problem lies in allowing people to launch uncontrollable denial-of-service attacks to whichever IP address they see fit. Fahd Arshad has a point to make …

    Letters 1 Jun 2001, 14:44

  • Employees demonstrate outside WorldOnline offices

    A lesson in how to handle staff redundancies

    Disgruntled LineOne employees held an impromptu demonstration outside the London offices of World Online today over a dispute about their redundancy package. According to reports, seven or eight former LineOne employees were joined by a union representative for a meeting with WorldOnline's human resources department. However, …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 15:10

  • Readers' Letters Sun sets upon Vulture Central

    Are Reg hacks 'shills for shady anti-Sun cabal?'

    Sun Microsystems 'bans' the Internet Sun refutes Internet 'ban' slur John 'Lips' Leyden had better lay off giving his opinion on rumours. According to Sun employee Christine Tran, at least: Oh good grief, if you have the memo "leaked" to you, why don't you just print the whole thing and let people come to their conclusion on …

    Letters 1 Jun 2001, 15:15

  • AMD 1.4GHz Athlon arrives

    Goes on sale in Japan

    AMD had begun shipping faster desktop Athlons and Durons ahead of next week's launch. The chips have certainly gone on sale in Japan's Akihabara electronics shopping zone, according to an item over at Japanese Web site PC Watch, which has seen them in six stores. The site shows an in-street add for the upcoming 1.4GHz Athlon, …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 15:44

  • Nvidia Crush is called nForce

    Exclusive Mobo maker MSI confirms moniker

    Motherboard maker MSI has confirmed that Nvidia's Crush chipset will be officially marketed as nForce. Documentation recently seen by The Register suggests that nForce was the name chosen for the long-awaited Xbox-derived PC chipset codenamed Crush. And now we have MSI's press release, launching its MS-6367 mobo, confirming …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 16:07

  • Tiscali UK confirms cull

    At last - it speaks

    Tiscali UK has finally - finally - confirmed its has culled half its staff. As reported by The Register between 250 and 300 people have got the chop. Even now, Tiscali will not confirm exact numbers, except to say that its UK workforce will be cut by half by July 2001. El Reg also reported the appointments of Sergio Cellini ( …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 16:18

  • LogoWatch Zarlink trumpets imperial pretentions

    Meet the Caesar formerly known as Mitel

    On May 29 Mitel Corporation introduced a new global identity - Zarlink Semiconductor - under which it will deliver communications connectivity solutions to the world's leaders in voice and data networking. Apparently, Zarlink brings together proven dimensions of an established global leader with the zeal and focus of a …

    Bootnotes 1 Jun 2001, 16:23

  • Codebreaker II Our winner reveals all

    Mark Wutka explains his attack

    In response to readers' requests for our Codebreaker II supremo, Mark Wutka, to explain how he attacked the problem, we are pleased to print the following from the man himself. Enjoy: When I first saw the Codebreaker II Challenge, I did what any cryptanalyst would do with an unknown cipher - I counted the occurrences of each …

    Bootnotes 1 Jun 2001, 17:02

  • PSINet files Chapter 11

    Oh well

    Troubled ISP, PSINet Inc, has finally admitted defeat and announced that it and 24 of its operating subsidiaries in the US have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Four Canadian subsidiaries have also sought similar protection. The company said none of its operating subsidiaries in Asia, Europe, Latin America were …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 17:03

  • e-cash for Big Macs

    'Wand' technology promises faster fast food

    McDonald's is trialing e-payment technology in the hope it can serve punters more quickly while building customer loyalty. Across 26 selected outlets of the fast food chain in Idaho customers will soon be able to pay for their Big Mac and fries by waving a "wand" in front of an electronic sensor. According to USA Today, more …

    e-Business 1 Jun 2001, 17:12

  • Sony unleashes first Vaio desktop in UK

    £1,700 a pop

    Sony today unleashed its first Vaio desktop computer in the UK. The PCV-LX1 machine has a hinged LCD screen, which can be folded down if the Vaio is not being used. It is based on a 1 GHz Pentium III chip, with 128MB RAM, 60GB hard drive and also comes with an integral CD-RW/DVD drive and broadband Net connectivity. It is …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 17:13

  • How Microsoft offended millions of Indians

    Tricky, but they pulled it off

    In response to our recent piece Microsoft! Beware of Greeks (reading maps), which explains how MS came to upset Greek Cypriots, Shiv Shankar Ramakrishnan has an interesting tale to tell about Kashmir, disputed between India and Pakistan: You might be interested in MS's response to a somewhat similar incident in the past. In the …

    Software 1 Jun 2001, 17:17

  • Meet Chip, the new AMD mascot

    Go on, ask him/her/it a question

    AMD has a new mascot. Called Chip, the gender-neutral cartoon creation is designed to help system builders and Johnny Punters get answers to their questions. Chip is the avastar of Ask.Amd.com, a new mostly automated FAQ service. So far, so average. But if you can't get the answer to your question "Chip can forward questions to …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 17:40

  • Gateway never knowingly undersold

    Depending on the kindness of rivals?

    Gateway yesterday launched a print and TV advertising campaign in the US in which it promised to beat the prices of any comparable PC or server sold by its rival. It is not usually wise for - what, the fifth biggest (US) player? - to take the lead in a price war. But in the US PC market, IBM, Compaq, and HP don't really have …

    Business 1 Jun 2001, 20:31

  • Motherboard smorgasbord

    HWRoundup And so much more

    HardOCP is busy today with a runaround the Epox AMD 760, and also the new Vantec Copper Cooler. Not bored yet with news about the AMD760 motherboard? Then turn to AMDMB and I am not a geek.. Onto the 760MP chipset at ViaHardware. *hint* look for thewords $200 and MSI *hint*. Is there some deal between Adobe and Intel? Not …

    Hardware Roundup 1 Jun 2001, 21:05

  • Capita recruits SchoolKit.com for education push

    Takes on RM

    Capita is taking RM head-on in the UK's schools. It has signed up to resell software from US firm Schoolkit.com through its subsidiary Capita Education. SchoolKiT.com provides curriculum, workshops and online professional development and classroom activity subscription services. ® The Register has a new reseller section. It's …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 21:54

  • ICL sell South Africa maintenance biz

    Strategic thing

    ICL Africa has sold its South African desktop break-fix maintenance business R8m, IT Web reports. The business was bought by local firm CS Holdings, which emerged the winner after the business was put out to tender. According to IT Web, ICL have decided to withdraw from the desktop break-fix business worldwide. Fifty ICL Africa …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 21:54

  • Tech Data pleased with very small sales fall

    Economic climate etc.

    Tech Data sales eased slightly in Q1 to $4.7bn (Q1, 2000 $4.7bn. Net income was also down - to $31.8m (Q1. 2000: $37.2m). But the distie, the world's second biggest behind Ingram Micro, says it is pleased with the results - given "the current economic conditions". Q1 sales were down 7 per cent in the US, and up 3 per cent in …

    Channel 1 Jun 2001, 21:54