The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

12th March 2002 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • PGP dies of neglect – your alternatives

    Letters A key for all seasons

    Our stories PGP dies of neglect: NAI shrugsHow we can save PGP - Zimmerman drew the following responses:- I'm saddened to hear NAI is trying to kill PGP (or at least failing to try to keep it alive). Are you aware that free versions of PGP for non-commercial use can be found at: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html? Thank you …

    Letters 12 Mar 2002, 06:26

  • Blog almighty!

    Your take on the techno-utopians' triumphalism

    Re: Back in the Bloghouse Mr. Orlowski - I liked your article on blogging - in the best of cases they tend to be op-ed pages and nested commentaries, not new news dug up by the writers. That doesn't make them bad, it just means they aren't journalism. I find that I visit Yahoo news even more often now that I've become addicted …

    Letters 12 Mar 2002, 06:26

  • World's most interesting computer in jeopardy

    Cray's MTA goes MIA

    Cray confirms that the MTA-2 multithreaded supercomputer, one of the most interesting and unusual machines ever built, has indeed been sidelined by the company. "The R&D development level has gone down," spokesman Steve Conway told The Register. Will there be an MTA-3? "That will all be determined by the market. We've shipped …

    Channel 12 Mar 2002, 07:55

  • Corrections and Carrionifications

    Letters Roundup Blogs, Macs, PGP and Greene phlegm

    Welcome the postbag, the bag that's more irregular than it should be. Network Associates neglect of PGP has prompted many of you to look for a Plan B, and there's a good selection in PGP dies of neglect - your alternatives . You just don't GET IT do you? You just don't GET IT? Apparently I almost GET IT, according to techno- …

    Letters 12 Mar 2002, 08:12

  • Gerstner's long and lucrative goodbye

    Saver of IBM (shurely saviour? - Ed)

    Some years back The Register heard IBM saviour Lou Gerstner, then the new boy, explain some of his big visions for the industry. It having been deemed, it appeared, that his previous claim not to have a vision at all needed just a tad of correction. As it happens these visions largely haven't come true at all yet; or they have …

    Business 12 Mar 2002, 10:52

  • StarOffice creator pitches for devices, mobile companies

    What mobile phones did next

    StarOffice creator Marco Boerries is to unveil his new venture, a device- and OS-agnostic system intended to allow wide ranges of appliances to communicate with each other, and across the Internet. Boerries company VerdiSoft, which he founded last year after leaving Sun, believes that for at least the remainder of this decade …

    Mobile 12 Mar 2002, 11:15

  • Netimperative.com looks for buyer

    Receivers called in

    IT online news service netimperative.com faces an uncertain future after its parent company was put into receivership last week. No one from the receivers, Manchester-based Harrisons, was available for comment at the time of writing. However, it's hoped that netimperative will find a buyer. A statement from the company reads …

    Music and Media 12 Mar 2002, 11:23

  • HP, Compaq in pre-vote channel stuffing claim

    Hangover tomorrow

    Damaging allegations that Compaq and HP boosted their most recent quarterly figures by stuffing the channel with inventory have surfaced in the San Jose Mercury. Analysts disagree on the amount of surplus stock in the channel, and some say they see no surplus at all, but the allegations are very serious indeed. The vote for …

    Music and Media 12 Mar 2002, 11:24

  • *Nix security pandemic – major zlib/libz vuln

    It's inside the walls, under the rug, in the ventilator shafts...

    A flaw in the zlib/libz data compression/decompression libraries could enable an attacker to mount a denial of service attack against any Linux or AIX firewall, database server, mail or Web server. It's also possible that arbitrary code could be run on a remote machine. Because these shared libraries are used by hundreds of …

    Data Networking 12 Mar 2002, 12:10

  • Next-gen mobiles to feature at London Symbian Devexpo

    At last, they're (nearly) here...

    Next generation Symbian OS phones are to feature heavily at next month's Symbian Developer ExpoSymbian Developer Expo in London, as the latest models from Sony-Ericsson and Nokia face-off. Both companies rate their own developer tracks at the show, and Symbian has just celebrated the announcement of Sony-Ericsson's new P800 …

    Mobile 12 Mar 2002, 12:24

  • DSL cartographers map Scotland

    It's about demand, stoopid

    Business ISP edNET has launched a new Web site so that it can map broadband demand in Scotland. If those behind broadbandscotland.net can prove there is sufficient demand in areas currently not served by high-speed Internet access, then they will either press BT to enable the exchange or unbundle it themselves. Sebastien Robin …

    Music and Media 12 Mar 2002, 12:26

  • Ballmer: Redmond überdog will act responsibly

    No more pogoing round the podium then...

    Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Steve Ballmer is expected to distance his company from past business practices at the CeBIT trade show in Germany this week by stressing that the company must be seen as "responsible" in dealings with other companies. Ballmer, who recently insisted Microsoft had never retaliated …

    Software 12 Mar 2002, 12:45

  • Taiwan notebook business scents upturn

    But still held back by LCD costs

    Taiwan's notebook sector appears to be relatively healthy according to research by Merrill Lynch, although visibility remains extremely limited. A research note from Merrill Lynch said that after visiting Taiwanese vendors, it seemed that March was going to be better than January, which was in turn going to be better than …

    Business 12 Mar 2002, 12:49

  • GPRS, colour, MMS to fuel Q3-Q4 phone bounce back

    Slow trade in the interim, says Gartner

    The global mobile handset market suffered its first real decline ever last year, and in 2002 it is likely to only return to low single-digit growth, predicts market research house Gartner Dataquest, a unit of Gartner Inc. In 2001, total worldwide mobile phone sales fell 3.2% to 399.6 million, compared to a compound annual …

    Mobile 12 Mar 2002, 12:56

  • Would you pay $5 to rescue Mandrake?

    They sure hope so

    Claiming a short-term cash crunch, Linux distributor Mandrake is asking individual users to join a 'club' for $5 per month and up, and business users to join one for $2,500 per year and up. All Club members will get some manner of special treatment in exchange, depending on the level of commitment offered. The idea is to help …

    Software 12 Mar 2002, 13:28

  • Cost the key factor in pushing business to open source

    Survey says they're ready, but identifies key worries

    Major businesses could well be poised to embrace open source software, with cost, control over development and "an alternative to the status quo" being prime considerations, according to survey data released today by OpenForum Europe. OpenForum, which aims to accelerate the deployment of open source software in business and …

    Software 12 Mar 2002, 13:59

  • IDC sees bottom of server market, predicts recovery

    Worldwide server revenues down 26% in Q4

    The worldwide server market declined sharply by 26 percent in Q4 last year, but the worst may be over and buying patterns are expected to return to normal this year. That's according to the latest figures from analyst firm IDC which reports that the server market was worth $12.6 billion in 4Q 2001 compared to $16.9 billion in …

    Hardware 12 Mar 2002, 14:00

  • 1m Orange punters hit by glitch

    Network loses zest for some hours

    More than a million Orange customers experienced difficulties using their mobile phones yesterday following problems on the company's network. Punters began experiencing intermittent problems making phone calls from around 3.30pm yesterday afternoon. According to Orange more than ten per cent of its 12.4 million customers had …

    Mobile 12 Mar 2002, 14:03

  • MS to offer Europe extra antitrust ‘concessions’

    But the beef is not yet entirely visible...

    Microsoft is attempting to settle the European antitrust matter with what it describes as concessions going beyond those offered as part of the MS-DoJ settlement in the US. The offer preempts Europe's verdict on the company's activities, which was originally due early this year but now seems to be in a holding pattern pending …

    Software 12 Mar 2002, 16:54

  • 54Mbps WLANs roll in UK, Netherlands

    Intel to ship 802.11a kit to select European countries by July

    Britain and the Netherlands will be the first in Europe to roll with 802.11a high speed networking kit, as country by country European approvals for the standard proceed. By July users in the two countries will be able to buy kit that gives a theoretical maximum speed of up to 54Mbps, though the equipment needs to be set up so …

    Mobile 12 Mar 2002, 17:08

  • Dabs scores Xbox web-pricing own goal

    Botch bundled off site PDQ

    As the UK braces itself for the eagerly anticipated launch of Microsoft's Xbox games console on Thursday, some gamers are feeling cheated after their orders were rejected by etailer dabs.com. Giles Essame from Milton Keynes and Matthew Coleman, from Northampton are among 13 people who took up Dabs' offer of an Xbox Ultimate …

    Personal 12 Mar 2002, 17:16

  • ‘Boob’ makes Fool disappear

    Worst case - dozyfool.co.uk's probably available

    There are red-faces at the Motley Fool today after its UK site disappeared because it failed to re-register its UK domain. A statement by the humorous financial site reads: "Our apologies for the recent problems you may have had if you tried to access our site over the last few days. "Here's the reason why. It was a boob on …

    Music and Media 12 Mar 2002, 17:20

  • WLAN kit heads towards £50 mark

    Broadband driving consumer demand as prices drop

    The consumer wireless networking market is becoming commoditised much like the modem market before it, with wireless networks cards costing a fraction of the price they fetched a year ago. e-tailers like Action.com, Dabs.com and Simply.co.uk are offering 802.11b 11Mbps USB adapters from £60 (excluding VAT), compared to an …

    Mobile 12 Mar 2002, 17:29

  • Why isn't SMT Xeon scaling?

    Xeon MP wheezes in

    Intel has extended its SMT, "HyperThreaded" Xeon processors to large servers. But the processors don't give the dramatic performance benefits that they should, given the higher frequencies, better bandwidth and virtual processor technology. The chips use ServerWorks GC-HE custom chipset and come in 1.4Ghz, 1.5Ghz and 1.6Ghz …

    Channel 12 Mar 2002, 21:52