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8th April 2002 Archive

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  • IE patch bugs readers

    Not quite good enough

    The data-binding/object-tag patch for IE, which prevents executables being launched remotely by a script, does not protect against launching from a local file, as we reported last week. MS has used a 'security zone' approach to deciding whether a script should or should not be allowed to launch an executable. The company has …

    Letters 8 Apr 2002, 06:06

  • China acts on government piracy

    Circular

    The Chinese government has ordered its departments to set a special budget to buy authorized software and stamp out pirated applications. A circular has been issued by four ministries and departments, including the Ministry of Finance and the National Copyright Administration, in the wake of the introduction of the Chinese …

    Business 8 Apr 2002, 07:57

  • IBM brings partitioning to the AIX midrange

    With pSeries 670

    If the Unix server line of IBM Corp has had one Achilles' Heel in the past several years, it has been the lack of a sophisticated partitioning capability, Timothy Prickett Morgan writes. This has been available in its mainframes since 1988, in rival Sun Microsystems Inc's Solaris servers since 1996, and in its AS/400- …

    Hardware 8 Apr 2002, 07:57

  • Feeling secure with Microsoft Word

    Kicking over the traces

    How often do you send out documents created with Microsoft Word that are based upon previous documents? Do you always use a new, clean template or do you take the last proposal you wrote and modify it for the new prospect? Do you ever turn off the 'Track Changes' option? If you don't then the recipients will almost certainly …

    Software 8 Apr 2002, 07:59

  • Component costs haunt dispirited PC market

    Devil and deep blue sea

    PC vendors were sat between the devil and the deep blue sea last week, as rising component costs force them to consider raising prices even as their market stubbornly refuses to pickup, Joe Fay writes. Vendors are being forced to swallow rising prices for memory and to a lesser extent LCD panels. Supplies may be further …

    Personal 8 Apr 2002, 08:00

  • ISS ranks Net vulnerabilities

    Advanced worms

    Advanced worms, or so-called hybrid and blended threats like Nimda and Code Red, continue to pose the greatest online risk according to investigations carried out by Internet Security Systems Inc, but the company rates multiple vulnerabilities uncovered in the SNMP v.1 Simple Network Management Protocol "the largest multi- …

    Security 8 Apr 2002, 08:00

  • Lastminute.com buys travel agent for £9m

    Share issue

    Lastminute.com is buying Travelselect.com, a rival UK online travel agency, for £9m in new shares. The acquisition will triple Lastminutes's UK flight volume, bulking up to annual UK revenues of £50m, the company says. Approx. 80 per cent of Travelselect's 200,000 annual air ticket sales are generated online. Also, the purchase …

    e-Business 8 Apr 2002, 08:35

  • New Win-NT, 2K, XP security holes

    MS not worried - but maybe you should be

    First up, the MUP (Multiple UNC Provider) in Windows NT, 2K and XP contains an unchecked buffer which can be exploited to escalate user privileges, making it possible for an attacker to run arbitrary code at the OS level. UNC refers to the Universal Naming Convention, with which shares are identified. MUP is a Windows service …

    Software 8 Apr 2002, 08:51

  • Count those fingers before you buy Dell – Gartner

    Primer inter pares

    CNET's John Spooner got his mitts last week on a Gartner research note, which warns companies to read the small print carefully when buying from Dell. Headline low-prices quoted by Dell in negotiations may be misleading, the analyst firm notes. Stray from the standard configurations, and the prices zoom up. This is not simply a …

    Personal 8 Apr 2002, 09:00

  • Azlan upbeat on trading

    Sales. profits up

    Azlan today issued an upbeat trading statement, announcing that revenues and pre-tax profits for the year to March 31, 2002 will be up on last year. Sales will be approx. £610m (2001: £592 million) and pre-tax profits will exceed £18 million (2001: £16.1 million). The networking equipment vendor also said it generated …

    Channel 8 Apr 2002, 09:00

  • BT to launch cheaper ‘no frills’ ADSL service

    UPDATE: Improves availability of broadband

    BT Retail is to provide a cheaper "no frills" alternative for high-speed Internet access from the summer, the monster telco announced today. The service is currently on trial and simply provides direct access to the Net without any provision of content or ISP services. Although exact details of the service have yet to be …

    Telecoms 8 Apr 2002, 09:32

  • The best way to kill MS Messenger

    Updated Check out this little script

    Update The batch script below now includes an uninstaller. A number of readers have reported that the Group Policy (gpedit.msc) method of removing MS messenger results in very slow loading of Outlook Express, which apparently insists on exhausting all possible means of loading msmsgs.exe before presenting itself. On hearing …

    Software 8 Apr 2002, 09:58

  • Review Philips Fisio 820: positive step

    Philips is a funny old sausage when it comes to mobiles. In the six years I've worked at What Mobile it's brought out a wildly assorted range of models which have had almost nothing in common with one another. Some have been horrible and remarkably successful, some top-notch products yet commercial disasters; others, so far off …

    Mobile 8 Apr 2002, 11:49

  • Cost of IT security breaches doubles – FBI

    More firms blow the whistle

    Two in three US firms say they lost money after falling victim to security breaches last year, according to an FBI survey. The cost of intrusions was almost double that of 2000. Eighty-five percent of respondents taking part in the sixth annual Computer Crime and Security Survey, detected computer security breaches in 2001. …

    Music and Media 8 Apr 2002, 11:56

  • MS gets leaked Win2k USB 2.0 drivers pulled, cites DMCA

    But still not shipping the 'finished' ones...

    Microsoft has acted to suppress unofficial/unauthorised sources for the USB 2.0 drivers for Windows 2000, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in a complaint to the hosting company of Littlewhitedog.com, (LWD) which has been hosting leaked drivers since January. In response LWD has pulled the drivers, and the other site …

    Software 8 Apr 2002, 12:00

  • The Bastard Junkets from Hell

    Episode 8 Paper, Scissor, Stone

    BOFH 2002: Episode 8 I'm working away in the Computer room (reprogramming The Boss's internet traffic monitor with a club hammer) when an important email comes in, trips an alert on my incoming mail scanner, and causes me to be messaged via cellphone. This could be serious! And it is. Scant moments after popping out to …

    BOFH 8 Apr 2002, 12:13

  • BOFH: Oh Bondage, Up Yours!

    Episode 7 DNS hijack

    BOFH 2002: Episode 7 So I'm sitting at my desk reading an online computing rag when The Boss trundles in. "Could you add this name to our website please?" The Boss asks, handing over a glossy brochure with the Company's name emblazoned all over it, complete with the website address of our competitors. "That's not our …

    BOFH 8 Apr 2002, 12:14

  • Free rucksack with every 20 mobos!

    Three shorts for UK system builders

    DFI, the Taiwanese mobo maker, has launched a web-based reseller programme for UK system builders. You have to register and in return you get access to roadmaps, POS material and best of all, a free rucksack with every 20 mobos you order. You want the website address now, don't you? Here it is: http://www.dfi-reseller.co.uk …

    Channel 8 Apr 2002, 12:57

  • Online casinos wicked – coroner

    Spiralling debt leads to suicide

    A coroner has described Internet casinos as wicked following the suicide of a man who ran up debts of more than £53,000 online. Mario Opalka of Blackburn, Lancashire, turned to gambling following the death of his wife from cancer in September 2000. Although he won significant sums initially, Mr Opalka began to lose out …

    Music and Media 8 Apr 2002, 13:35

  • 18 jobs at risk at SceneOne

    mis en scene

    Some 18 jobs are at risk following the closure of the UK entertainment site SceneOne.co.uk last week. Flextech - the content division of cableco Telewest - announced in March that it intended to close the site. It blamed the closure on the failure of the site to generate sufficient ecommerce revenues to support the business. …

    e-Business 8 Apr 2002, 14:13

  • Micron samples PC2700 DIMMs

    Conforms to new JEDEC standard

    Micron today claims an industry first, with the release of engineering samples of "PC2700 DDR SDRAM TSOP-based unbuffered DIMM modules based on the newly revised JEDEC standard". The new module features something called stub resistors on the addressing/command line, improving signal integrity at very high modules at high …

    Channel 8 Apr 2002, 14:27

  • AMD reveals handheld hand

    New Alchemy CPU

    AMD today launched a new chip, the first fruits of its recent takeover of Alchemy Semiconductor, and its first foray into the low-power PDA and information appliance CPU market. This is the Alchemy AU 1100: it runs on a MIPS32 instruction set at speeds of up to 500MHz. At 333MHz, it consumes "less than 200 mW"; the 400MHz …

    Channel 8 Apr 2002, 15:54

  • Dell flashes blades

    Brick servers next up

    Dell last week announced the specs for its first server blades, which it plans to launch in its third quarter. Most entrants in the emerging high-density blade server market, have launched with products featuring low power 700MHz Pentium III processors. Dell, however, has made its first foray into the segment by basing its …

    Hardware 8 Apr 2002, 15:59

  • Nominet UK to change WHOIS details

    WHOIS? WHAT! WHAT!

    Nominet UK plans to make more information available about individuals and organisations that have registered domain names. At the moment anyone who makes a WHOIS enquiry for .uk domains receives the registrant's name, the date it was registered and when the entry was last updated. But from this summer the registry for .uk …

    Music and Media 8 Apr 2002, 16:02

  • WD does the business in Q3

    Executes crisps

    Western Digital will beat its own Q3 forecasts on revenue, profits and shipments. The hard disk drive (HDD) maker reports that "solid demand" from its PC sales channel continued in March, matching its experience in January and February. And it boasts of "crisp execution" - in other words it is managing its manufacturing and …

    Business 8 Apr 2002, 16:17

  • My daily virus

    Forget the WildList; Outlook delivers

    "I regarded viruses as only good for entertainment," said Guido Sanchez about ten years ago. Sanchez ran Nun Beaters Anonymous, an underground bulletin board system notable for its free viruses and dry wit, the latter a scarce commodity in the world of hacker outlawry. For the record, he also said: "I have nothing against …

    Security 8 Apr 2002, 20:03