SystemLogic heeft een interview afgenomen met Anand van AnandTech. Erg leuk om effe te lezen, hieronder een stukkie.

SL: What exactly got you started working on AnandTech?

AnandTech: Back in 1997 I caught myself smiling at AMD's release of the K6, I wanted one, and I wanted one bad. I was using a trusty ol' Cyrix 6x86 PR150+ and I was about to upgrade to a K6 and a new motherboard. I was so psyched about the upgrade that I thought I might as well help out those that may be in a similar position by releasing a sort of "diary" of my upgrade, documenting everything from the purchasing and installation to the performance aspects of the upgrade. I went around a few newsgroups and asked to see if anyone wanted a copy of the report after the upgrade was complete. I got about 70 people that were interested and I told them that I'd email them the report as soon as it was ready.

Time went on, the release of the K6 was finally upon me, I called around looking for one and I came up empty handed. The only place I could find that had the K6-233 I was looking for tried to sell it to me for $799, I laughed and decided that I'd wait. I obviously couldn't put together the report I was working on, so instead I made an account on Geocities (it was much better back then, no $*#(in popup ads all over the place) and put up Anand's Hardware Tech Page. That was the start.

SL: How long do you spend working on AnandTech a week?

AnandTech: On a normal week, about 60 hours. Don't get me started on how long I spend when I have a big review coming up

Poehee, 60 uur

Sinterklaas 82 tm schrijft: "Ik kreeg vandaag van sweb een brief met inschrijfformulier (terwijl ik al login gegevens heb) en in die brief stond dat er nog eens 15.000 man toegelaten wordt terwijl er nu al inbelproblemen zijn. Er staat dat letterlijk dat teveel mensen vervelende vertragingen bij het inbellen kunnen veroorzaken ( je kunt niet eens inbellen ). Ik weet niet waar superweb mee bezig is, maar laat ze eerst eens zorgen dat de eerste 10.000 abonnees na 1 of 2 keer verbinding hebben en nu niet na meer dan 30 keer (dan houd ik op, dan is het welletjes)":

Superweb zal deze aanpak de komende tijd continueren. De fasering is bedoeld ter voorkoming van de zogenaamde 'files' op het netwerk van KPN. Dat zou vervelende vertragingen en problemen bij het inbellen kunnen veroorzaken. Dit willen we hoe dan ook voorkomen. Gedurende de maand november zal Superweb de tweede stap in deze fasering doorvoeren en zullen wij 15.000 nieuwe abonnees aansluiten.

XKB schrijft: "Vandaag in de spits, het telegraafkrantje voor in de trein: Nederlandse klik-lijn geïntroduceert voor het aangeven van illegale kopiën van bijvoorbeeld spellen. Volgens de initiatiefnemers worden er veel aangiftes verwacht".

Hmm, de BSA had toch al veel langer zo'n lijn waar gefrustreerde harry's de buurman konden verraden?

Mischa de Wilt schrijft: "Videogames.com bericht over de laatste ontwikkelingen van de Sega Dreamcast zoals een Zip drive add-on en andere handel, maar het echte nieuws is dat Sega waarschijnlijk gaat stoppen met het maken van consoles!":

However, the greatest revelation during our discussions came as a huge shock to many of us seated next to Mr. Okawa. While this has been hinted at by media and even members of Sega in the past, hearing the chairman of Sega Enterprises officially stating it was very surreal: Sega is moving out of the hardware business. The Dreamcast will likely be the company's final console.

Cool: IBM heeft een 20,8" LCD display met een resolutie van 2048x1536 pixels gedemonstreerd! Hier een paar happen uit de press release:

The IBM Technology Group today stepped up its plans to become a major supplier of liquid crystal displays by announcing the industry's highest resolution, production-level LCD monitor panel available.

The new ITQX20 high-definition thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel is the industry's first commercially-available 20.8 inch TFT display that combines the highest resolution available in a production-level monitor panel with a large image size and superb image quality. Each of the display's nine million transistors acts as an individual switch for three million picture elements, or pixels, resulting in QXGA (2048 x 1536) resolution at 123 pixels per inch.

[...] The new panel is the result of breakthrough research on high-resolution displays conducted at IBM research labs in Yorktown Heights, New York. Last year, IBM announced a prototype display, code-named Roentgen after the pioneer of X-rays -- with 200 pixels per inch resolution that is virtually indistinguishable from the printed page. IBM recently announced exploratory research on the first ``flexible'' transistors using hybrid organic-inorganic semiconducting materials, creating the possibility of inexpensive flexible or curved displays on plastic, glass, and other materials.

The attributes of LCDs -- compactness, light weight, small footprint, lower power consumption and reduced electrical and magnetic interference -- are driving interest in TFT LCDs as a replacement for conventional CRT displays. High resolution LCDs are being incorporated in an increasingly wide range of applications, from engineering and medical equipment, nursing stations, engineering workstations, trading systems and even the International Space Station.

Volgens c't zal AMD op 13 december de Athlon 750 introduceren. De L2 cache divider zal verlaagd worden van 1/2/ naar 2/5 en - zoals eerder bekend werd - heeft AMD een verbeterde versie van de AMD 751 Irongate chipset voor ons in petto. Benchmarks van de Athlon 750 en verbeterde Irongate chipset vind je hier. Deze combi blijkt in vrijwel alle gevallen sneller te zijn dan de PIII-733EB:

Bei 7 Prozent höherem Core-Takt steigen die Benchmarks um gerade mal 2 bis 5 Prozent an, eigentlich kaum messbar. Aufgrund der überlegenen Floatingpoint-Einheit sammelt der Athlon Punkte gegenüber dem Pentium III/733EB. Im 3D-Bereich liegen die Kontrahenten dicht beieinander. Auf AMDs eigenem Referenzboard erzielt der Athlon zwar bessere Werte, doch diese haben keine praktische Relevanz, da es das Board nicht zu kaufen gibt. Andererseits: Auch das Board für den 733er Coppermine ist ein Prototyp mit dem noch nicht erhältlichen Camino-Chipsatz und Rambus-Modulen. Die Geschwindigkeitskrone gebührt also keinem der Kontrahenten alleine.Der höhere Takt nutzt AMD außer dem Prestigegewinn nicht so richtig; erst ein schnellerer Frontside-Bus und ein Fullspeed-L2-Cache brächten die Architektur des Athlon wieder voll zur Geltung. Gegenüber dem Vergleichstest der 700-MHz-Klasse in der c't 22/99 hat sich also nicht viel geändert: Schnelle Prozessoren, aber immer noch keine richtig guten Boards.

Opperhoofd Bill heeft op een aandeelhouders bijeenkomst geopenbaard dat hij niet zal acccepteren dat Microsoft - als mogelijke uitkomst van de anti-trust rechtszaak - gedwongen wordt de bundeling van browser en operating system te stoppen, zo bericht The Register:

Speaking to a Microsoft shareholder meeting about the current antitrust trial situation, Gates stressed that "if we can't add Internet support, we can't add any new features." He then added: "If we can't define the user experience of Windows so that all Windows machines operate the same way, then the Windows brand is meaningless."

Microsoft's determination to defend both of these points is likely to result in a fruitless outcome to talks over a negotiated settlement to the case. Gates clearly intends to continue to defend the integration of the browser in Microsoft's operating systems and to continue to add and integrate new Internet-related features.

That stance doesn't altogether rule out the possibility of Microsoft agreeing to offer unbundled versions of its operating systems as a sop to the DoJ, but it does close the door on any agreed settlement whose terms required Microsoft to entirely unbundle the browser. If, for example, the DoJ wanted Microsoft to provide a level playing field and offer a choice of no browser or one of several browsers, Microsoft would not agree, because the solution would be entirely the reverse of what Gates was saying yesterday.

Volgens c't zal Transmeta (wazig bedrijf dat een of andere mysterieuze processor in ontwikkeling heeft - en waar o.a. Linus Torvalds werkzaam is) op 19 januari volgend jaar z'n eerste processor releasen:

Transmeta will launch its first processor on 19 January 2000, according to Germany's c't magazine, and not at Comdex next week after all.

The terse c't report claims the chip is codenamed Crusoe because it's aimed at the notebook market. In other words, we're talking about a low-power chip, which while nonetheless welcome does seem a tad less groovy than most of the rumours leaking (or purporting to leak) out of the mysterious silicon company have suggested.

That said, Transmeta's filed patents hint at technologies to make applications run considerably faster than they do now, at a given clock speed. So if you're willing to run them at standard speed, you could, we imagine, run the chip rather more slowly than your average PIII and thus make a big saving on power.

Check The Register voor meer info.

Gateway heeft een nieuwe all-in-one doos aangekondigd en tegelijkertijd bekend gemaakt dat het geen AMD processors meer zal gebruiken, zo bericht News.com. Eerder werd al bekend dat Gateway geen Athlon systemen uit zou brengen, volgens geruchten omdat het een lekkere dikke deal met Intel had gesloten:

With the new PC, Gateway stops its use of AMD processors. The two kicked off a relationship this past February when Gateway started to incorporate K6-2 processors in certain consumer computers. Although the volumes weren't huge, Gateway's deal was seen as a psychological blow to AMD's rival Intel. The deal also meant that Dell Computer was the only top ten computer company not to use AMD processors.

The relationship, however, became tenuous in the summer when Gateway stated that it would only incorporate Pentium III processors in its high-end PCs, implying that the company would not adopt AMD's Athlon chip.

Gateway had been expected to come out with an Athlon system, sources said. Some have speculated that negotiations between Intel and Gateway contributed to a demise of that effort.

Silicon Investor heeft een artikel gepost met verwachtingen voor de financiële positie van AMD in het vierde kwartaal. Aangenomen wordt dat het verlies van AMD mee zal vallen. Verder wordt verwacht dat AMD een partner (Motorola) binnen zal halen voor het verkopen van produktiecapaciteit in hypermoderne (en dure) Dresden fab:

We are reducing our estimated loss for the current quarter on higher K7 unit assumptions. We believe that AMD's 4Q has gotten off to a stronger than expected start with K7 unit shipments likely to exceed earlier guidance. With AMD's products much more focused on consumer and SOHO users we believe that AMD stands to benefit from the expected seasonal strength as well as benefiting from increasing shipments of higher ASP K7s.

Although we are not changing our estimates to reflect it, we believe it is also increasingly likely that AMD will sign a partner for its Dresden fab. Although the exact type of arrangement is hard to predict, we believe that the Company is likely to sign a partner to take part ownership of the fab. Successful completion of this type of deal could dramatically reduce AMD's carrying costs associated with Dresden and provide significantly earnings leverage in 2000 and into 2001.

While we are not changing our rating, with AMD likely to have a better than expected quarter and with the possibility of significant financial leverage we believe the stock could move outside of its current trading range and move into the mid-to-upper-mid $20s.

[...] Strategically, AMD's challenges may come down to one of scale. In a $35 billion market that requires $2 billion fab investments to be made every few years, the ability to fund these efforts is problematic. With AMD's microprocessor manufacturing efforts concentrated in only one fab, fab 25 in Texas, its difficulties are multiplied. Specifically, while Intel has the ability to migrate both processors and processes in multiple fabs, AMD has had to make all of these changes in a single location. Because of this, its manufacturing risks have been multiplied. Looking into 2000, when Dresden comes on line, we believe this could provide the company with in important benefit in that for the first time it will have two mainstream state-of-the-art fabs in which to migrate both processes and products simultaneously without having to concentrate its efforts all in one location.

For AMD, the introduction of the K7 continues to represent a critical product transition for AMD. Success at positioning the K7 as a mainstream/high-end processor is critical to AMD's profitable participation in the PC/workstation/serer market. While we believe that the K7 is technically a very good product, we believe the challenge of AMD moving "up-market" will be significant with the burden of proof clearly on the company.

AMD Zone bericht dat FIC een nieuw BIOS voor de SD11 slot-A plank heeft gepost:

Model SD11
PCB 1.7/1.8
BIOS maker AMI
Version NC606
Released 1999-11-02
Flash flash821.EXE
Fixes
1. supports AMD Athlon 750MHz
2. supports IBM 35GB HDD
3. fix for can not find HDD when boot from CDR
4. fix for boot failure with AHA2940 and Creative TNT2 Ultra Status release [break] Het nieuwe SD11 BIOS kun je hier naar binnen lepelen. Verder heeft een nieuw beta BIOS voor de K7M naar z'n FTP geupt. Je komt 'm hier binnen halen (hij's beta, dus wees voorzichtig)...

EBN Online heeft een artikeltje gepost over de DDR SDRAM vs Direct Rambus oorlog, die vandaag nog eens lekker verder werd aangekacheld door het rapport van Bert McComas (zie deze nieuwsposting):

The InQuest test used a Vancouver motherboard and Camino chipset supplied by Intel and two double-sided 256-Mbyte 800-MHz Direct RDRAM RIMM memory modules from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. The platforms was tested against a Samurai DDR chipset from Micron Technology Inc. supporting Micron's 64-Mbit PC266 SDRAM in buffered PC2100 DIMMs.

Both tests used Intel's new Coppermine Pentium 733-MHz processor, and each system was tested using the University of Virginia standard StreamD benchmark, according to McComas.

The Samurai/DDR combo beat the Camino/Rambus duo with an average performance advantage of 24.4% in a series of tests, and exceeded 30% in some cases. Tests using the WSTREAM.EXE benchmark showed DDR besting Direct Rambus by a much smaller average of 2.7 %.

BXBoards heeft een review van de Elitegroup P6BAT-A+ neer geplant. Dit plankje is gebaseerd op de VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset en beschikt zowel over een slot1 als socket370 interface (die echter niet tegelijkertijd gebruikt kunnen worden, geen dual dus):

This is third dual architecture board I've reviewed from Elitegroup and its probably the best yet. While there are still limitations - and Elitegroup are STILL persisting in using a first generation clock generator, despite using one of most recent chipsets to hit the market - the VIA 133 chipset gives stability at 133Mhz which has been lacking in previous Elitegroup efforts. While the VIA 133 chipset gives application scores around 0.7 Winstone 99 behind an equivilant Intel BX board, this should'nt really be an issue, as the AGP /2 divider at 133Mhz more than compensates. You also get the advantage of UltraDMA/66 now, and while it is likely that Camino boards will outperform both the VIA 133, and the VIA 133A chipsets, the cost premimum is such, that VIA 133 boards are compelling options, especially for users of 133Mhz and beyond.

Hitachi heeft de GF-2000 DVD-RAM aangekondigd. De drive kan schijfjes van 2,6 en 4,7Gb bakken en zal vanaf begin 2000 verkrijgbaar zijn, zo maakt men bekend in deze press release:

Digital Media Group of Hitachi, Ltd. today announced that it has completed the development of 4.7 gigabytes DVD-RAM drive (GF-2000) for PC applications, and samples will be ready to ship in January 2000.

High-speed communications networks are growing at an explosive rate, driven by the increased use of PCs, the rise of the Internet and the start of digital satellite broadcasting. DVD-RAM's high speed, large storage capacity and rewritability make it the medium of choice in a multimedia environment that integrates the PC with home audio/visual systems.

For rewritable data storage, the GF-2000 accommodates single- and double-sided DVD- RAM media, technology complying with the new DVD specifications approved by the DVD Forum's Steering Committee, providing a single-sided storage capacity of 4.7 gigabytes, and double that for a two-sided disc. The new drive will be shown at Comdex99, held in Las Vegas November 15-19.

In April 1998 Hitachi released a single-sided 2.6 gigabyte DVD-RAM drive, which has enjoyed good demand for PC and library system applications. The GF-2000 is the successor to that earlier drive. In addition to offering some 1.8 times the storage capacity of the 2.6 gigabyte drive, during writing operations the 4.7-gigabyte drive transfers data twice as fast.

Areas in which DVD-RAM drives are already being used include video, music, computers, and industrial equipment. With the higher storage capacity of 4.7 gigabytes and the compatibility with the video recording standard formulated by the DVD Forum, DVD is set to go beyond the PC. Future applications will include home DVD video recorders and DVD video cameras, and it will be possible to use PC DVD- RAM drives to play, edit and store videos taken with the home DVD video cameras. In all scenarios of the multimedia world of the future, DVD is thus expected to play a central role. As a leading manufacturer of DVD drives, Hitachi will continue to provide products that meet market needs.

Features of the GF-2000
- Complies with the 4.7 gigabyte rewritable DVD format standard
- Provides read- and write-compatibility with 2.6 gigabyte DVD-RAM discs
- Can play DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-Video media
- Can play the various CD formats

Outline of Specifications
- Format 4.7GB DVD-RAM
- Laser wavelength 650 nm (DVD)/780 nm (CD)
- Writing rate 4.7GB DVD-RAM disc: 2.77 megabytes/sec 2.6GB DVD-RAM disc: 1.38 megabytes/sec
- Writable discs 4.7GB DVD-RAM 2.6GB DVD-RAM
- Readable discs DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-Video
CD-ROM, CD-Audio
CD-R/RW
CD-Extra

Hardware Central heeft een review van de Altec Lansing ADA-880 gepost. Dit 4-speaker setje heeft een vermogen van 80Watt en is voorzien van een S/PDIF ingang. Hier een stukje over de performance van bijgeleverde subwoofer:

The system is rated down to 20 Hz, with a crossover frequency of 150 Hz. Again, a somewhat generous estimate on the part of Altec--sound reproduction at much below 30 Hz was definitely sub-par. However, overall, the unit does provide deep, full sound over most of the spectrum. The bass is richer and offers more punch than any PC system I have heard to date (I haven’t heard them all, however), though the woofer does tend toward some “thwapping” at higher volumes. I don’t feel this is a major concern, however, as the woofer was clear up to extremely high volume levels. I recommend against listening at such levels for too long--hearing and brain damage could easily result!

Eric van Fastgraphics heeft een peltier met dikke Alpha socket370 heatsink tegen z'n Asus V6600 GeForce gemikt. Ziet er heftig uit :

Since I have the Asus V6600 with the metal-top version of the GeForce chip, I decided to put it to the test real hard.. Unfortunately this card is equipped with 5.5 ns SDRAM, which I couldn't get any higher than 190 MHz so far. The Creative Annihilator is equipped with 5 ns SDRAM, which runs fine at 200... Anyway, I peeled off the heatsink yesterday (pics below), and today I decided to put a peltier with an Alpha cooler on it, just to see how high I could get the clockspeed of the chip...

The results aren't bad: The V6600 runs stable with a core speed of 160 MHz, and at that speed the core temperature is about 15 oC... Memory runs stable at 190 MHz.. I'll poke around a little more this afternoon when I'm back from school. Expect benchmarks this evening.

Ik fietste wat rond bij AGN Hardware en kwam via hun bij deze thread op het Xtreme Insight forum, met speculaties over de Voodoo4. De schrijver van onderstaande posting vraagt zich af wat 3dfx voor memory architectuur in gedachten heeft om een fillrate van 1 Gigapix/sec mogelijk te maken. Persoonlijk vind ik dat ook wel een interessant punt. Aangezien de GeForce en Savage2000 al zwaar bandwidth limited zijn valt te verwachten dat de V4 met vergelijkbare problemen zal kampen, tenzij 3dfx iets nieuws bedacht heeft:

Speculation is WRONG. But it sure is fun, so who cares, right? Here's what I was wondering...

The Voodoo 4 will have full scene anti-aliasing, an accumulation buffer (T-buffer), texture compression, and, most impressively, a fill rate of 1 GigaPixel per second!

But how the heck are they achieving that? 1 Gigipixel per second demands an enormous amount of memory bandwidth.

The only two cost effective ways of doing this (that I can think of) is by way of tile based rendering and embedded memory.

Tile based rending would eliminate the need for a frame buffer (completely eliminating the largest memory bottleneck in conventional architectures), while embedded memory would provide ample memory bandwidth for the frame buffer to be used at virtually any resolution.

However, to run at 1600x1200x32bpp would require more embedded memory than 3Dfx would likely find within their budget to make, and they have made it clear that they will push high resolutions. This option seems kind of 'iffy' because of this cost factor. Even the Glaze3D, which will have embedded memory, only has 9MB, enough memory to run at 1024x768x32.

Is it possible that 3Dfx could use an SLI'd type dual dedicated pipelined DDRAM frame buffer? Not likely as dedicated pipelines (such as that on the Voodoo 2) seem to be a thing of the past because of, once again, cost.

So, could it be, that 3Dfx is going to tile-based rendering a la the old PowerVR architecture?

We'll soon find out!

Check deze page voor het verdere verloop van de thread.

Bjorn 3D heeft een review gepost van de Guillemot 3D Prophet GeForce 256 kaart. In de test vind je veel benchmarks van de kaart draaiend op een K6-2 450MHz.

I had a great time with the 3D Prophet and encountered practically none of the hang ups or incompatibilities usually associated with brand new hardware. The card performed like a champ, and even helped out my K6-2 by a noticeable degree. I’ll let you decide if the performance gained from a TNT or TNT2 is worth your hard earned cash.

I’m slightly concerned about the color brightness problem I originally noticed, but in spite of that I still have no trouble recommending the 3D Prophet. It performed very well during it’s stay in my machine and caused me no grief. For that I give it a hearty thumbs up!

Zer0 weet te melden dat Asus nieuwe Detonator drivers in elkaar heeft geschroefd voor haar GeForce 256 en TNT2 kaarten.

Asus has released new Windows 2000 drivers for their graphics cards. The latest version for Asus AGP-V6600 GeForce256 Series for Windows 2000 is 3.56. The latest version for Asus AGP-V3800TNT2 Series for Windows 2000 is 3.56.

Download drivers for AGP-V6600 GeForce256 Series

Download drivers for AGP-V3800TNT2 Series

Bert McComas (schreef ooit een een paar diepe geheugen artikelen voor ome Tom) van InQuest Market Research heeft een DDR vs Rambus performance comparison in elkaar geknutseld. Volgens zijn analyse is DDR onder alle omstandigheden sneller dan Rambus:

The 10-30% performance advantage for DDR over Rambus demonstrated in the benchmark scores above are truly astounding. This performance advantage will immediately be appreciated in server platforms, in high-end graphics and in other high performance systems.

Even the low end PC may stand to benefit very soon from DDR technology as UMA (shared memory) platforms appear in the year 2000. Indeed, DDR may be the catalyst that enables UMA to grow from the bottom of the market to the mainstream beginning in the second half of 2000.

Regardless of the application or target platform, the single key element in the DRAM performance equation is to deliver superior memory performance without adding significantly to system cost. DDR may be the technology to deliver this combination to the mainstream.

Philips Speech Processing heeft iets nieuws bedacht: de FreeSpeech Browser. Dat is een soort gestripte versie van FreeSpeech, die alleen gebruikt kan worden om te internetten. Met Internet Explorer.
Maar gelukkig zeggen ze bij de system requirements het volgende:

Windows 98 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 (with the latest Service Pack) or 5.0 installed. FreeSpeech Browser does not currently work with Netscape Navigator - but we are working on it!

Verder kunnen ook Windows 95 en NT wel gebruikt worden, als Microsoft Active Accessability (MSAA) maar geinstalleerd is. Nooit van gehoord.

Ik lees bij Ace's Hardware dat Microstar hun MSI-6167 Athlon plankje nu eindelijk vermeldt heeft op hun site. Hoe vind ik dit bord:

- Ga naar www.msi-computer.nl
- Klik op Productgids
- Vervolgens Moederborden
- Dan zie je een overzicht met Slot1/2 en Socket7/370 borden, maar Slot-A is onvindbaar. Eerst klikken op Slot 1 (dus niet Socket370 of SS7, want dan komt je er niet).
- Vervolgens zien wij ergens in een menuregeltje Slot A staan.
- Tada!.

In tegenstelling tot hetgeen Betanews gisteren beweerde gaat het bij de recent geposte Win2k build 2176 niet om Release Candidate 3:

;Yet to be posted to NTBeta, Microsoft is not expected to deem the new beta build of Windows 2000 Release Candidate 3 (RC3). Contrary to what was mentioned earlier by BetaNews.Com, Microsoft has only decided to post another build for beta testing before RC3. Internally a few more builds have already been released, newer than 2176, and are still not RC3 caliber. We are sorry for any confusion caused by the posting from earlier today.

I'd like to say, in response to some Windows 2000 beta newsgroup posts, that I did not post the first story today and wanted to correct our erroneous information. It is not a matter of being "best," just closer to correct. Also I'm not saying we're correct all the time either, but we'll do our best to ensure all our stories are valid. If you want to comment, you can e-mail me instead of saying something malicious against BetaNews.Com in the newsgroup.

hjs schrijft: "Dit proggie is al een paar dagen uit en ik ben er op verschillende plaatsen zeer positieve reakties over tegen gekomen":

Xteq Systems today released X-Setup 5.5, the ultimate mother of all Windows tweaking utilities for Windows 95/98/NT/2000. It has more tweaks than TweakUI and TweakAll combined, and has many new features and abilities. Here are just a few of the latest features: Office 97 and Office 2000 tweaks, IE 1.x through 5.x tweaks, video card tweaks for popular boards such the Riva TNT/TNT2/128 series, Voodoo series, ATI Rage series and more, excellent security options/tweaks, major performance boost tweaks, extensive customization abilities, and much more. There are hundreds of tweaks for the Win9x/NT/2000 operating systems. Highly recommended for power users, gamers, and anyone looking to maximize their performance and speed.

X-Setup kun je hier neerhalen. (2.8MB)

Ralph schrijft: "Diegenen die het "kom maar bij me binnen" Outlook gebruiken hebben weer wat om zich zorgen te maken. Nu een belletjesjongen: Bubbleboy.
":

Een anonieme virusschrijver heeft BubbleBoy deze week naar anti-virusmakers opgestuurd. Deze zijn behoorlijk geschrokken van deze nieuwe worm. Het openen van een mailtje is namelijk genoeg voor BubbleBoy om zich te verspreiden. De verwachting is dat er spoedig BubbleBoy-varianten zullen volgen.

'Vroeger' was het simpel: als je een mailtje niet vertrouwt, open dan nooit het bijgevoegde bestand. Als je je hieraan hield, kon je niets gebeuren. Virussen konden zich op deze manier in ieder geval niet via het mailprogramma verspreiden. Tot deze week.

Eerst was er de bugjager Juan Carlos Cuartango die een lek in Microsoft Outlook ontdekte (zie nieuws van 9 november). Volgens de Spanjaard kan de beveiliging van Outlook worden omzeild door de ware identiteit van een attachment geheim te houden en deze met behulp van een Javascriptje automatisch te openen.

Alsof dit nog niet erg genoeg is, is nu BubbleBoy opgedoken, een Melissa-achtige worm. BubbleBoy – genoemd naar een episode van de Amerikaanse comedy Seinfeld – verspreidt zich net als Melissa over internet. Op zichzelf is de worm ongevaarlijk voor de computer; het doet bijvoorbeeld niets engs met de harde schijf. Het enige wat er gebeurt, is dat BubbleBoy zichzelf vermenigvuldigt.

Het programmaatje stuurt zichzelf hiertoe naar ieder contact uit het adresboek van Outlook. Dit was in maart ook het geval met Melissa, met als gevolg vele overbelaste servers. In de subject-regel staat nu "BubbleBoy is back!" en in het bericht zelf staat: "The BubbleBoy incident, pictures and sounds" plus een URL die nergens naartoe leidt.

Lees de rest van het WebWereld nieuwsbericht hier.

hjs meldt dat er unofficial 3.56 Detonators op het web staan:

The Tweak Monkey reports the availability of unofficial nVidia Detonator drivers at a russian site called Riva Hardware. As always, only the brave should fiddle with unreleased drivers. However, the Monkey claims it works fine on his GeForce.

Download het zaakie hier. (1.5MB)

T_E_O schrijft: "Ik zat eindelijk ingebeld op Superweb en toen was ik toe aan m'n dagelijkse portie Tweakers.net. Mooi dat het dus niet werkt: Tweakers.net is niet te bereiken vanaf Superweb. Zoals velen al gemerkt hebben is ook Nielsonline.nl niet te bereiken, wat waarschijnlijk komt door het forum dat daar staat. Dat die Nielsonline.nl geblockt is daar kom ik wel overheen, maar Tweakers.net . Laten we ze met z'n allen opbellen en gaan klagen ! Ik bel ze in ieder geval morgen erover )".

Iemand die dit kan verifyen?