SurfiOnline

Fancy buying a license to use linux from the SCO group? Well SCO is now selling them to Linux users. Why do i :rolleyes:?

Microsoft is fighting back against the anti-trust lawsuit that Real Networks took out against the software giant. Real claims that Microsoft illegal used its monopoly power to restrict competition and consmer choice in the digital-media space by forcing Windows Media Player on Windows users.. :rolleyes: again!

After eight whole months of legal battles a San Francisco federal judge has ruled against 321 Studios’ popular DVD-copying software. They have seven days to stop distributing these products.

Another variation of the now-famous MyDoom virus is on its way arounds. This variation, titled MyDoom.F deletes several types of files stored on the infected computer and attacks the websites of Microsoft and the Recording Industry Association of America.

On the topic of the RIAA, a New Jersey mother has turned the tables on the RIAA by suing the major labels for racketeering. Finally, someone has made a stance.

Seems Microsoft is on its say to tracking down users who have copies of the Windows source code and have contacted at least one Australian ISP.

Yahoo! has ended its marrige with Google and has begun to field test its own search engine technology. The new engine, built on top of technology acquired from Inktomi, marks an unofficial end to its partner ship with Google, dating back to October 2002.

Microsoft appears to be planning a number of new features for its Xbox Live online gaming service this year, including limit data storage on its network.

Plans to land a spacecraft on a comet take off this week. If successful it will take the spacecraft more than 10 years to track to its target. They hope to unlock secrets of the universe!

Fancy saving $100 on an email client? Well then this article explains how you can do so by switching to the free Outlook alternative, Mozilla Thunderbird

More space news for you.. The Mars rover has uncovered hints of water activity on the martian planet. The largest solar syystem body since Pluto has been spotted

Enjoy the news, i’m sure thats enough for you to read at the moment

Yes, and what a great Friday it has been.. Didn’t go to school due to the school swimming carnival (Sick with some deadly disease – like i am on every swimming carnival :rolleyes:).

Anyway, for the news..

Our favourite group, The SCO (for those who have had their eyes closed, they are taking legal action against the open source community) have finally released details on what code was apparently ’stolen’. :rolleyes:

W32.Netsky.B@mm, a new mass-mailing worm appears to be on the rounds. More information at the Symantec website.. :S

Microsoft have turned down claims that they will be working with IBM to provide a port of their office suite, Microsoft Office, to linux.

According to Neowin.net a new build of Windows XP SP2 Beta is due very soon.

A second ferry has crashed into a wharf at Circular Quay in the beautiful Sydney, Australia this morning. What is going on?

Fancy some internet access with your hamburger at McDonalds? The first McDonald’s hotspots, provided by Telstra, in Australia have gone live today.

AOL and Earthlink are beginning to take action against users that are spamming their internet services and clients.

It appears that the 8550 portable player in the Apple IPod are able to play WMA files by default, however Apple have chose to lock this client out of their popular MP3 player.

Oops.. well, i bet thats what Pepsi are saying about their iTunes promotion. Apparently you are able to see the winning iTunes codes through the bottle, without even buying it.

That should keep you busy, for now

I have taken a liking to this rather nice web browser. Today i decided to install it, after previously experimenting with the previous Firebird releases i noticed there have been alot of updates and many of the bugs i had previously encountered had been fixed.

I decided i would toy around some more and i came up with the following (After customising with themes, extentions, and modifications to the UserChrome.css file).

Lets take a more detailed look…

You can have multiple websites open in a single window using the tabbed-window interface.. Very easily to switch between windows and does not clutter up your task bar like other web browsers..

The browser even comes with a built in Google search toolbar! You dont have to install any plugins, stock standard. What makes it better, is that you can customise it (along with every other feature of the browser) to add your own search engines!

The browsers intergrated Bookmarks Manager allows you to easily manage all of your favourite links, heck, it will even import your Internet Explorer favourites!

The intergrated Download manager allows you to easily manage your downloads, everything from Pausing, Restarting, Cancelling, and listing your previously downloaded files!

You also have alot of control of your web browser allowing you to set every possible option you need to surf the web in complete comfort.

The browser comes with a completely customisable user interface. Through the Preferences window you can easily manage your installed Firefox/Mozilla themes – which include the style of the UI as well as the toolbar icons. Neat, huh?

Did someone say Plugins? Firefox allows you to install numerous ‘extensions’ which will extend the functionality of your browser to include new features such as more advanced popup and ad blocking, a calendar, and various other features not included in the release. Whats even easier, is that you install the extensions by the click of a mouse button on a web page!

Other features include popup blocking, allowing you to rid yourself once and for all of those damned annoying windows.. Although it gives you the option to allow popups for certain websites. The infamous ‘Auto complete’ feature is also included allowing you to automatically have values of forms remembered for later use.

Generally speaking, on the more technical side of things, Firefox’s rendering engine is very complete at meets the W3C specifications for DOM and CSS. This allows many sites to load properly and be displayed in correct layout and format. The rendering engine also appears to be faster than Internet Explorer at downloading and rendering pages.

That about concludes my tour of Firefox, but I am glad to say that i think I have found my new web browser! if you are curious as to which modifications i am using, just give me a yell and i will point you in the right direction.

Microsoft have started shipping out their free Windows Security Update CD’s world wide. Grab your copy here.

Microsoft is also warning the online community to keep its hands off te leaked Windows source code and is sending warnings to some users who have downloaded the stolen code.

The new iPod Mini is now being shipped across the world with over 100000 preorders to fill since its announcement last week.. mmm.. iPod Mini.

Word has it that the RIAA has taken legal action on another 531 individual Americans for file swapping and copyright infringment.

More for you to read later…

Sorry for a lack of updates people, the popular Messenger Plus! forums got hacked earlier this week and we have been busy trying to restore them and continue investigations..

It appears the first exploit, based around the code leak of Windows 2000, has reached the web affecting Internet Explorer 5.0.

Wonderland, the theme park in Sydney Australia will soon be closing down .

The release of PHP 5.0.0 Beta 4 has been announced on FileForum. At the moment there is no reports of new features but when they are available they will be posted.

FlashGet 1.50, a download management program from Amazesoft has just been released now with support for the MMS protocol. Get it!

Fancy this on one of your fingers?

Aye! (wait! thats pirates) There be the first viking ruins discovered in Pomville.

LaCie appear to have released a 1TB external harddrive (either USB or Firewire). See the press release here

Anyway, hopefully this is enough for tonight.. Keeping you posted though.

[with thanks to Neowin.net for this devistating information]

Neowin has learned of shocking and potentially devastating news. It would appear that two packages are circulating on the internet, one being the source code to Windows 2000, and the other being the source code to Windows NT. At this time, it is hard to establish whether or not full code has leaked, and this will undoubtedly remain the situation until an attempt is made to compile them. Microsoft are currently unavailable for comment surrounding this leak so we have no official response from them at the time of writing.

This leak is a shock not only to Neowin, but to the wider IT industry. The ramifications of this leak are far reaching and devastating. This reporter does not wish to be sensationalist, but the number of industries and critical systems that are based around these technologies that could be damaged by new exploits found in this source code is something that doesn’t bare thinking about.

We ask that for the wider benefit of the IT community that members and readers support Microsoft by forwarding anything they know about the leak to the Microsoft’s Anti-Piracy department.

Source: Neowin.net

And what a hot one here with the weather reaching a warm 36°C here in Sydney.

Didn’t think it was possible to turn 1 cent into $1 million? these guys have.

Missed this, the Mozilla group has released version 0.5 of its popular email client Mozilla Thunderbird Its free as well

Patchou, the creator of the very popular Messenger addon, Messenger Plus! today announced version 3 of this popular software concentrating on User Interface improvements

It appears that Microsoft Windows Longhorn Build 4053 has leaked from the internal labs of Microsoft. However, this version shows no major improvements from the PDC build (4051). Neowin has some screenshots and more info posted.

Still on the topic of leaks, it appears Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Office XP has also leaked to the web as shown on WinBeta.org

To axe, or not to axe. That appears to be the question regarding the Hubble telescope.

It seems that an “Out of Memory” error caused the unstability of the Spirit Mars rover and that systems are now back online. Mars Rover Opportunity has also taken its first peek out over the rim of the crater in which it landed in.

As it would appear, the author of the MyDoom.c worm is spreading the original MyDoom’s source code around to infected computers to throw officials of his tracks.

Microsoft have released afew more Critical Updates for Microsoft Windows on the WindowsUpdate website. If you haven’t already updated, it is recommended you do.

A new version of the MyDoom worm appears to be circulating on the Internet and may be responsible for some disruptions to Microsoft Corp.’s Web site Sunday night and Monday morning, researchers said.

When it’s executed, the new variant, called MyDoom.C, or Doomjuice, begins scanning for machines listening on TCP port 3127. When it finds available PCs, it copies itself to the new machine’s Windows directory under the file name “intrenat.exe” and also creates a file named “sync-src-1.00.tbz” in several locations.

But unlike the two previous versions of MyDoom, this third variant does not spread via e-mail, nor does it install a backdoor on infected machines or have a kill date, according to an analysis done by Ken Dunham, malicious code manager for iDefense Inc., based in Reston, Va. The worm’s code is not encrypted, but it contains all of the source code for MyDoom.A.

News Source and More Info: eWeek

It could all be over soon for the worlds largest P2P network (Kazaa), which had its offices raided last week and whose executives will appear in court this week.

As it would appear, the software giant, Microsoft and the Walt Disney Co. have struck an alliance that will allow the two companies to work closely together to develop digital media content and delivery systems.

The Tamigotchi, everyone’s favourite virtual pet is set to make a come back later this year.. Thats right, they’re back and this time around they have infrared. The little virtual pets are expected to go on sale on 20th March in Japan. For some reason though, i don’t think i will be getting one.

Word has it that Microsoft will soon be shipping an update to its Xbox Live online gaming service. The new update will improve spport for cleans, and will reportedly add a voicemail feature.

Sick of having a bunch of MSN Conversation windows open on your taskbar? Cameno Beta allows you to unify all of your conversations into one big tabbed window. Still in beta but as far as i can see it is already stable.

With a name change, Mozilla is proud to announce the release of Mozilla Firefox 0.8 (Formally Firebird). This release looks to include what i think it needs to surpass Internet Explorer.

Word also has it that the myBulletinBoard Group has an upcoming Release Candidate 2 which focuses more on fixing bugs found in previous releases (61 since RC1), and it shall be released in the next few days. But you didn’t hear that here

Blogging out!

Just a daily round up of all of the news i have missed out on today. (the interesting stuff to me anyway)

It seems that the Sydney headquaters of Sharman Networks (The makers of the worlds largest P2P network and file sharing service, Kazaa), have been raided by the Australian record industry as part of legal action aimed at shutting down the popular site.

There is an interesting review on the AMD Athlon 64bit processors (3200+ and the 3400+) at Bit-Tech. Well worth the time if you are looking to get into 64bit computing.

It now appears that the SCO has added a copyright infringement claim to their case against IBM. I’m just losing myself in this one, as well as laughing at SCO.. but its up for you to decide.

Sick and tired of that “Do you want to debug this page?” dialog in Internet Explorer? Mnjul brings light on disabling it. Simply go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Browsing -> Disable Script Debugging. Thanks Mnjul.

For those of you who think that you have the MyDoom virus (both MyDoom.A and MyDoom.B variants), Microsoft has put up a handy little removal and information page.

For those who missed it, or have had their eyes closed.. Google has been named the #1 Global Brand. The internet search engine was named #1 by consultants Interbrand for the second year running. Apple also slipped in in second place.

Anyway, i am off for the night, have to be at work tomorrow.. All day