New Wireless Standard to Carry Cable TV Signal

<font size="3">New Wireless Standard to Carry Cable TV Signal</font>

A new wireless technology with enough bandwidth to carry cable television signals from a wall-mounted outlet to a TV anywhere in the home could be on the market as early as next year, an industry group said Tuesday. The Multiband OFDM Alliance, led by Texas Instruments Inc, the world's top maker of microchips for cell phones, said it would publish standards for the technology in May. The group said it expected products with the technology, known as Ultra Wideband, to ship in 2005. Ultra Wideband operates at a lower power than the wireless local area network standard known as WiFi, but is capable of handling much larger amounts of data, including streaming video.

Full Story: reuters.com

UK IT jobs market picks up

<font size="3">UK IT jobs market picks up </font>

The IT recruitment market showed spotty signs of growth between October and December last year, with the number of advertised permanent and contract techie jobs showing modest increases.

The latest statistics from CWJobs' Quarterly IT Skills Index found that permanent IT vacancies rose by an average of 4 per cent between October and December 2003, while IT contract jobs increased by just one per cent.

The improvement bucks the seasonal trend which usually sees December being one of the slowest IT recruitment months of the year, according to the Internet job site.

The study predicts that the increases, although small, will mark a turning point for beleaguered IT pros, as they indicate that firms are again confident enough to recruit staff for what they expect will be a busier new year.

The numbers of advertised contract vacancies have consistently increased over the last 12...

Forums OPEN

Forums now OPEN

The host transfer has been successful and the forums are now open. You may find that some of the features such as the Resource links ans stats do not work fully. I will not be working on these until the .co.uk domain has been transfered over. You may also find broken links to some images, please do not raise threads on this as I will be working on them over the next few hours.

You comments on speed of the new host would be grateful.

Microsoft sues MikeRoweSoft

<font size="3">Microsoft sues MikeRoweSoft</font>

Seventeen year-old Mike Rowe thought it would funny to add soft to the end of name and register the domain, Microsoft, however, is not amused. It has demanded that he give up his domain name. In November, Rowe received a letter from Microsoft's Canadian lawyers informing him he was committing copyright infringement.

"I didn't think they would get all their high-priced lawyers to come after me," Rowe said.

He wrote back asking to be compensated for giving up his name. Microsoft's lawyers offered him $10 in U.S. funds. Then he asked for $10,000. On Thursday, he received a 25-page letter accusing him of trying to force Microsoft into giving him a large settlement.

"I never even thought of getting anything out of them," he said, adding that he only asked for the $10,000 because he was "sort of mad at them for only offering 10 bucks."

Microsoft company spokesman Jim Desler said...

MSBlast virus writer faces 15 years behind bars

<font size="3">MSBlast virus writer faces 15 years behind bars</font>

A virus writer accused of creating an MSBlast variant last year is to face a Romanian court this week and could be sentenced to 15 years in jail if convicted. Dan Dumitru Ciobanu, 26, is alleged to have written a computer virus that spread over the intranet of a Romanian university in September 2003. The virus only hit 27 machines but Ciobanu still faces between three and 15 years in jail for "unlawful possession of a program and disturbing a computer system". Researchers from antivirus firm BitDefender helped identify Ciobanu after being drafted in by Romanian authorities. The suspect will appear before the Iasi county Court of Appeals this week.

Full Story: silicon.com

First MCDST Exam Released

<font size="3">First MCDST Exam Released</font>

Exam 70-271 made its debut Monday; 70-272 follows next month.

Exam 70-271, Supporting Users and Troubleshooting a Windows XP Operating System, went live on Monday, January 12. The exam, along with Exam 70-272, Supporting Users and Troubleshooting Desktop Applications on a Windows XP Operating System, comprise the exams required for obtaining the Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician, a new title that the company announced back in October 2003.

Full Story: mcpmag.com

Personal Firewall Day

<font size="3">Personal Firewall Day</font>

Microsoft Corp., Network Associates Inc. and other leading technology companies are promoting the Internet equivalent of a public health initiative: "Personal Firewall Day," to be held on Thursday, which will encourage Internet users to adopt firewall technology to protect themselves from online threats.

The companies will unveil a Web site, www.personalfirewallday.org on Thursday to educate consumers about the benefits of firewall and antivirus technology and provide tips on guarding against online identity thieves, viruses, worms and malicious hackers, according to information provided a spokesman for the project.

Full Story: infoworld.com

McDonald's to serve Wi-Fi with burgers

<font size="3">McDonald's to serve Wi-Fi with burgers</font>

BT has announced a deal with McDonald's for the fast-food chain to offer wireless Internet access at its restaurants throughout the UK . BT Group will announce on Wednesday an alliance with McDonald's to equip the fast-food restaurant chain with high-speed wireless, or Wi-Fi, Internet access throughout the United Kingdom. Over the past 18 months, Britain's dominant telecoms carrier has been aggressively rolling out so-called public "Wi-Fi hotspots'', where laptop-toting computer users pay to access the Internet from the likes of restaurants, pubs and train stations.

Full Story: zdnet.co.uk

Brits enjoy a very merr-e-Christmas

<font size="3">Brits enjoy a very merr-e-Christmas</font>

This Christmas Day saw the internet move closer to joining Only Fools and Horses and James Bond movies as the UK's favourite means of entertainment, with web traffic hitting unprecedented levels.

According to the London Internet Exchange (Linx) traffic on 25 December was almost 50 per cent higher than a year ago.

At its peak, the Exchange saw 22 gigabits of information flowing through its pipes each second, roughly equivalent to 1.3 million emails being sent.

Full Story: vnunet.com

New Worm Spreads Via MSN Messenger

<font size="3">New Worm Spreads Via MSN Messenger </font>

Anti-virus experts are watching a new worm that spreads through Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Messenger client. The worm is not harmful to infected machines and has infected only a few PCs at this point, according to an analysis by Trend Micro Inc.

Known as Jitux, the worm is self-propagating and contains a link to a Web site that automatically downloads an executable file named "jituxramon.exe" to the PC. Once the file runs, the worm begins sending out copies of itself to all of the names in the user's Messenger contact list. The worm, first discovered Tuesday, is capable of spawning multiple instances of itself on one PC.

News source: eWeek