PC rage turns the air blue in UK households

<font size="3">PC rage turns the air blue in UK households </font>

Computers are damaging our health, thanks to rising stress levels induced by so-called 'PC pests' like spam, pop up ads and viruses. More than four in five (86 per cent) of British computer users get irritated and stressed by PC problems, according to a survey commissioned by security firm Symantec. Only 14 per cent of those quizzed had the Zen-like calm to say problems with their PCs never irritate them.

The survey of 500 UK adults, conducted by Ipsos Research, came up with five irritants most likely to make a user’s blood boil. In order of annoyance these were: slow performance and system crashes (cited as worst irritant by 23 per cent of those quizzed); "spam, scams and too much email" (20 per cent); pop up advertisements (15 per cent); viruses (14 per cent) and files getting lost or deleted (four per cent).

And just as...

Problem hits Western Digital IDE RAID arrays

<font size="3">Problem hits Western Digital IDE RAID arrays</font>

If you're finding Western Digital EIDE drives drop out of an IDE RAID array after a few days, the firm appears to have the answer. It might only affect you if you have drives shipped before June. All drives since that date are AOK.

This irritating phenomenon happens because of a feature that cuts idle acoustic noise in desktops in an IDE RAID environment. But WD says there’s an easy answer – you can just switch this feature off and Bob will be your uncle. So if you’ve been wondering what’s happened to your EIDE drives, worry no more and head over here for more info.

News source: The Inquirer

Woman sentenced for reading e-mail of husband's ex-wife

<font size="3">Woman sentenced for reading e-mail of husband's ex-wife</font>

A judge sentenced an Arizona woman to 60 days home detention for intercepting her husband's ex-wife's e-mail, saying the penalty is a warning to others who might be tempted to do the same.

"Privacy is still a cherished value," U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch said in sentencing Angel Lee, 28, of El Mirage, Arizona.

Lee pleaded guilty in March and admitted accessing at least 215 e-mails sent last year to her husband's ex-wife, Duongladde Ramsay. Officials said she fraudulently obtained the user name and password information for Ramsay's e-mail account.

Matsch, best known for his role overseeing the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, bombing trials, has said the e-mail case involved a vicious divorce dispute over children. At Lee's sentencing Friday, he said he considered sending her to jail but believed she needed to be home with her...

Beefed-up firewall, new version of Update for XP SP2

<font size="3">Beefed-up firewall, new version of Update for XP SP2</font>


The nature of the mysterious components of the 'security update' to ship with Windows XP Service Pack 2 is becoming clearer, and SP2 itself could be becoming nearer. Steve Ballmer told us approximately what the update was supposed to do, but not how, in his security manifesto last week, but Paul Thurrott has some specifics, the most important being that the update to the built-in firewall will include features from Microsoft Internet Security &amp; Acceleration Server, including outbound scanning capabilities.

ISA Server itself has an update in beta, but you can get an idea of the differences between it and the current XP Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) from here. Note that the two are described as complementing one another, but that's more a case of Microsoft product positioning for the business market, and clearly doesn't apply...

Backup? What backup!

<font size="3">Backup? What backup!</font>


Thousands of UK small firms are teetering on the brink of disaster because they are ignoring simple backup procedures needed to safeguard their critical business data, a survey released yesterday has claimed.

According to the online poll, which was conducted by Microsoft, over a quarter of small companies cannot be bothered to back up data at all, while 40 per cent admitted that they only get around to doing back ups less than once a month.

The software giant went on to warn that the danger from shoddy backup procedures will be compounded by what it predicts will be sharp increases in the number of laptops being damaged or stolen. The company cited statistics suggesting that 100,000 laptops will be damaged and nearly 67,000 stolen next year, adding that with figures like these, insurers are advising businesses to incorporate the cost of hardware theft into...

VeriSign's redirection will resume

<font size="3">VeriSign's redirection will resume</font>
The domain administrator's controversial Site Finder service will be switched back on, though with one or two months' notice

VeriSign will give between 30 and 60 days' notice before resuming a controversial and temporarily suspended feature that redirected many .com and .net domains, company representatives said on Wednesday.

Speaking before an unusual gathering of technical experts in Washington, D.C., VeriSign said its own re-evaluation of its Site Finder redirection service found "no identified security or stability problems." When it was active, Site Finder added a "wild card" for .com and .net domains that snared queries to nonexistent Internet sites and forwarded them to VeriSign's own servers.

That confused some anti-spam filters and other network utilities, a side effect that VeriSign downplayed on Wednesday by...

Hundreds of exchanges fail BT trigger test

<font size="3">Hundreds of exchanges fail BT trigger test </font>
The telco is breaking the bad news to areas where it says there just aren't enough residents to justify ADSL rollout

BT said this week that it cannot set achievable broadband trigger levels for 332 local telephone exchanges across rural Britain.

After examining these local exchanges and assessing the cost of ADSL-enabling them, the telco has calculated that there aren't enough potential broadband users in each area to justify the expense of an upgrade.

BT insists that it isn't saying that these local exchanges are permanently unviable for broadband, and that it may award trigger levels in the future. It's possible, though, that community activists may step into the breach to help provide broadband in the areas affected.

Trigger levels are a measure of how many people in one area must want to get broadband before BT...

MSN Chat Closes, Subscription Only

<font size="3">MSN Chat Closes, Subscription Only</font>

MSN's Free chatrooms are shutting down today in the UK &amp; Europe and other countries across the world.

Microsoft made it clear in September that these changes would begin on October the 14th. The idea is to protect children from known chat paedophiles. However, MSN kept the whole idea of "Subscription Based" Chat very quiet at the time but now we have reached the deadline (14th October) all users wanting to use MSN Chat will now require a subscription to MSN 8/9 accordingly.

If you don't have an MSN 8/9 subscription then you can buy a subscription to MSN Chat for $19.95 a year which includes Hotmail extra storage. As far as we know MSN 8/9 customers have the Chat bundle in their MSN 8/9 subscription.

View: msn.com

Desktop Tech Cert Sees Light of Day

<font size="3">Desktop Tech Cert Sees Light of Day </font>
Microsoft introduces new certification, MCDST, and two new exams aimed at help desk and desktop support experts.

Microsoft has released a new title, Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician, aimed at desktop support personnel whose main job role is to troubleshoot user desktop machines. The MCDST requires the passage of two new exams:

• 70-271, Supporting Users and Troubleshooting Windows Desktop Operating Systems
• 70-272, Supporting Users and Troubleshooting Applications on a Windows Desktop Operating System Platform

Microsoft has yet to release any details about the exams, but the requirements guide (click here) provides clues to Microsoft Learning courses and self-study training kits that will be available for them. Microsoft was unable to...

Apple powers college supercomputer

<font size="3">Apple powers college supercomputer</font>

Everyone would love a supercomputer but with a price tag of around $100m each they are not easy to come by.

But in the United States staff and students at Virginia Tech have built one of the world's most powerful supercomputers for just $5m by plugging together hundreds of the latest computers from Apple.

The project involved placing 1,100 brand new Apple G5 towers side by side, making it the world's most powerful "homebuilt" system.

It is capable of 17.6 trillion floating point operations per second, with a combined storage capacity of 176 terabytes.

"Each individual G5 is a dual processor, 2GHZ machine with 4GB of memory. So it's extremely fast," said Pat Arvin, Project Coordinator at Virginia Tech.

The network is linked using 2,900 cables and runs at about 100 times faster than an average corporate network.

News source:...