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Gear News Archive: August 2003
August 31st re: Your Details The SoBig virus is still stuffing everyone's inboxes with infected emails reading "your details", "my details", "wicked screensaver", etc. I'm still getting around 200 a day, making me think it is finally time to install some email blocking software. It's really ridiculous that folks still haven't cleaned and patched their computers. They are making life just as difficult for the rest of us as the virus authors themselves. And while we're on the topic of blocking spam/viruses, I should mention that today is the last day to register with the National Do Not Call Registry if you want the telemarketing calls to stop on October 1st. If you register tomorrow (Monday Sept 1st), you will have to wait 3 months to be added to the registry. You can do it in two minutes on the internet at this link. Just add your phone numbers, pop in your email address, and register! You'll need to respond to each email they send you for each phone number you register in order to complete the process. Do your part today, and tell telemarketers to get a real job. Call of Duty Demo Out A lot of Medal of Honor fans have been eagerly awaiting "Call of Duty" by Activision. Well, the wait is almost over, and you can get the demo now! ;o) PS: Battlefield 1942 patch to ver 1.45 is also available! August 30th Upcoming Games to be Radeon Optimized? A small snippet at The Inquirer says that Half Life 2 will be optimized for, and bundled with ATI Radeon cards. This in response possibly to the insidious spinning "the way it's meant to be played" NVidia logos so ubiquitous in current games. If Radeons woop GeForce FXs in Half Life 2 and other highly anticipated new games, even more gamers will be enticed to switch brands when they upgrade next. August 28th Official: Linux More Reliable Than SCO UnixWare An article at Globe Technology notes that Linux is eating into Unix sales, especially at the low end of the server market. But more interesting is the statement that out of the 4 mission-critical operating systems available for businesses, IBM's AIX is the most reliable, followed by GNU/Linux. SCO's UnixWare and Microsoft's Windows Server were considered much less reliable alternatives. So it's official, all that "meddling" that IBM did with Linux helped make it more reliable than SCO's Unix, which makes it tough to argue that SCO's Unix code was copied into Linux. If the code was just copied over, why is Linux more reliable? August 27th Daily SCO Watch So what's new with SCO today? Well, the "War and Peace" of rebuttals has been posted by Rob Landley and Eric Raymond of the Open Source Initiative. This line by line debunking of the SCO lawsuit is devastating to SCO's legal position. Indeed, it obliterates their case. Perhaps the most amusing part about the rebuttal is the fact that SCO's only money making product for years was 'OpenServer', a paired-down and extremely limited variant of Unix that is used in cash registers. And from this position as the king of cash register software, SCO now alleges that IBM messed with their business model by contributing to Linux development. Seems more than a stretch, it seems delusional. SCO probably won't even make it to court, they will most likely sputter out before then. But if not, it won't be long before any judge throws them out on their ears. I wouldn't be surprised if the counter suit by IBM was far more viable, with the result being the complete demise of SCO. They only have themselves to blame. August 26th Battle Patents SCO has started what may end up being the "great food fight" of Information Technology Intellectual Property litigation. Software engineers in particular have noted that if all existing software were analyzed line by line and compared, that almost all of it would violate one patent or another. Thus is born the concept of the 'Battle-Patent'. Software companies want to build their portfolio of patents, not to protect the patented items, but as a war chest of IP rights that could be used to counter-sue any company that brings litigation for IP violations. SCO has taken this tactic one step further, they buy patents and copyrights that they feel could be used against other companies in a hostile IP litigation, and then deploy the lawyers, spinmeisters, etc. to attack the victim. Indeed, in a previous incarnation as Caldera, SCO bought patents in the late 1990's, and then used them to sue Microsoft for $250 million. They won. But this time Caldera/SCO has probably bitten off more than they can chew, and they will find this fight far more difficult than the one against Microsoft. They need to prove that they did not vacate any rights to litigate when they accepted the GPL license by distributing Linux. They need to attack the very concept of the GPL license by saying that Federal Copyright law supercedes it. A very tough fight to prosecute when you have already accepted the licensing terms of the GPL by distributing Linux yourself. By picking this fight with IBM/Linux/GNU/FSF, SCO has opened the Pandora's box of Intellectual Property, and the Battle Patents are going to fly in all directions. SCO almost certainly is violating portions of the GPL, as well as some obscure patents held by IBM. The great IP food fight begins. August 25th Rebel Alliance Halts Attack on SCO August 25th, Tatooine. The Rebel Alliance took down SCO's web site on Friday in a coordinated attack on the Empire, according to Rebel Alliance provisional commander, Eric Raymond. When it became clear that the assault was a lopsided rout, the Rebel Alliance stood down, permitting the remnants of the Imperial troops to retreat. This is a far cry from the heady early days of the Empire, when Emperor Bill "Palpatine" Gates lavished riches on the Storm troopers, and they all believed that the Rebel Alliance was doomed. August 24th So... You Want to Buy Some Stock? I stumbled across a story this morning that touches on a topic I've been thinking about recently. The fact that big corporate execs are all selling their stock... especially stock in their own companies. As usual, they know something that most of us don't. The situation is particularly telling in the case of SCO, whose executives have sold over 1.3 million dollars in SCO stock since the price went up (after the IBM lawsuit was announced). SCO's case is probably unique though, since most companies are trying to stay in business, rather than jockeying to be acquired while hoping to cash in personally. The plain fact of the matter is, despite all we hear from the Bush administration, the economy isn't recovering the way it was supposed to, and the big execs know it. The sell to buy ratio among corporate big wigs last month was 32:1. That means they sold $32 worth of stock for every dollars worth they bought. So... you say you want to buy some stock? I hear there are at least $1.3 million worth of extra shares of SCO stock available! Despite SCO's Attacks, Linux Lives, and Grows Information technology experts are saying that Linux may have finally reached critical mass in the corporate world. "This is the year we're seeing a critical mass hit the market," said Bill Bradway, a vice president with Financial Insight, part of research firm IDC. "Given the economy and the pressure to explore alternatives that are more cost effective and less expensive, Linux fell right on the table as a candidate to replace other technology." "Linux is probably the most important technology change we've seen in the last five to 10 years," said Craig Downing, vice president of product management at Accpac, a Pleasanton software maker for small and mid-sized businesses. "The momentum is too overwhelming." The market share of servers held by Linux is up by 35% this year, while all other platforms are down. Microsoft points to analyst data that show that the growth in Linux share is coming at the expense of Unix [especially SCO!]. In an e-mail statement, Microsoft said this poses "both a challenge and an opportunity for Microsoft" and that it aims to demonstrate that its technology is competitive against Linux, including both cost and security. IBM became one of the largest backers of Linux in 2000, investing, and quickly recouping, $1 billion into Linux. "You'll wake up one day in a couple of years, and everything will be Linux," said Daniel Frye, director of the IBM Linux Technology Center. "Linux will be a choice for everything." No wonder Microsoft paid SCO $10,000,000 to sue IBM. August 23rd SCO Can't Sell Software, Can't Win Case Poor SCO. No one wants to buy their overpriced, old, clunky software anymore, and their court case is crumbling in the court of public opinion, long before it gets to a real court. It's really too bad, because we won't have Darl McBride to kick around much longer. And he is fun to kick around, isn't he? Linux developers are getting very mad at SCO, as you can read here. Also, MontaVista, an embedded Linux developer, has put out an analysis of the SCO case, and why it will fail. Well, at least SCO is getting all the press they have been seeking, but it may not be the press they had hoped for. Poor SCO... Better sell that stock quickly. August 22nd Stop Opening Those Email Attachments! Please! Based on the massive swelling of my inbox with virally infected attachments (approx. 500 a day), I have to assume that millions of Windows users are actually opening email attachments that say... "your details", or "wicked screensaver", or "that movie!", or "my details". The question is... why? Everyone has been told that you get viruses when you open infected email attachments, so why do they still do it? Hell, why do the watch reality TV? Beats me. But as long as people are this predictable, viruses will do just fine. Quick Refresher Course: what are you going to do with that next "your details" email? That's right class, you DELETE IT. August 20th Three More Windows Security Patches! All three were announced in a single day! This is just absurd at this point. How many vulnerabilities are there remaining? Hundreds? Microsoft has lost all credibility on security, and I hope that businesses continue to migrate to more secure systems. A mass exodus from MS server products would set a small fire beneath Bill's butt, encouraging him to knuckle under and make security the top priority at Microsoft. Patch 1 is a fix for problems with Microsoft Data Access Components (Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Office 2000 SR1 and later, and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 2 and later). Patch 2 is a fix for Internet Explorer... again. This patch is said to be absolutely critical. So do it, and hope it doesn't cause more problems than it solves. Patch 3 is a fix for Direct X of all things. Is nothing secure? Daily SCO Watch Lots of stories out on SCO and their epic battle against GNU/Linux. Enjoy as they slowly roast in their own juices. August 19th SCO Sinking Fast SCO made a big mistake at their 2003 forum, they showed some of the "copied" portions of Unix that are supposed to be in Linux. Unfortunately, the code they showed was from a 1973 version of Unix which SCO (then Caldera) released to the public. Ouch! That can't be right. Actually, the presentation was fluff for the faithful at the forum. SCO never expected folks to take pictures and dissect the presentation. Too bad for them. If this is their best shot, they won't even make it to court, they'll just fade away. I predict that this is the last time any failing company decides to take on GNU/Linux, and the Free Software Foundation. August 18th SCO Aflame, Sinking by the Bow Things probably couldn't be going much worse for SCO. Right at the onset of their big 2003 SCO forum, their two biggest sponsors, HP and Intel, pulled out. Further, Eben Moglen fired a salvo that demolished SCO's claims about the legitimacy of the general public license (GPL) for GNU/Linux. Basically, SCO claimed that the GPL was invalid because it allowed unlimited copying of copyrighted material. SCO's attorneys claimed this violates US Copyright laws. Moglen noted that the claim is "based on an intentional misreading of the Copyright Act that would fail on any law school copyright examination." SCO has lost all it's friends, and my guess is that the $10 million that Bill Gates gave them is the only thing keeping them from declaring bankruptcy, and sinking beneath the waves forever. August 17th To Catch an eBay Thief There is a very interesting tale of a professional eBay scammer over at FastCompany that is worth a read. If you have ever been scammed on an eBay or Yahoo auction, you may find this article enlightening. It is pretty amazing how full of security holes the entire online auctioning system is, it kind of makes Windows look ultra-secure. What is even more amazing is how demented some people in this world are that they spend all their time trying to victimize other people and get their money. The excuses that this guy came up with, and the extent he went to to scam people, and avoid arrest, are just amazing. If he had spent half that time working a good job, he'd have plenty of money, and still have his life to boot. But now he is spending 7 years in a Federal penitentiary, and will probably emerge a worse criminal than when he entered. The question is, will eBay and Yahoo leave their systems wide open to rampant fraud that long, so he can continue when he gets out, or will they have cleaned up their act, and forced sellers to provide real proof of identity before letting them sell merchandise? August 15th The Long Dark Night Many folks are waking up this morning without power, phone, internet, or anything else that needs line power. The largest power outage in the Northeast continues today, with no definite end in sight. As you all know, the power outage hit portions of 8 Northeastern states, and parts of Southern Canada. Hospitals and news stations have been able to remain functional with generator backup power, but after all this time, fuel in those generators is running out. Folks North and South of the border are pointing fingers at each other as being responsible for the outage, but it's a pretty long stretch to think that Canada pulls even a fraction of the power off the grid that the US does. With the US power grid aging, and now really showing it's age, some might say that the Bush administration has been spending too much time trying to improve the power situation in Iraq, instead of trying to improve the power situation in the US. This is especially ironic in that the Bush administration has such strong ties to the energy industry. If power officials can't figure out how to get the grid back up and running soon, this is going to turn into a major disaster. There is an oil refinery near the great lakes that is on fire, and there isn't enough water pressure to put it out. Heads should roll on this one. There is a good discussion over at Slashdot as to whether deregulation of the power industry had something to do with the power outage. August 14th ATI Starts Down The Dangerous Road ATI announced today that it would be working with Microsoft (ugh) on the new Xbox2. This is both a curse and a blessing at once. It means a big contract, which is good. It also means lots of big headaches, which is probably bad. Microsoft is not the best company to partner with, for reasons too numerous to count. Suffice it to say that they deal with partners in a relatively cut-throat manner. NVidia had a hell of a time working with Microsoft to put out the first Xbox, and in some ways, both companies are still smarting from the experience. But to me the biggest problem associated with doing the next Xbox is that it is very distracting. Staying on top of the PC graphics market is a very time consuming and difficult task. Split your efforts, and you will start to lag behind. I'm wondering if this might not be the best thing to happen to NVidia in a long time. They have spread themselves too thin, and this will allow them to concentrate more on fewer projects. At the same time, ATI is heading down that same dangerous road that NVidia went down several years ago. We'll have to wait and see if they come out the other end better off than NVidia did. GNU Servers Hacked The main ftp servers for the GNU project, involved in developing parts of the Linux/GNU operating system, were compromised by a hacker sometime in the last several months. This raises numerous questions, including who would benefit most from such an intrusion. According to GNU, all source files checked so far are undamaged. They feel that the attacker was more interested in information, than in causing problems. The hacker concentrated on getting passwords, which could be used to attack other machines. I will be interested to hear how this plays out. August 13th SCO Suits Sold SCO Stock Ask yourself this question. If SCO's leadership thought they had a snowflakes chance in hell in their upcoming court case with IBM, would they all have dumped their SCO stock? Absolutely not! But in fact, they did. What does this say about their legal position? They haven't got a leg to stand on. But SCO's anti-Linux campaign had it's desired effects, it made enough people panic, and drove SCO's stock price up. I expect that the news surrounding SCO will continue to mount against them over the next few months, and that eventually, their court case against IBM may even be dropped as part of a settlement to prevent IBM from suing SCO over distinct patents that IBM really owns. The Worm Keeps Turning The MS Blaster Worm (aka LovSan) continues to infect unpatched Windows 2K and XP systems around the world. If you get this virus (your computer will shut down with a message about a failed remote procedure call) it is important that you don't panic. Some folks are reformatting their hard drives even though the virus does not cause any damage to infected machines. All you need to do is apply two patches, one from Microsoft, and the other from any anti-virus company. Next, if you have DSL or a cable modem, and you don't have a router, please do yourself a big favor and go out and buy one. The Linksys 4-port router is a very good choice, and gives you an instant, plug and play firewall. You don't have to do anything but plug your cable or DSL modem into one port, and your network card into another port (this means you'll need two CAT-5 network cables, so pick up an extra one when you buy your router). The router will let you put up to 4 computers on the same broadband internet connection, and it will give you a firewall that will stop viruses like the MS Blaster worm. You know you want one, so go spend $50 for the peace of mind that a real firewall offers. August 11th Worm Worries If you are running Windows 2K or XP, and haven't applied the DCOM RPC (remote procedure call) patch, you might want to do so now. If you have a firewall, you're probably OK, but to be honest, everyone should apply this patch. Why? Because this virus can get you without you doing anything but having your computer on the internet. You don't need to open an email, or anything else. This kind of virus is much more dangerous than the email type. So git that patch folks! A friend of mine called last night saying his computer was acting weird, and giving him RPC errors while surfing. Oh oh. Bill makes a really secure operating system, doesn't he? New NVidia Driver Today Rumors are that the new Detonator drivers will be out today. Can't wait to see how well they work! Bush Administration Gagging Science A report from Congress details the efforts by the Bush Administration to suppress, distort, or censor scientific reports and scientific information on web sites which do not support Administration policies. The report can be found here. As a scientist myself, I find this report very disturbing. Here is the conclusion: "Federal agencies with global reputations for scientific excellence depend upon the objective input of leading scientists and the impartial analysis of scientific evidence to develop effective policies. The Bush Administration, however, has repeatedly suppressed, distorted, or obstructed science to suit political and ideological goals. These actions go far beyond the traditional influence that Presidents are permitted to wield at federal agencies and compromise the integrity of scientific policymaking." August 10th NVidia 5900 vs ATI 9800 Pro I've posted a very short mini-review of the newest cards from ATI and NVidia, and compared them with older cards from both companies: the GeForce4 Ti4400 and the Radeon 9500 Pro. If you're in the market for a new video card, this review will show you how much boost the new cards will give you. August 9th SOI Overclocking Issues A slightly odd, but interesting piece at the Inquirer suggests that core voltages have little to do with CPU overclocking stability, if the CPU is built with "silicon on insulator" technology. SOI, as it is called, helps prevent current leakage from the die during operation, making the CPU more stable at higher clock speeds. But this design feature apparently renders useless the age-old overclocking technique of raising the core voltage to improve the strobe's signal to noise ratio. As such, overclocking on the new SOI Opteron and Athlon-64 chips may only be possible by increased cooling, rather than a combination of core voltage increases and increased cooling. I'm fine with that. Bring 'em on! August 8th SCO Surrounded IBM filed legal action against SCO this week, charging that SCO was improperly using 4 IBM patents. They further charged that SCO had broken the Linux General Public License. Other counterclaims include: Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations, Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices, Unfair Competition and Breach of Contract. SCO's lawyers should be delighted with the new fees that this additional work will generate, but I doubt they are looking forward to the actual court case, which will most likely go very badly for them very quickly. But by then they will have paid off their yachts and Summer homes, and they can leave SCO's execs out to dry. But SCO is not deterred. They have announced that all devices with embedded Linux will require a $32 royalty fee. Will it happen? Hell, if The Terminator can run for Governor of California, then anything is possible! August 7th New NVidia NForce Driver Problems Reports from customers on NVidia forums suggest that there may be problems with the newest NVidia NForce drivers (ver. 2.45). The major problem seems to be popping or crackling sounds coming from the on-board SoundStorm audio chip. NForce boards have always had intermittent sound problems, and it seems like NVidia's latest "fix" may have made the problem even worse. August 5th SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux® It's available now, for a limited time only, for the low introductory price of $699! Prices subject to change October 15th, 2003... I'll take three please, that way I can sleep three times as well at night. Almost everyone expected SCO to attempt a Linux licensing program prior to the issue reaching the courts, but the alacrity with which they arrived at the amusingly named "SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux®", suggests that even SCO knows their window of opportunity is very limited. If SCO believed that they were fully covered by the appropriate copyright laws, as defined by their contracts with IBM and other Unix copyright holders, then there would be no rush to out this all in public, and send threatening letters. They would get their just due in the courts good time. But the rapid nature of the accusations coming from SCO, without public proof of any of the claims, and with all other parties involved publically discrediting SCO's legal claims about the pertinent contracts, it seems that this must be another move by SCO to make a quick buck before the axe falls. Their stock price is up, and Microsoft paid ten million dollars for a "Linux contract" to help beleaguered SCO out, so all in all, the strategy is working so far. So far. Will IBM Buy AMD? It sounds crazy, but it is the Rumor de Jour on the web. The reasoning is somewhat simplistic, IBM and AMD are working closely together, and IBM is now using Opteron processors rather than Intel's Big Buck Big Tin (B3T). But what this reasoning doesn't take into account are all the uncertainties over whether AMD's Opteron will be a success, and what Intel might have waiting in the wings. I also think that IBM has enough to worry about without having to weather the vagaries of CPU sales and marketing. But it sure would make for a much more interesting processor market, and would greatly benefit consumers in the future by maintaining a balance of power between the two biggest CPU makers. NVidia GeForceFX 5900 Bug?? Digit-Life has a small news post that states that some people have been having a problem with their new GF FX 5900 video cards. According to the post, there is strange flickering when scrolling a picture-rich page. I'll have a look at our FX5900 system here to see if the problem is apparent. Linux Strikes Back at SCO The largest distributor of Linux, Red Hat, has filed a legal action against SCO, asking the courts to decide if there is any copyright infringement associated with the Linux operating system. Red Hat has also asked for a restraining order to prevent SCO from making any further claims on Linux until the court case is decided. Further, Red Hat announced that it is establishing a one million dollar legal fund to help pay any court costs for Linux developers to defend themselves against SCO's allegations. SCO, with predictable bluster, said they would counter sue Red Hat, accusing it of "conspiracy". I guess from their uncomfortable position, just about everyone is looking like a "conspirator" now. When making enemies becomes your company's mission, paranoia soon follows. August 4th ATI Market Share Up It's hard to believe, but NVidia still has the lion's share of the PC video market, despite the fact that the Radeon 9800 is the fastest consumer-level 3D graphics card available. But ATI's market share is increasing according to recent reports. I suspect that part of the reason for NVidia still having 60% or more of the market is because it takes time for consumers to upgrade their systems, so there is a lag between a change in the market, and a change in people's computer systems. I've just finished testing the Radeon 9800 against the GeForce FX 5900, and will post the results shortly. I also compared these two cards with older cards from both companies to show how much of a boost you can expect. Stay tuned! August 1st Athlon-64/Opteron Pin Counts I'm actually getting pretty excited about the Athlon-64 and Opteron processors, and am keeping my eyes on the various reports of what will be available, and when. I'm thinking of getting myself one fairly soon, but only if the platform is mature. I'm tired of buying new motherboards and CPUs that turn out to be transitional place holders. That's where the weirdo 3-pin pattern scheme that AMD has cooked up has me hesitating. The initial Athlon-64 will be out in a 754-pin format, and will only support single channel memory. These will be substantially cheaper than the Opteron, which uses a dual-channel memory architecture, and a 940-pin socket. But then there is talk of a newer, 939-pin format which will be released next year. Next year? Does that mean that anyone who buys a 754 pin Athlon 64 is just buying a cobbled together temporary solution? No upgrade path? It is clear that AMD wants to differentiate the Athlon-64 from the Opteron, and does not want to dilute Opteron's server reputation. But most AMD power users would never buy a single channel system when a dual channel setup was available, so I expect that AMD expects to sell the single channel model to average consumers who don't know and don't care. As the rumors stand now, it looks like most gamers will want to go with the Opteron for the next 6 months, in order to get the dual-channel memory architecture, and dual-CPU home systems may become quite popular again. When the Athlon-64 moves up to the 939-pin format, which should be compatible with 940-pin sockets, they should become popular with gamers on a budget. Copyright 2002, KickAss Gear |