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Gear News Archive: July 2003
July 31st 3DMark 2003 Ignores CPU and Memory A report over at Ace's Hardware shows that a 350MHz Pentium II system with a Radeon 9700 video card beats a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 with a Radeon 9600 in several of the tests in 3D Mark 2003. Admittedly, 3D Mark is supposed to stress the video card performance, but it is also supposed to take other factors, such as CPU speed and memory speed, into account as well. Obviously, it doesn't. So next time you want to benchmark your complete system, use an actual game benchmark, or use something like Scisoft Sandra to get an accurate measure of your systems true performance in all the pertinent categories. Abit Cools and Secures Motherboards Abit has announced a new series of motherboards designated "MAX3", with significantly enhanced cooling and security features. A fan located near the keyboard connector pulls air through a shroud covering the power components on the motherboard, keeping them much cooler during operation. The MAX3 motherboards will also come with "Secure IDE", a built-in encryption system that makes your hard drive unreadable by others. Abit states it thusly: "ABIT's SecureIDE will keep government supercomputers busy for weeks and will keep the RIAA away from your Kazaa files." It's almost the opposite of digital rights management... I love it. July 30th Mandatory Internet Explorer Update I've noticed a disturbing trend in software that makes me wonder if Microsoft bribes software makers to insist that users upgrade their version of Internet Explorer. I first noticed this trend in the Spring when Turbo Tax would not install on my older Windows 98se computer because it only had IE version 5.5 installed. It required IE6 to function. Excuse me? There is no freaking way that Turbo Tax needs a specific browser to do your taxes! So I have to assume that there was some behind-the-scenes deal worked out between Intuit and Microsoft. Recently, while we were attempting to install F1 Challenge on a newly built Windows 2000 computer hooked to our 'War-Room' gaming LAN, we found that it also required IE6. Windows 2K has IE 5.5. Again, there is no way... I mean NO way, that a game needs an updated browser to work right. We could find no way to circumvent this requirement, so we had to slog over to Microsoft's web site and do the automatic update to IE6. It's not a big deal I suppose, but the mandatory nature of it... the fact that this Microsoft update was forced on us by a 3rd party... that makes me mad. It seems likely to be another example of Bill with his finger in every pie, and a sneaky scheme in every interaction with other companies. I expect that this trend may continue as Bill bribes, cajoles, and even intimidates software companies to help him force users to upgrade their Microsoft software. Bill probably has a bunch of schemes waiting in the wings for his release of the "Longhorn" version of Windows, which, I'm sure, will involve upgrades to 3rd party software that will only run on the new OS. July 29th SPAM, Exploiting the Ignorant As spam email continues to increase in volume, and fills inboxes to levels that are unmanageable, a nagging question keeps running through my mind. Who the hell responds to this crap anyway? I mean, if it didn't work, it would slowly stop. So from the evidence that it is increasing rapidly, we have to concede the fact that spam must work very well indeed, and every sleazy, online wanna-be salesman spends all day thinking up tricky subject lines to fool people into opening up the sales pitch. You see everything from ridiculous miss-spelled words to total nonsense in many of the subject lines, and of course there is always the gibberish at the end of the subject, along the lines of "gfdlsfkgs nigslagt". I have no idea what these are, but I assume they are codes associated with particular batches of spam that the spammers use to track which batches do better than others. But to return to my original question, how do spammers get people to actually try to buy coral calcium or penis enlarging pills? They target the ignorant. And remember, ignorant means they don't know, not that they are dumb. There are millions of smart people out there with email accounts who are completely and totally clueless about spam, scams, and confidence schemes, and that is why spam works. Admittedly, perhaps 10% to 20% of spam is 'legitimate' business stuff from Office Depot or Amazon.com, and small legit vendors, but the rest is either pure confidence scheme, or pornography. Indeed, in many ways it is the pornography spam that drives as much as 30% of the spam market, maybe more. And this endeavor is totally international, with spam touting porn sites in just about every country in the world. So what does this mean with regard to my original question about who opens up spam? It means that between horny geeks with nothing better to do, and ignorant surfers who don't know that penis enlarging pills are a scam, the spammers are making a very good living. This encourages more people to take up the practice as a way to work from home and make a good living without having to do anything harder than think up a new, tricky subject line every day... "your password has expired"... "your account has been canceled"... "your wife is suing you for the house and car".... "your computer is infected, click here to fix"... "click here to eliminate spam", and of course the ever popular, "your pants are on fire; click here to extinguish". The sad truth of the matter is that as long as people respond to spam, it will keep coming, which brings me to my final thought. Would it be possible to make a mouse that would deliver a painful shock every time someone opened up some spam? July 28th SCO Unix Rated Lowest of the Lot A comparison of various forms of Unix at a little web site called the Jem Report comes to the conclusion that SCO's version of Unix is the least secure, least scalable, and most expensive option available. Maybe that explains SCO's attempt to blackmail IBM for $1 billion over a contract dispute. The report also comes to the conclusions that for large corporations, IBM's AIX is the most expensive, most secure, and most scalable Unix available today. Sun's Solaris is a close second, and costs less, and finally, "Free BSD" is probably the best option for corporations on a budget. SuSE Linux was also listed as a derivative OS which is a good choice for some businesses. While this comparison was not done by a large research firm, it still describes the strengths and weaknesses of the various OS's in enough detail to allow people to make an informed decision. And thus informed, companies would be crazy to even consider SCO's version of Unix as a viable option for running servers. July 25th Electronic Voting About as Secure as Windows And what a coincidence, the systems use Windows-based software. A group of security analysts at Johns Hopkins University released a detailed analysis of the "Diebold Voting System" and it's level of security. The authors conclude "Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts... We conclude that, as a society, we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk." In fact, it turns out that poll workers, as well as anyone with the right information at a remote site, can alter the information on the systems. You can read a NY Times article on the report here, and you can read the full PDF version of the report here. I don't have anything against electronic voting per se, but the more I hear about this situation, the more worrisome I find it. My own state, Maryland, just bought 56 million dollars worth of these machines, and I want an investigation into the purchase, and the security features in place. July 24th Microsoft's Digital Rights Management Debacle Nobody (except maybe Jack Valenti of the MPAA) is looking forward to computers with built-in digital rights management (DRM) technology, which will constantly monitor what you do on your computer, what you install, and what you download. The system will prevent you from downloading anything you haven't paid for. As such, Microsoft has been working tirelessly to add DRM components to it's operating systems and applications. But here comes the 'oops'! Microsoft spent this time illegally adding patented technology to it's products without compensating the company that owns the patents, "InterTrust". Beyond the fact that Microsoft may lose this case, and be liable for billions in damages, what really has me irked is the way Microsoft doesn't even play by it's own rules. Microsoft is notorious for claiming that everyone is a pirate, and that no customer can be trusted. Now it turns out that Microsoft is a bigger pirate than anyone, proving the age-old truism that the folks who complain the most are often the most guilty. I hope this case really bites MS and Bill in the butt, and makes them think twice about pirating other people's stuff while screaming bloody murder about pirating of their own software. July 22nd NVidia Having Pixel Shader 2.0 Problems If you were frustrated when you heard that Direct X 9.0 wasn't working just right, you'll be downright livid if you are a GeForce 5900 owner when you hear that the pixel shader doesn't work correctly either. In order to have a Direct X 9 compliant video card, you need to have a functional "pixel shader 2.0" subsystem. Lacking this feature will render the card incapable of running DX9 games properly. If this turns out to be a general problem that can't be fixed with driver workarounds, NVidia will have trouble selling $400 Direct X 8+ video cards. I've got to think that this is a sign of the protracted growing pains associated with the ingestion of the somewhat indigestible 3dfx and their Voodoo line of video cards. Ever since the 3dfx engineers were brought onboard, and the hardware became a hybrid design, NVidia has had one problem after another. I expect these problems will be worked out eventually, but will NVidia have a permanently tarnished reputation by that point? It is clear that NVidia has stumbled seriously in the last year, and have a ways to go to get back on their feet. July 21st Direct X 9.0 Doesn't Work Especially on NVidia video cards. There is, according to Half Life2 officials, a serious problem with Direct X 9.0 and the way it enables full screen antialiasing (FSAA). Any time that larger textures are composed of smaller ones, the small textures will bleed into one another with FSAA turned on. They say that a video driver workaround might fix the problem on ATI Radeon video cards, but that NVidia card owners (GeForce and GeForce FX) will probably not be able to implement FSAA with DX 9.0 games. This is a depressing revelation, simply because many people already went out and bought a DX 9.0 video card in anticipation of games like Doom III and Half-Life2. Most of those folks bought a Radeon 9700 or 9800, but some have managed to find the GeForce 5900. These video cards cost around $400, and now we find out that one of their selling points is busted. You could assuage your angst by reminding yourself that you don't typically use FSAA, especially on high-end games where frame rates would drop too low with it on anyway. And those older games where you might use it because you don't need 200 frames per second, they use DX 8 rather than DX 9, so you're still OK. By the time you have a system fast enough to run Doom III at 60 fps, you'll probably also have a DX 9.1 video card that doesn't have this problem. July 20th Why the RIAA Will Fail Just take a look at what has been born of the Recording Industry Association of America's effort to turn all MP3 owners into criminals. Organizations and web sites are popping up everywhere to organize a counter offensive, such as "Boycott-RIAA". They have a very large list of companies associated with the RIAA whom should be boycotted in order to send a message. Even some artists have joined the fray, demanding that their fans be left alone. It has gone so far now that small groups of people are trying to figure out how to set up a public/private key encryption system that would allow users to download MP3s directly from artists themselves, and pay them directly for the songs, cutting the RIAA and the big money suckers out of the picture entirely. But beyond all the reactions and counter-movements to the RIAA is the simple fact that you can't piss off your customers and survive for long. It's like kicking patrons out of a restaurant for eating too much at the all you can eat buffet, or like shutting off the movie at a movie theater because the audience isn't quiet enough. Customers are regular people, and you can't treat them like dirt and expect them to come back for more. It's a strategy doomed to failure. If you want to do your part, it's simple. You don't need to protest outside the White House, just stop buying music and movie CDs and DVDs for a few months. If you can talk your friends into not buying RIAA and MPAA associated works for a couple months, the industry will scream for mercy. The big problem is all those people who never pay any attention to the news, or what is going on around them. Unfortunately, 70% of the US music buying public has probably never even heard of the RIAA, or what they are doing. That's where word of mouth comes in. So get those jaws a flappin'! July 19th SCO Demise Imminent The heads of SCO have come up with a scheme that can only be born of desperation. The company must be sinking fast for them to try this one. According to reports, SCO will soon announce "licensing opportunities" for Linux users. You can read about it on this page at InfoWorld (notice, with ironic hilarity, the large IBM ad in the middle of the article). The question that immediately comes to mind is that in attempting to "license" 3rd party Linux distributions, SCO is infringing the general public license (GPL) for Linux to the maximum possible extent. This would open SCO up to legal action from Linux copyright holders. But the move seems sound for a company about to go chapter 11... the upper echelons hope that just a few companies will pay for the peace of mind that SCO would not sue them in the future. SCO could bring in a nice little sum if they get enough takers. Yet, considering that the court case between SCO and IBM isn't even on the docket yet, and doesn't look too promising for SCO, I really would be surprised if many companies were dumb enough to fall for it. Give it six to eight months, and SCO will just be a bad memory. July 18th RIAA Attacks The Recording Industry Association of America, an organization so hated that it makes Tony Blair seem popular, is going after file traders with a vengeance. Everything from whole universities, to individuals running programs like eDonkey, are receiving letters threatening them with legal action for file swapping. This of course means that they have hired people to scour the internet like some kind of gigantic electronic fish trawler, looking for file sharing programs running on people's computers. Combine this un-American corporate activity with what the government is doing since the "Patriot Act" was passed, and you have a recipe for total citizen surveillance that puts George Orwell's "1984" vision to shame. There are several ways to fight the RIAA. The first is the best; boycott all CDs and DVDs. Don't buy them anymore, no matter what. Make the bastards sweat. Next, don't leave file sharing software running on your system so that they can't target you... and while you're at it, put a router between your modem and your computer to act as a firewall. Finally, write your congressional representatives and tell them you want strong fair use laws passed that will allow people to make copies of music and movies for personal use at home. July 16th Munich Says No to Windows Despite the fact that Bill Gates offered the German city of Munich huge discounts, free training and lots of other free goodies, the Munich city government voted to use Linux on metropolitan computer systems. And the big shocker, Munich agreed to pay more to SuSE and IBM for Linux than it would have had to pay Microsoft for Windows. Ouch! In the end, it turned out that Microsoft's draconian licensing and forced-upgrade policies were its undoing. The total cost of deployment is higher for Microsoft products, especially when you consider the way in which MS cuts off support for older versions of Windows in order to force companies to newer versions. The outcome of such practices is now clear, some large corporate and governmental Windows users are tired of the expensive upgrade treadmill that MS forces on them. The thought of eliminating long-term licensing contracts is too tempting to resist. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this deal is that it occurred in the midst of the SCO vs. IBM legal spat. SCO (and Microsoft) had hoped that the legal action would dissuade companies from taking up Linux on servers and desktop systems. But obviously, SCO's threats aren't having the desired effect. Indeed, SCO has been strangely quiet of late, and I expect that will continue, until the backlash against their actions slowly decimates what is left of the company. July 15th Microsoft: "75% of Windows XP Computers Crash" It's official. Microsoft says that most Windows XP computers crash all the time. If the owner installed the operating system, that is. According to a new ad campaign in Israel, Microsoft is claiming that if you or your buddy installs Windows XP, it won't work right. Only an authorized reseller can make the damn thing function as advertised. I can tell you flat out, there are no courses to take on installing Windows XP. Resellers are on their own when it comes to figuring out how to get XP to behave, just like everybody else. This is just another FUD campaign by MS to instill worry among would-be Windows XP pirates/installers. Of course most folks who install Windows have done it a million times, and they are quite experienced. Hell, most people have to install XP over and over again, on the same machine, so how inexperienced could they be? Internet So Slow, It's Painful Maybe it's just my cable connection recently, but the Internet seems completely clogged in the last few days, like an overstuffed toilet . But in this case, there isn't any plumbers helper to the rescue. My "internet bandwidth meter" has been ranging between 20% and 50% of normal. I have also received about 10 times the normal traffic level of virus-containing email over the same time, and I wonder if there is some coordinated effort to mess things up. I have not seen any mention of mass virus mailings, or denial of service attacks on main hubs, but things sure seem dicey on the old net. Maybe it's the rising unemployment rate... idle hands, and all that. July 14th NVidia Goes Chipset Crazy In preparation for the Athlon-64 debut, NVidia is ready to roll out new Crush chipsets. The NForce3, a new single-chip design (can't really call it a chipset anymore), is just getting ready to roll as well. The Crush chipsets are designated CK8 and CK8 Pro, and will support the Athlon-64 in all its upcoming pin formats. The infrastructure is falling into place for the Athlon-64 debut, which is fast approaching. I will be very interested to get my hands on a CK8 Pro and Athlon-64 for testing in the next few weeks. Other chipset makers, including SiS and VIA, may end up getting swamped by this flood of new, high-end chipsets for Athlon processors. July 11th New Detonator Drivers, Same Old Controversy The latest NVidia unified "Detonator" video drivers have been released, and the controversial 'cheats' have been removed. But for some odd reason, they still boost performance in the Nature Test of 3D Mark 2003, this time by 100%! The really odd part is that benchmark scores in real games haven't changed. Go figure. I wish they would spend as much time tweaking games as they do that one stupid benchmark. But that's probably too much to ask. July 9th US Electronic Voting Irregularities Many folks are still angry about the US voting system after the 2000 elections, and now, 3 years later, disturbing information is beginning to surface about balloting 'irregularities' in recent elections. The controversy surrounds "Diebold Election Systems" and "ES&S" electronic balloting machines, and the software that runs on them. Together, Diebold and ES&S supply up to 80% of the electronic voting machines used in the US, and ES&S apparently has ties to Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator from Nebraska. The issue concerns the software that runs on some of these voting machines, known as GEMS. Apparently, the software uses Microsoft Access to store vote tallies, but it does so in duplicate data sheets. The actual votes are summed on data sheet 1, but vote tallies appear to come from sheet 2. The author of an upcoming book called "Black Box Voting", Bev Harris, shows how easy it is to tamper with the vote tallies on sheet 2, without leaving a trace. The system can be accessed remotely. If there is even a smidge of truth to these allegations, lots more people are going to be mad about the US voting system as this story develops. The Seattle Weekly has a story about the concerns that many election officials have about the lack of a paper trail left by electronic voting. The article mentions Bev Harris and her website with this quote: "Renton publicist Bev Harris has become a nationally known activist on the subject through her opinionated research, found at www.blackboxvoting.com. (Her efforts revealed that Sen. Charles Hagel, R- Nebraska, had a previously undisclosed ownership stake in Elections Systems & Software, the nation's biggest voting- machine company. The company's machines just happened to count most of the votes in the senator's last two elections!)" Fun Political QuickTime Movie Link July 8th Athlon-64 (Clawhammer) Due September 22nd The much anticipated Athlon-64 will debut on Sept. 22nd, beginning AMD's attempt to move 64-bit computing to the home desktop. Power users can currently get an Opteron server version of the chip, but prices have kept many folks waiting in the wings. Price drops at the end of July may change that situation, possibly prompting some home users to take the plunge. I expect the situation will improve for AMD when NForce3 motherboards make it to market. I personally am waiting for CPU prices to fall, and new motherboards to arrive on the scene. The last piece of the puzzle will fall into place when Microsoft releases a 64-bit version of Windows, an event still shrouded in some mystery. Linux is already ready for 64-bit computing. I expect that this Fall, when some major games and applications get ported to 64-bit and benchmarks hit the web, that more people will decide that the Athlon-64 is a beefy, affordable CPU that they would like to have inside their own box. July 7th SCO's Darl McBride is Bill Gates Lap Dog The CEO of SCO, Darl McBride is rushing to Japan after 8 large consumer electronics companies endorsed Linux at a conference last week called the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF). McBride will be telling the electronic firms what Bill Gates wants them to know, that Linux is legally dangerous, and should be avoided at all costs. Windows, on the other hand, is very safe, innovative, and cheap, Bill would say. So McBride will take his lap dog show on the road, and see if he can get everyone to stop using Linux. Of course what will probably happen is that the companies will tell McBride exactly what he can do with his show. Most legal analysts agree that SCO's case is extremely weak, based on the fact that they themselves distributed a version of Linux containing the same kernel, thus invalidating any case against other Linux distributors. July 5th Cosmos Offers Real Fireworks for 4th Courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope. Have a look at this very nice supernova (nice for us, not for the folks living nearby) in the Large Megellanic Cloud. You can read more at Astronomy Mag. Happy July 4th Win2K SP4 Needs Fixing Remember I warned you. It's been one week since Windows 2000 service pack 4 was released, and there are already 7 new fixes for the patches. I'm still waiting to see if they release a 4a service pack, or something. For most folks, the pack won't cause more problems than it solves, it's just that old problems are familiar, while new problems are... well, a pain in the butt. I'm sure I'll install the damned thing sooner or later, but I still want to hear from more victims before I decide to join them. Linux for XBox Revealed; Bill is Pissed An exploit for running Linux on the XBox console has been revealed. The word is, Bill isn't too pleased. The hack exploits a vulnerability in the XBox dashboard, which is quite ingenious. Maybe Bill ought to hire these guys, instead of popping a blood vessel somewhere. Opteron Servers Popping Up More and more Opteron-based servers are popping up on the web. The numbers look good, but it's my opinion that AMD may not sell as many of the new CPUs as they'd like because they are selling them at a premium price. I realize they have a better product than Intel does, but people still expect AMD's prices to be much lower than Intel pricing. But AMD wants to dispel that perception, and become a "quality CPU manufacturer" in the eyes of the corporate world. And you don't foster that perception if you sell dirt cheap CPUs. We'll have to wait and see if the Opteron catches on at its current price levels. July 2nd Will the World Adopt[eron]µ the Opteron? So far it is impossible to tell how well the Opteron will catch on, but more of the required infrastructure is falling into place in advance of the release of the desktop version of the new CPU. A new 32-bit/64-bit compiler is nearing completion, which should boost performance of applications on the Opteron by 30% or more. Since the Opteron is much cheaper, and already beats the Itanium in most benchmarks, this would make it more desirable and cost effective for businesses to deploy. It could also start a move by home PC enthusiasts to migrate up to 64-bit systems if the price\performance mix looks good enough. Wild cards remaining in the picture include when Microsoft will be able to provide a 64-bit version of Windows, and the level of motherboard support in the form of the NForce3 platform. If all goes well, the Opteron\Athlon64 should begin to take off in the next couple of months. July 1st Linux in Schools Will Kill Windows If SchoolForge catches on, it may spell the doom of Microsoft Windows. Bill Gates, and the corporate world that looks to him, depend on a continuous supply of children being trained in Windows at local schools in order to feed the workforce with Word/Excel/Powerpoint capable employees. Bill will even give Windows and Office away free to schools, governments or other organizations to keep them hooked, especially if they use the dreaded "L" word. But Linux is at the heart of the SchoolForge project, which provides schools with the information they need to utilize open source software for integrating a complete educational environment. If more and more kids learn how to use computers by working within the open software movement, Windows will become less and less desirable as the medium in which students are educated. One solution is proprietary and restrictive, whereas the other is open, and freely modifiable. It's hard for dictatorships to Window dress themselves into being more desirable than Freedom. Microsoft Word Downs UK Government We've all heard the governmental spin on the issue of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq, but now Microsoft Word's document tracking feature figures into the picture. A document given to Colin Powell as supportive material for his presentation to the United Nations was edited 7 times by officials working for Tony Blair, including the personal assistant to the Prime Minister's press secretary, and the junior press officer for the Prime Minister. Didn't know they were intelligence agents, did you? So far we have no word on any Word documents from the Bush administration concerning the elusive WMDs, but I'm sure they've gotten a heads up from Tony's editors about that pesky feature in Microsoft Word. Copyright 2003, KickAss Gear |