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Inside this issue:
AMD vs Intel
the Megaherz Myth - Accuracy in CPU Ratings
Class Action Lawsuit Over Pentium 4
Internet Fraud
Nigerians Arrested For Scam
Top Ten Internet Scams
Software Pirate Sentenced
New Net Crime Accord Signed by 30 Countries
European Internet Credit Card Fraud Up 50%
Identity Theft Hits the Rich & Famous
Judge Says Paypal Arbitration Rules Unfair
Notebook Design and Price Breakthrough
Robotic Lawn Mower Controlled Via th Web
Entertainment Industry May Target You
Microsoft Implements Insane "Copy Protection" Scheme
Useful Sites and Software
Free Protection Against Hackers and Viruses
Read NTFS Disks from DOS
Over 15,000 calculators for all occasions
Copy DVDs to CDRs
over 400 megs of utilities and games on CD
Delete on next boot
Backup Your Drivers
Toggle Images On/Off in IE
Recover Deleted Files
Ultimate PC Security
AMD still fighting the 'megahertz myth' by John G. Spooner
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices is continuing its fight against the most common way of rating computer performance--a method that relies on what AMD calls the "megahertz myth." Last summer, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company launched its True Performance Initiative, urging consumers to question the notion that a PC with a faster chip will always outperform one with a slower processor. Now, AMD says it has joined with other members of the PC industry to develop a new measurement, one that would take various factors into consideration to more accurately reflect the overall performance of a computer.
Consumers often compare processor clock speeds and prices on various new PCs. But the lowest cost PC with the highest clock speed processor might not always offer the best overall performance, AMD maintains. The company has argued that a less expensive machine with one of its own 1.8GHz Athlon XP 2200+ processors can perform as well or better than a PC using archrival Intel's 2.26GHz Pentium 4 chip.
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When Intel was the only real player in the PC-compatible CPU market, everyone believed that the only way to rate the power of the CPU was by its megaherz. The higher the number, the faster the chip. When AMD and others entered the market, this was no longer accurate.
The true measure of a processor's speed is how fast it processes instructions. Measuring a CPU by its megaherz is the equivalent of choosing a car engine based on its revs. AMD's chips can be said to be more efficient because they process more instructions per second at a lower megaherz. AMD's 120mhz CPU was actually about 5% faster than Intel's Pentium 150. Intel deliberately chose to maintain this illusion. They went from the 286 to the 386 to the 486, but instead of calling their next chip the 586, they chose to call it by the trademarked name of Pentium. This was done so that AMD could not use the same name. While Intel boasted that they had a 150mhz Pentium, AMD could only claim to have a 120mhz 586. To the uninformed, the Intel chip sounded better. So a few companies and publications such as Ziff-Davis began to use a different measurement, the P rating. The P rating allowed companies such as AMD to compare their CPUs to Intel's based on real-world tests. AMD began to call their 120mhz 586 chip the P150 because in real-world tests, it was about 5% faster than Intel's 150mhz Pentium.
In marketing the Megaherz Myth, Intel also shot themselves in the foot. One would think that when comparing just Intel CPUs, the more megaherz, the faster the CPU. One would be wrong. AMD and others produced CPUs that rivalled Intel's and were considerably cheaper. Intel responded by pushing the envelope for faster and more expensive CPUs. There are always enthusiasts willing to spend top dollar for the fastest machine and managers ordering computers for their companies who don't mind spending major corporate money for minor speed improvements. But Intel ignored a large population of folks who were just out to get the biggest bang for their buck and this niche was quickly being filled by others. Eventually, even the name manufacturers began to use non-Intel CPUs. IBM and Cyrix entered into some relationship where Cyrix CPUs were being produced by IBM, complete with an IBM label. As the non-Intel CPUs gained legitimacy, Intel's market share eroded. Intel had to come up with a way to regain the lower end of the market. They could have just dropped the price of their CPU but that would have killed the mystique that Intel's chips were more expensive because they were better. So instead Intel "invented" a lower-end CPU to compete in that market.
The 486SX was a deliberately crippled 486 CPU. It may have gained Intel some of the low end market but it also had unintended results. Uninformed folks did not understand that the SX was designed to be inferior. They did not comprehend that a 20 mhz 486 was a much better machine than a 25 mhz 486 SX. Dealers began advertising "genuine Intel 486 computers" at bargain prices. This further fed the belief that when buying a computer, cheaper is better. I remember well the numerous discussions I had with customers when trying to explain to them that an AMD 486 was to an Intel 486SX what a Porsche is to a VW Beetle. Intel continued this practice of producing CPUs on both ends of the spectrum with the Celeron chip. Though the Celeron is not as bad a concept as the SX, it is still buyer beware. There are dealers advertising the Celeron as if it were the same as a Pentium.
With prices tumbling, the difference in cost between a Celeron and a Pentium is minimal. The difference in performance is not. Intel has demonstrated that they still believe that folks who shop by price or megaherz alone are just pockets waiting to be picked.
Intel, PC makers sued over Pentium 4 performance By Tom Mainelli, PC World
A small group of PC owners has quietly filed a class-action lawsuit against Intel Corp., Gateway Inc., and Hewlett-Packard Co., alleging that the companies misled them into believing the Pentium 4 was a superior processor to Intel's own Pentium III and the Athlon from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The complaint -- Neubauer et al. v. Intel et al. -- was filed June 3 in the Third Judicial Circuit in Madison County, Ill. The case is in limbo awaiting a ruling on whether it belongs in a state or federal jurisdiction and has not yet achieved class-action status. It came to light this week after a copy of the complaint was sent to PCWorld.com anonymously.
The plaintiffs claim that the companies deceived the public when marketing Intel's flagship processor and allege that it is "the material fact that there is no benefit to consumers in choosing the Pentium 4 over the Pentium III." The complaint alleges that "the Pentium 4 is less powerful and slower than the Pentium III and/or the AMD Athlon."
The plaintiffs don't appear to be accusing Intel of lying about the Pentium 4's clock speed, said Rob Enderle, a research fellow at Giga Information Group Inc. They're complaining about the chip's performance, and that's a crucial element to the case's viability, he said.
"As long as the market is going after megahertz, and Intel is reporting the correct megahertz, then I do not think this is actionable," he said. "Megahertz is misleading, but that has to do with the fact that the industry doesn't use benchmarks."
Enderle said the PC industry should throw out megahertz altogether as a system of measuring performance. The actual clock speed matters less than the overall system performance, he said.
"The right answer really is benchmarks," he said. "We need to have a way that people can really see the difference between PCs."
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Intel's history of deceiving the public goes even further. Some of you may recall the accuracy flaws in the early Pentium chips, flaws that Intel continued to deny until a number of researchers provided proof. Then Intel finally admitted that there was a flaw but insisted that it was minor and would only affect a very small number of operations, until researchers demonstrated spreadsheets which miscalculated. This led to a number of Intel jokes, such as:
Why didn't they call it the 586?
Because they add 100 to 486 and got 585.8723
Dr Seuss on Intel:
Intel meant what it said and it said what it meant,
A Pentium's accurate 99.8726 percent.
In an effort to foster the myth that Intel CPUs are the best, Intel created stickers for PCs which read, "Intel inside." It wasn't long before someone else came out with one which read, "Intel inside - idiot outside."
Optical Mouse $15 You know what happens after you use a standard ball mouse for a while - particularly if there are children around. It starts behaving erratically. Dirt and crumbs get stuck to the ball and from the ball they are transferred to the internal workings of the mouse. You can wait until it becomes exasperating and then try to clean it or you can replace the mouse every few months or you can replace that old clunker with an optical mouse and stop worrying. An optical mouse uses a beam of light to detect how it has been moved. No ball to clog. No way to get dirt inside. It doesn't even need a mouse pad. The movement is smooth, first time - every time. It also has a wheel between the two buttons, so you can scroll long files without having to move to the scroll bars. Optical mouse.
4-port USB Hub $15 Do you have more USB devices than ports? A printer, scanner, mouse, handheld, digital camera, etc? Do you have to keep unplugging one device to plug in another? Is your USB port located in back of your computer, where it is hard to reach? Here is the solution to your problem. This device plugs into a USB port and turns it into 4 separate ports. It also includes an extension cord so the ports can be located to the side of the computer where they are easy to reach. USB Hub.
A federal judge says PayPal has a mandatory arbitration policy that is unfair to customers who complain that their accounts are being mishandled. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose allows customers to take their grievances to a jury rather than an arbitration panel. Fogel also refused to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks class-action status on behalf of thousands of PayPal customers nationwide.
Plaintiffs in the proposed class- action suit say PayPal has a backlog of more than 100,000 unanswered complaints. A common allegation is that the company brushes off or stalls customer grievances for months and meanwhile freezes the customer's account and pockets the interest.
Fogel's ruling, issued Aug. 30, struck down PayPal's requirement that customers submit disputes to private, binding arbitration in Santa Clara County, rather than suing in court. Fogel said PayPal reserved to itself the right to freeze a customer's account during a dispute; prohibited customers from combining their claims into a single arbitration case; and required customers to pay a share of arbitration fees, which would commonly exceed the amount of their claims.
"By allowing for prohibitive arbitration fees and precluding joinder of claims (which would make each individual customer's participation in arbitration more economical), PayPal appears to be attempting to insulate itself contractually from any meaningful challenge to its alleged practices," the judge wrote.
He said it was equally unfair to require customers from around the nation, whose average PayPal transaction was $55, to travel to Santa Clara County for arbitration. PayPal's lawyer said the company is considering an appeal.
It is the latest of several business arbitration policies to be overturned since the state Supreme Court set standards in 2000 for determining when a company's rules were unfairly one-sided.
One of the reasons a notebook is more expensive than a desktop is because the special notebook CPU costs as much as 3 times the price of a desktop CPU. Notebook CPUs are specially designed to take less power and give off less heat. Some are designed to automatically drop to special energy-saving modes when the system is not being used for heavy calculations. These energy-saving techniques would be pointless in a desktop because they only save a few cents' worth of electricity. But when that translates to an extra hour of power, it means a lot in a notebook. Since the EliteGroup Desknote is designed to run off a standard wall outlet, it can use a desktop CPU, shaving hundreds off the price. A Desknote with an Intel P4 2 ghz CPU should sell for about $1200. The same configuration in a true notebook would be about twice that. Though external batteries will be offered as an option, I suspect they will be expensive and heavy.
Robot takes a whack at weeds Reuters, August 16, 2002
New Zealand researchers say they have a lawnmower operated via the Internet. The robotic grass cutter is controlled through a Web page which monitors the mower by a small camera on the side of a house.
“What our technology allows us to do is to control lawnmowers and other robotic devices while people are away at work,” Massey University's Glen Bright said.
The electric mower, smaller and more compact than the average mower, moves in a sequence across the grass, stopping in places that require trimming. It motors out once during the day and then again at night with the computer directing its every move. The mower should be up and trimming by the end of the year, and commercially available soon after that, Bright said. The device needs physical boundaries to navigate, but by the end of the year it will be able to self-navigate and adjust to different grass heights as well as carry out gardening tasks such as soil testing, he said.
The mower was developed in collaboration with lawnmower and chainsaw company Husqvarna, part of the Sweden-based AB Electrolux home-appliance maker.
The next step is an automatic vacuum cleaner, Bright said
Consumer electronics maker JVC and games developer Hudson Soft have developed a new copy-protection technology that they claim will prevent CD-ROM discs from being copied, the companies said on Wednesday. The technology, called "Root", marks the latest effort by the computer industry to control software piracy through technical means. The Root technology--so named because it is intended to prevent illegal copying "from the Roots up"--uses encryption keys, a method that has been tried in the past. The disc's contents are encrypted, so that it cannot be read without a "key" also placed on the disc. The innovation in this case is that the key is hidden in such a way that it can be read by any CD-ROM drive, but cannot be written by a CD-R/RW drive, so that a copied version of the disc would be unreadable. The key is different for each disc, and is hidden in a different place each time, according to the companies.
The rest of this section is an excerpt of the article by David Coursey
If Microsoft's handling of digital-rights management in its new Media Center PCs is any indication, Redmond is perfectly happy to sell out its customers to keep the entertainment industry happy. Windows XP Media Center Edition lets some next-generation PCs act like personal video recorders. The first Media Center machines, due before Christmas from HP, also come with a DVD burner. That means you can copy TV programs you've recorded from your hard drive to DVD. The DVDs you burn can only be played on the same machine on which they were recorded.
Microsoft says it's designed the Media Center this way to block the "wholesale" copying of copyrighted material. I always thought "wholesale" referred to one person making a million copies of something and selling them, rather than a million people copying a single program for their own private use. Let's say I record The West Wing on my Media Center PC, but don't have time to watch it at home. Wouldn't it be great to burn the program and maybe a few others onto a DVD to watch on my laptop while I'm on an airplane? Or take it over to a friend's house, so we all can watch? My TiVo lets me dub programs to videotape so I can carry them around. Why shouldn't my PC's DVD burner give me the same flexibility?
Microsoft says that making DVDs viewable only on the machines that burned them will help Hollywood see the PC not as a threat, but as an ally. But in so doing, the software giant could really be encouraging customers to see Media Center PCs as, well, useless.
Whatever Microsoft's motives really are, I think that eventually consumers will inflict their wrath upon both MS and Hollywood. The entertainment industry needs to find new revenue models that reflect the realities of digital media and consumer preference. THE CHALLENGE IS for Microsoft to solve the rights-management problem in a way that consumers will accept, yet prevents thieves from getting rich off someone else's intellectual property. But if the Media Center PC's copy-protection scheme is an example of Microsoft's best thinking in this area, Redmond is off to a really lousy start.
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A man promised his doctor, "Get me to 100 and I'll buy you a vacation." He recently made good on his offer.
A virus is a program designed to cause you grief and designed to use your machine to proliferate to other machines. My email ID is probably in the contact list of hundreds of people. Not a month goes by that I don't receive dozens of emails about "funny web sites" and "a game you will enjoy." Obviously, many of the folks who have my email ID haven't implemented proper anti-virus security. Here is a good one and it's FREE for non-commercial use -- AVG virus scanner. Many claim that it works as well as retail virus scanners. Grisoft Anti Virus.
A trojan is a program that gets into your system and then lets someone else in or sends out your confidential information to another party. Those of you who have seen the movie War Games may remember the dialer program that was used to hack into the computer. This program simply began with a number and kept adding 1 to it and dialing until it hit another computer. There are similar programs for hacking on the web. Your computer is identified by a series of numbers. A hacking program tries a series of numbers until it finds a system that lets it in. It then sends a trojan program, using the same ports that would be used to download data over the Net. (Ports in this sense does not mean parallel, serial or USB ports. Ports here refers to lines of communication with the Internet.)
If you connect to the Intenet via a cable or DSL line, you are more prone to being hacked. Your connection is fast enough and permanent enough to attract attention. If you connect via a modem and only stay on for short periods, you are less likely to be a victim. A firewall is a progam that mediates between you and the Internet. It tries to identify any activity over your outside ports that appears suspicious. Often the first time you run a program which operates over the Internet, you will get a warning saying, "Yahoo Messenger is attempting to communicate over the Internet" or "Yahoo Messenger is attempting to send data over port 80" and you are then asked if this should be allowed. You also get a choice to remember your answer on the next attempt by this same program. As the firewall program records your answers, it interrupts less frequently.
There are a number of firewall programs and each is different. As hackers find new ways to get into systems, firewall programmers add new protection to the software. Steve Gibson, among others, has written programs specifically designed to test the effectiveness of firewalls. The last review I read stated that the top contenders were Zone Alarm from Zonelabs.com and Sygate Personal Firewall. Both of these companies offer a free version for home users. I have tried both and had some issues with Zone Alarm, including some programs that wouldn't run when Zone Alarm was present. When I found that a number of people reported these same problems, I knew that it wasn't a problem with my PC and switched to the Sygate program. I found the Sygate program friendlier and less intrusive. The only issues I had with the Sygate program were:
- Internet surfing is slower, but this is true of all firewall programs.
- I sometimes connect to a special server at work using PC Anywhere. With the Sygate firewall running, it took several attempts and there were frequent disconnects. If I shut the firewall down, I connected quickly and the connection held.
So my personal choice at the moment is Sygate Personal firewall, available free at Sygate.Com.
After much experimentation, I finally found the programs that work for me and here are my findings in a nutshell.
To copy DVDs to CDRs, you should have 1) a Ripper and 2) an encoder and 3) a CD copy program, which should have come with your CDRW drive. A ripper is a program that copies the VOB files from the DVD to your hard drive virtually unchanged. Why can't you just use the copy command? 1) Most DVDs have some copy protection against making it that easy. A ripper is designed to get around this. 2) A DVD holds several gigabytes. Often the video file is a gig in size. It is not possible to copy such a large file to a CD. The ripper allows you to specify a file size. If you set it to 700 megs, the size of a large capacity CD, it will rip the files off the DVD and convert them to PC files of 700 megs which can be copied and played directly off CDs with little to no loss of resolution.
The advantage of using just the ripper is that it works pretty quickly and the result is as good as the original. The disadvantage is that if you store it on your hard drive, it will take several gigabytes per video. If you copy it to CDRs, it will take about 7 CDRs per movie and each will hold about 12 minutes of video. So your choice would be to either change discs every 12 minutes or copy the whole movie to your hard drive in order to watch it. Personally, with the cost of blank CDRs at under 10 cents, I would just copy the movie to 7 CDRs and load it on to my hard drive when I felt like watching it in high quality. But I usually watch in a small window while I work and the single-CD encoded version is just fine for that.
An encoder translates the very large VOB files into much smaller AVI or MPEG files. Often a 5 gigabyte video can be encoded into a 700 megabyte AVI or MPG, so the whole DVD will fit on to one CDR. Of course there will be some loss of resolution and encoding does take time. On my XP1800 machine with 256 mb of RAM and ultrafast 80 gigabyte hard drive, it took about 90 minutes to encode a 90 minute movie to MPG. The resulting files fit on one CDR and looked slightly fuzzy in full screen but very good at about 3/4 screen on a 19 inch monitor.
Playing the CD on standard DVD machines The CD you create can only be played on a computer. It has to be converted to VCD format to play on a DVD machine. Nero is a very popular CD copying program and comes with many CDRW drives. It also has a feature to create a video CD. It will convert your AVI to VCD format but it does take a long time.
The programs I use and instructions for using them are available free with any purchase.
Get over 400 megs of photo editing software, utilities and games on CD. We have been posting links to free utilities for well over a year. If you go to our back issues, you will find that some of these links no longer work. Some of these files are large and downloading them over a modem can be time-consuming. Some readers have asked if there is a way to get these on CD. The answer is Yes. We have downloaded and used the utilities mentioned here as well as many others. We have compiled a CD with over 400 megabytes of utilities and games, including several full-featured photo editing suites. Since we did not create this software, we do not sell it. We do however provide the CD for free with any purchase.
Most of the software is fully-functioning freeware. Some of it is shareware, which means it will either run for a limited amount of time or some of the features will be missing or it will nag you to register by sending the author a few dollars. Shareware is a great way to get good software out to the public without spending a fortune on packaging and marketing. Before shareware came along, there were a limited number of word processors and they all cost a few hundred dollars. Now there are products available on the Net free for private use and at low cost for business use that rival those sold by Microsoft and others for hundreds of dollars. Shareware lets you try a product before purchasing it. Support the shareware concept. If you download a product that you find useful, send the author the fee he or she deserves.
Delete on new boot Ever want to delete a file and Windows just won't let you, insisting that the file is in use? This free utility lets you mark files for deletion or moving the next time you boot your machine. Since it will activate early in the Windows session, it should be able to grab the file before Windows decides it is in use.
eBlaster 3.0 records and automatically forwards email!
eBlaster lets you know EXACTLY what your employees or family members are doing on the Internet, even if you are thousands of miles away. eBlaster records their emails, chats, instant messages, web sites visited and keystrokes typed -- and then automatically sends this recorded information to your own email address. No other product on the market records and instantly forwards emails.
In addition, every 60 minutes, you receive an Activity Report of their latest chats, instant messages, keystrokes and web sites visited, plus a summary of all emails. (If you want to receive reports less frequently than once every 60 minutes, it's easy to change to once every few hours or just once a day.)
Regularly priced at $149.95, eBlaster is on sale for $99.95 and is available for immediate download. eBlaster is fully compatible with all versions of Windows since Windows 95, including Windows XP. eBlaster is 100 percent compatible with AOL 5.0, AOL 6.0 and AOL 7.0.
Spector - available in both Windows and Mac versions.
Awarded PC Magazine Editors' Choice for best Surveillance Software (July 2002).
Now with Web Mail capture! Spector Professional Edition is the newest version of the world's best selling Internet Monitoring and Surveillance software. Spector Pro automatically takes hundreds of snapshots every hour, very much like a surveillance camera. Spector Pro also includes TRUE email capture (SMTP and web-based email), TRUE chat and instant messenger capture, and now includes the world's best Key Logger. In addition, Spector Pro provides IMMEDIATE NOTIFICATION when your loved ones encounter dangerous or inappropriate web sites, emails or chats.
Spector Pro is the only program available that will capture web-based email such as Yahoo mail, Hotmail, Excite mail and AOL web based email. With Spector Pro, you will be able to SEE in exact detail what your spouse, kids and employees have been doing online and offline.
Regularly priced at $149.95, Spector Pro is on sale for $99.95 and is available for immediate download. Spector Pro is fully compatible with all versions of Windows since Windows 95, including Windows XP and all versions of AOL and Instant Messenger.
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