Intel is expected to officially release its Intel 945X Express chip set and dual-core Pentium D chips on Thursday, May 26, 2005.

Intel, which often uses its annual desktop chip set launches to add new features to desktop PCs. This time they have added to the 945X a higher-performance built-in graphics processor, along with support for faster memory and a higher-bandwidth Serial ATA hookup for hard drives.

Quoted:
The chip set, which follows 2004’s Intel 915 Express—a product the company said was one of its most important in years—will become the backbone for a new generation of midrange and high-end PCs for corporations as well as consumers.

All 945X chip sets will offer dual-channel support for DDR2-667, a newer version of the DDR2 RAM and a 3G bit-per-second Serial ATA connection for up to four hard drives. Today’s 915 Express chip-set PCs offer DDR2-533 RAM and use a 1.5G bit Serial ATA connection.

The 945X chip set also adds support for up to six PCI-Express slots for add-in cards, a 1,066MHz front side bus, and two additional versions of the RAID standard. The addition of RAID 5 and RAID 10 will allow desktops to use as many four hard drives, versus the two-drive setups offered now.

I suppose the launch of this new chip set will certainly help Intel to capture more market share. :)

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Just after 10 days of new WordPress 1.5.1 been released, here comes WordPress 1.5.1.1.

Improvements including the following:-

[General] RSS feed problem
[Optimization] ‘publish’ and ‘editpost’ have different flow in wp-admin/post.php
[General] quicktag “ins” and “del” format datetime attribute incorrectly
[Template] SQL Error with list_cats
[Administration] Broken page navigation links
[Administration] “nextpage” navigation on permalinks with no trailing slash fails
[Optimization] Feeds return 304 when no new posts have been made
[Administration] Call to undefined function: get_bloginfo function

You all can freely download it here.
As well as, take a look of more than 170 bugs been fixed since WordPress 1.5.1.

Guide to upgrade is over here.

Enjoy. :)

New worm emerged early this week, variously named “Oscarbot-B” and “Doyorg” by antivirus companies, are targeting users of AOL’s instant messaging software, AIM. Something similar to the recent MSN worm, I think.

Quoted:
The Windows-based malware emerged early this week, and has made itself a nuisance for its ability to hijack the list of contacts or “buddies” in an infected user’s IM account. After opening a window to any one of these contacts with the message “Hey check this out“, it invites users to follow an embedded link. Anyone who clicks on this will risk becoming its next victim.

The worm creates a backdoor into Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to download and run files on machines where infection is successful, commanded by the instruction of the attacker, hence, giving remote access to that infected PC.

So, all AIM users, please be aware of all the links your buddies sent you, re-confirm with them before clicking it is always an advisable idea.

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IEBlog confirmed on May 16, 2005, that the next version of Windows web browser, Internet Explorer 7.0, which is code-named “Rincon“, has tabs.

They also admitted they should have integrated tab browsing feature earlier. :p

Quoted:
Some people have asked why we didn’t put tabs in IE sooner. Initially, we had some concerns around complexity and consistency… will it confuse users more than it benefits them? Is it confusing if IE has tabs, but other core parts of the Windows experience, like Windows Media Player or the shell, don’t have tabs? I think we made the wrong decision here initially, and we’re making the right one now.

Well, who doesn’t make mistake? As long as we learn from it and do the right thing next time. :)

Really looking forward to a better IE to be released end of this year, hopefully.

Microsoft Corp. has already moved its full version of MSN desktop search application out of beta version on May 16, 2005. Microsoft is now emphasizing its ties with the Windows operating system. The old name of MSN desktop search – MSN Search Toolbar – will be renamed to Windows Desktop Search.

Product unit manager for MSN Search, Dane Glasgow, revealed the MSN toolbar will be building tabbed browsing into the Internet Explorer browser.

Quoted:
MSN is announcing plans to release an automatic update to its new toolbar suite within the next few months that adds the ability to open tabs of multiple Web pages inside one browser window and to create routines where multiple sites are opened at once.

Windows Desktop Search appears to be part of Microsoft’s broader desktop search development for Windows, including the next version of Windows, Longhorn release, though company executives have said that MSN’s version of desktop search won’t be directly bundled into Windows.

As for MSN’s new desktop search application, it will be available as a free download in the United States for Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

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Well, I need to clarify again because this post is quite serious: I AM NOT AGAINST INTEL !!

I swear to GOD, I DID NOT purposely dig out bad news about Intel !! News happens by itself, I can’t create it.

Ok, here is the detail:-

Colin Percival, from FreeBSD Organization, revealed that Hyper-Threading (HT) is suffering from a serious security flaw. This flaw permits local information disclosure, including allowing an unprivileged user to steal an RSA private key being used on the same machine. In other words, Intel Pentium 4, Mobile Pentium 4, Pentium Extreme Edition and Xeon processors are all victims to this flaw.

However he stated single-user systems (i.e., desktop computers) are not affected. Besides, he strongly advised administrators of multi-user systems to take action to disable Hyper-Threading immediately.

He even wrote a 12-page long article, discussing this flaw and related problems.

In fact, he discovered this flaw back in October 2004. Then tested the suspected flaw and got notified by FreeBSD Security Officer Team in December 2004. In February 2005, vendors including Intel and other security teams contacted him. Finally, he made an official public disclosure that a security flaw exists in Hyper-Threading on May 13, 2005.

Quoted:
I don’t hate Intel — in fact, I think Intel makes great CPUs, and I have an Intel processor in every computer I own. (Not that I have anything against AMD; it just happened to work out this way.) But as someone who works in the field of computer security, I don’t play political games: If I find a vulnerability, I’m going to report it and work with vendors to fix it, regardless of what the problem is or who it affects.

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Same here, I do not hate Intel, Intel helps the economy of Penang and Malaysia to prosper, and I thank them truly. I just came across this article and thought it would be an interesting topic to publish.

Anyone with a solid explanation to this issue please leave your comment(s) here. Feel free to drop an email to Colin Percival too.
I would rather think this breaking news is false at the moment until further confirmation.