I have setup a forum where you can submit news, ask questions or just have general conversations. If you like when you register on the forum, post in the “Introduce Yourself” forum and tell us what you like to do etc.

I still have to theme the forum yet, it just has the default theme for now, it will slowly look better and better.

I hope you enjoy AusTech and the Forum, and hope to make it one of the best Australian Technology Websites.

View: AusTech Forum

Yes this has been confirmed too. It appears that microsoft forgot to digitally sign some of its demo discs and it appears that backups of the demo disc can be downloaded and copied and played on DVD-+R. This is huge luck in the scene because it will allow hackers to gain information into the executables of the xbox 360.

Source: Console News via Flexbeta

A virus masquerading as a new beta version of Microsoft’s MSN Messenger has begun circulating, antivirus company F-Secure said on its blog Tuesday. The virus, which F-Secure calls Virkel.F, comes as a file called BETA8WEBINSTALL.EXE that can be downloaded from a Web site. Running the program installs not a new MSN Messenger beta, but rather a virus that sends download links to a computer user’s MSN Messenger buddies. The virus falsely labels the link as “MSN Messenger 8 Working BETA.”

“It also connects your machine to a botnet server,” F-Secure warned, meaning that a person’s computer can be controlled remotely to attack other machines or send spam. Malicious software that uses instant messenger programs is growing more common. A November study by Akonix Systems identified 62 examples.

Source: ZDNet via MSFN

MSN Messenger lets you see when your friends are online and exchange instant messages with them. Send instant messages with cool, new emoticons, call anywhere in the world from your computer, see when someone’s typing, page a contact’s mobile phone, send pictures and music to your friends, and much more. You can also use this free program to make phone calls, send a message to a pager, trade pictures and music with your friends, and much more.

Rough outline of fixes in 7.5.0322:
- a lot of people were experiencing sign in issues with v7.5.311, we took some changes to fix that or to give better error messages to figure out whatwas going wrong. And there was another fix to get our error reporting correct.
- in Korea, if you were using an IME (Input Method Editor), you would type shortcut for your favorite emoticon and get an extra character. Now emoticons are key to any IM program and it didn’t make sense to not fix this (and we found a simple code fix).
- if you had a Dynamic Background from Blue Mountain, bought it and installed it, then the Text Ads which you should have been getting weren’t showing up.
- there is a DLL which is central to our Audio / Video features, we had to take a new version of that to fix a bug where Messenger would crash if you unplug a USB device after running the Audio Video Tuning Wizard on that device.

View: MSN Messenger Homepage
Download: MSN Messenger 7.5.0322
Source: Mess with MSN Messenger

The National Security Agency has been spying on Internet and telephone communications in and out of the United States in an immense program implemented in cooperation with major telecommunications companies, the New York Times reported late Friday. The news comes just a week after the Bush administration acknowledged the existence of a domestic spying program, while claiming the executive order was limited to those individuals with known terrorist ties. But the Times cites sources who say the surveillance was much broader than admitted.

View: Full Story
Source: BetaNews via Flexbeta

The only thing hotter than the Xbox 360 this holiday season may be invites to join the Windows Live Messenger beta test. Thankfully, Microsoft has a recommendation for those who can’t wait for access to the latest bits: pay for an invitation on eBay. Microsoft’s new instant messaging client is in private beta, but users are granted a limited number of invitations for friends and family — similar to the approach Google took with Gmail. In response, eager Messenger fans have begun to leave their e-mail all over the Web hoping someone grants them an invite.

Windows Live Messenger, which replaces MSN Messenger, includes features such as offline messages and PC-to-phone calls. File transfers are beefed up through online drop boxes called “Sharing Folders” that actually store the data on a Microsoft server.

View: Full Story
Source: BetaNews via MSFN

Stop, hold the presses! The RIAA is not the evil spying corporation that we’ve been reading about the past year.

No contrary to popular belief it is not the RIAA who employee techs to spy on naughty people downloading copyrighted material, it’s Bay TSP. Bay TSP is a comprehensive, automated 24×7 surveillance operating with worldwide coverage of:

- Websites
- All major P2P networks
- 65,000+ newsgroups
- FTP sites
- IRC
- Auction/retail sites

The RIAA/MPAA are clients of Bay TSP who collect all the data and work out exactly what pirated movie or software application is popular each month and whom is downloading it.

According to Bay TSP last month, The Interpreter was the most popular movie after being downloaded 50,336 times, shortly followed by The Skeleton Key at 47, 348. Interestingly the most pirated software was SUSE Linux 9.0 at 78, 159 copies followed by Acrobat 7 at 43, 803.

The data is comprehensive pinpointing the peak time of day, average shared files per user and how this varies across different methods of sharing files. It’s impressive that this kind of data can be extracted from file sharing networks, IRC and newsgroups to name a few but is it stopping piracy? You have to wonder whether said data is being collected until such a time when the companies have more power to act against those who pirate copyrighted materials.

View: Bay TSP
Source: Neowin

The December Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Windows Vista will be build 5276, plus or minus one build, I was told today. Beta testers, Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers, and TechNet members can expect to see the December CTP in a week or 10 days. It includes many new features compared with the previous CTP in October, but it isn’t the feature-complete version of Vista that Microsoft promised to deliver in December. Microsoft will deliver that version internally this month, but testers won’t see a feature-complete CTP until January or February.

Speaking of Vista, you might recall that Microsoft had originally planned to deliver three versions of the new UI, called Aero Glass, Aero Express, and Aero To Go. Those plans have been revised. Now, Microsoft will offer two modes only, called Windows Vista Aero (which includes the glass effects) and Windows Vista Basic, which is roughly like the Windows XP display. However, the capabilities of the three previous modes are still there: Vista Aero is the equivalent of Aero Glass, and you can get the equivalent of Aero Express by turning off the translucency effects while running Vista Aero. The best news? Contrary to rumors, you’ll need only a 64MB video card with 3-D capabilities to run Vista Aero on a typical PC .

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Source: WindowsITPro via MSFN

Recently discovered that the controversial email/host 30gigs.com is being owned and operated by the same person that also operates a Battlefield 2 cheat site MSXSecurity. The list of issue’s with MSX appear to be long and are being documented. The 30gigs.com site is believed to possibly be in place for email harvesting, judging by the privacy policy on the site. More info can be found at MSX Exposed.

Source: MSX Exposed via Flexbeta

Japanese printer makers Seiko Epson and Canon hope the increasing popularity of digital TV broadcasting and home networks will earn their printers a new place in your home: the living room. The companies, which are the second and third-ranked ink-jet printer makers in the world, are both developing printers that can be connected to digital TV sets, they said this week. The printers will work with data broadcasting services that could offer users coupons related to TV commercials or program-related information such as recipes or travel destination formatted for printing on regular sheets of paper.

“Digital TV printing is something you might hear a lot about soon,” said Seiichi Hirano, chief executive of Epson’s imaging products division, at a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday. “People want to take information from anywhere they can and we think digital TV is an excellent way to achieve this.”

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Source: InfoWorld via MSFN