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Windows Search 4.0 Preview

WS4 lets you perform an instant search of your computer. WS4 helps you find and preview documents, e-mail messages, music files, photos, and other items on the computer. Please refer to the Knowledge base article KB940157 for a full description of the technology.

Note The WS4 installation process automatically upgrades previous versions of Windows Search technologies.

Download: Windows Search 4.0 Preview for Windows Vista x86 | x64 Edition
Download: Windows Search 4.0 Preview for Windows XP x86 | x64 Edition
Download: Windows Search 4.0 Preview for Windows Server 2003 x86 | x64 Edition
A special promo - only in Japan!



This upgrade version of Windows Vista Home Premium is bundled with a year’s subscription of Windows Live OneCare and a copy of a Vista tips and tricks book.
Three candidates for hacking. All are road warriors. All are patched. The targets are:
  • VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10
  • Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1
  • MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2
First it was the Macbook air, hacked in 2 minutes. Charlie Miller used an undisclosed Safari flaw to break into the MacBook Air through the OS X operating system, and took home $10,000 cash prize.

Then on the third day of the contest, Vista was finally cracked. Shane Macaulay with a little help from co-worker Derek Callaway, used a few hacking tricks to break into the Vista box.

Under contest rules, Macaulay and Miller aren't allowed to divulge specific details about their bugs until they are patched.

The contest ended with Linux running on the Sony Vaio remained undefeated.
Philippine PC manufacturer, Neo, has joined forces with Intel to bring a mini-laptop aimed at educational market. 

It goes by the name Neo Explore and comes with a price tag of P16,920 ($406). With this price, it is also positioned to compete with the Asus Eee PC.

According to Mariel Que, business development manager of Neo, the new PC is a "simple, practical, PC-type gadget that is also ruggedized, durable and lightweight." Despite the fact that the ultra-portable PC is tailored to match the needs of school-age children, it can be used by any person that needs access to the web.

The Neo Explore is powered by an ultra-low-voltage 900 MHz Intel Celeron processor, 512MB RAM, a a 30-gigabyte flash drive for its storage, Ethernet, Wi-fi, a built-in SD/MMC card reader and two USB 2.0 slots.
A popular torrent search engine, Torrentspy, after a long (costly) legal battle has finally decided to close its doors.

The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.


So goodbye then, Torrentspy.

Nokia N96 this August

As reported here, Nokia, the mobile handset maker and leader will ship this August the next Nseries model at least in Europe and UK. The rest of the world, well a little bit later.



The successor of N95 is reported to have 16GB of built-in memory, support for microSD card to get an extended storage space of up to 32 GB. It will give users 40 hours of video content or more than 3000 songs in MP3 format. An awesome feature.

Hack into a Windows PC without using password

"If you have a Firewire port, disable it when you aren't using it".

A security consultant based in New Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in seconds without the need for a password.

Adam Boileau first demonstrated the hack, which affects Windows XP computers but has not yet been tested with Windows Vista, at a security conference in Sydney in 2006, but Microsoft has yet to develop a fix.

But now that a couple of years have passed and the issue has not resolved, Boileau decided to release the tool on his website.

To use the tool, hackers must connect a Linux-based computer to a Firewire port on the target machine. The machine is then tricked into allowing the attacking computer to have read and write access to its memory.

With full access to the memory, the tool can then modify Windows' password protection code, which is stored there, and render it ineffective.

Older desktop computers do not come equipped with Firewire ports, which are needed for the hack to work, but many recent models do. Most laptops made in the last few years include Firewire ports.

Full story: here