PC Pro Labs: Spec upgrade for Labs Recommended award winner

PC Pro readers should be aware that there have been a couple of changes to the specification of the Mesh Matrix 2500+Xi, which is a Labs Recommended award winner in this month's magazine. The machine features in the ?699 PCs group test of the new September PC Pro (issue 107). The change relates to the optical drives, which have been upgraded to Sony units. ...more

Bulldog launches nationwide high-speed broadband

Bulldog has launched two new residential high-speed broadband services, which unlike its other 1Mbps and 2Mbps offerings, are available nationwide. AllTime 1000 provides ADSL broadband at 1Mbps downstream and 256kbps upstream for ?35.24 per month with a ?58. ...more

Sober deadline passes quietly

The security industry breathed a collective sigh of relief over the weekend as the date which was to trigger computers infected with the Sober virus to download more malicious code apparently passed without incident. Finnish security company F-Secure said that the online resources the machines were poised to tap had not been primed with any malicious code so that when the infected PCs logged on, there was nothing there to download. Furthermore, the company says that the worm was also programmed to stop spreading on 6 January and, as a result, the virus that had been by far the most prolific over the past two months has simply dropped off the radar. ...more

Hard disks hit 250

LaCie has announced new 250Gb and 200Gb hard drives, built with the digital video and server markets in mind. Both FireWire drives provide data throughput of a maximum 35Mb/sec but the 200Gb version is especially designed for the digital video streaming with an enlarged 8Mb data buffer that enables it to provide sustained throughput at this speed. The 250Gb drive with a 2Mb buffer is more suited to tasks that are not streaming dependent, such as back-up and server storage. ...more

Toshiba exchanges faulty laptop memory modules

Toshiba has issued a warning about memory modules used in certain of its notebooks. The company has revealed that the modules - under certain conditions and when used in combination with other components - potentially cause blue screens, intermittent PC lockups or undetected memory data corruption. Toshiba claims, however, that the possibility of any of these events occurring is extremely low. ...more