July 11, 2006, 7:05 PM PDT
Acer announces Aspire 5100
Posted by: Andrew Gruen

Acer updated its Aspire 5000 series to include dual-core processors today and gave the 15.4-inch wide-screen, midsize notebook a new name: the Aspire 5100 series.

As the nomenclature implies, there are improvements to the 5000, but it's not radically different. Enhancements include the AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor (from the AMD Turion 64 single-core processor); support for up to 4GB of 533MHz or 667MHz RAM (from 2GB of 333MHz); a discrete ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 with 128MB of dedicated VRAM (from an integrated SiSM760GX graphics subsystem); Serial ATA (from IDE); and an ExpressCard slot (from a CardBus slot).

The New Aspire 5100 series adds a few new features as well, including S/PDIF out, S-Video out and a 5-in-1 memory card reader. A Webcam and a Bluetooth telephone for VoIP are both optional.

For more information, see our review of the Acer Aspire 5000.

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July 11, 2006, 6:05 PM PDT
Glide: an alternate view
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

The ambitious online suite Glide Effortless has gotten glowing press, including some here at CNET. With the release of two new Glide applications this week, a word processor and a calendar, I thought I'd try it out and see what the fuss is about. Unfortunately, the Kool-Aid that Glide CEO Donald Leka fed me wasn't appropriately spiked, because I can't make myself love the suite--although I do love what it aspires to.

First things first: The new word processor, unlike most of the rest of the suite, runs in HTML, not Flash. That makes it a bit snappier at handling text. The real selling point of this application is how easy it makes it to incorporate other files that are already in Glide. If you want to distribute documents that include files already in your Glide account, it's easy with this full-featured application. It is not, though, bug-free. (I tried to write this document in Glide, and it crashed twice.)

Glide also has an online calendar now. If you're a Glide user already, you might appreciate that you can drag media items into events, but it's far from a killer calendar app. I puzzled around in it for a bit and found myself lost in the interface. For example, if you're looking at a single-day view, there's no quick way to jump to the next or previous day--the navigational arrows jump forward or back by month.

Glide's media functions are much better, and it's because of them that Glide has won its favorable press. If you're looking for a system on which you can store all your media, retain control of it when you share it, easily publish your media to a stand-alone site or to a blog (Glide hosts both), and retrieve everything on any device (including mobile phones), Glide is worth a serious look.

But it has an unusual and inconsistent user interface. Some menus are drop-down, and some are "pie" menus with choices arranged in a circle. One menu has the pie icon next to it, but when you hover over it you get a drop-down.

While I believe the future of Web 2.0 apps is in exactly the kind of integrated suite that Glide is becoming, Glide itself is not there -- yet. It's a very good media publishing platform, but the new productivity applications seem like supporting players, and the system's overall interface is too weird to make it a serious competitor to more straightforward productivity suites.

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July 11, 2006, 3:21 PM PDT
Microsoft fixes 18 vulnerabilities with seven updates
Posted by: Robert Vamosi

Microsoft has released its July 2006 security bulletin, which includes seven updates: five are listed by Microsoft as critical and two are important. Three of the critical updates this month are specific to Microsoft Office, including one specific to Excel, and one that includes Mac versions of Office. Users of Windows 98 and Windows Me will notice that Microsft is no longer offering technical support for these two operating systems. To keep your Windows 98 and Me systems secure, see our latest roundup of compatible third-party security applications. All Microsoft security patches for Windows and Office software are available via Microsoft Update or via the individual bulletins detailed below.

MS06-033: Important

Entitled "Vulnerability in ASP.NET Could Allow Information Disclosure (917283)," this advisory affects Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003; it also affects the .NET framework 2.0. Exploitation could lead to information disclosure.

MS06-034: Important

Entitled "Vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Information Services using Active Server Pages Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917537)," this advisory affects Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP Professional, and Windows Server 2003; it does not affect Windows XP Home. Exploitation could lead to remote code execution on a compromised PC.

MS06-035: Critical

Entitled "Vulnerability in Server Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917159)," this advisory affects Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. Exploitation could lead to remote code execution on a compromised PC.

MS06-036: Critical

Entitled "Vulnerability in DHCP Client Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (914388)," this advisory affects Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. Exploitation could lead to remote code execution on a compromised PC.

MS06-037: Critical

Entitled "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917285)," this advisory affects Excel 2000, Excel 2002, and Excel 2003, plus the Excel 2003 Viewer. Exploitation could lead to remote code execution on a compromised PC.

MS06-038: Critical

Entitled "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917284)," this advisory affects Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003 as well as Office v.x for Mac and Office 2004 for Mac. Exploitation could lead to remote code execution on a compromised PC.

MS06-039: Critical

Entitled "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Filters Could Allow Remote Code Execution (915384)," this advisory affects Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003. Exploitation could lead to remote code execution on a compromised PC.

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July 11, 2006, 1:31 PM PDT
Dell: prices to move
Posted by: Matthew Elliott

Odds are if you're shopping for a new computer, you've spent at least a few minutes perusing market-leader Dell's latest offerings and ever-shifting deals. Before you put the finishing touches on that Dell PC you're building online and add it to your shopping cart, you may want to push back from your keyboard and wait two days. Dell is set to announce "a major pricing initiative" for consumers and small businesses on Thursday. Loosely translated, this bit of corporate speak means price drops are coming soon.

In a related story from last month, Intel says Pentium prices will plummet when its forthcoming Core 2 Duo chips are unleashed.

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July 11, 2006, 1:21 PM PDT
Wait for Vista not to be repeated
nor guaranteed to end
Posted by: Matthew Elliott

Some interesting tidbits from Microsoft's two headliners today. First, Steve Ballmer announces in Boston that never again will you wait as long for a Microsoft OS as the five years (and counting) you've been waiting between Windows XP and Vista. Meanwhile, in Cape Town, South Africa, Bill Gates estimates that there's a 20 percent chance the wait for Vista will continue past January. I say we focus on getting Vista out the door before we start the clock ticking on Vista's replacement.

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July 11, 2006, 11:18 AM PDT
8GB SanDisk Sansa imminent
Posted by: Jasmine France

While perusing the tech blog sites this morning, I came across this little tidbit on Engadget. If I were a gambling lady, I'd place a sizable bet that an 8GB version of the SanDisk Sansa e200 series is not just a rumor, but an imminent release. I too visited SanDisk's site and made the player do a little turn ("on the catwalk") and could clearly see "8.0 GB" inscribed on the back. Something tells me that this is no accident on SanDisk's part, either, what with the coinciding announcement of the company's new wicked Lil' Monsta campaign. (I love the monster noises!) It's certainly cuter than the controversial iDon't campaign.

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July 11, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
BillMonk, the college student's accounting system
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Before you're old enough to either pay for restaurant bills that land on the table in front of you or to figure out a clever way to get someone else to pay them outright, you go through a financial period in your life where many expenses are split. Restaurant tabs, phone bills, rent checks, and so on. The ongoing exercise of figuring out who owes what to whom is a royal pain in the neck.

But BillMonk will run the accounting for you. You tell it when you pay for a group expense, borrow money from a pal, or perform some other social-financial action. At any time, BillMonk will tell you who you owe, and who owes you.

You can also interact with the system via SMS, which makes it easy to enter expenses and payments as they occur.

Our resident college-age intern, Andrew Gruen [posts], said BillMonk is "great"; previously, he'd used a friend's homegrown tool. All that's missing, I think, is a link to PayPal, to make settling up that much easier.

Emily Chang interviewed the founders on e-Hub.

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