SecurityPortal offers a summary of the latest changes and updates to free security software tools.

Al Gross (W8PAL), ham radio operator, inventor of the “walkie-talkie” handheld radio, and creator of technologies that eventually led to the creation of the pager and cellular phone, died four days before Christmas at his home in Sun City, Arizona. More at ZDNet.

“The PC industry is taking a huge leap backwards as Intel’s new flagship Pentium 4 processor turns out to be an engineering disaster that will hurt both consumers and computer manufacturers for some time to come.” Complete review at Emulators.com.

From LinuxWorld in January to COMDEX in November, ZDNet lists the top technology conferences of the coming year.

TechWeb reports on Lanop’s plan to add twelve new Linux training centers to its nationwide operations.

This Motley Fool article counts VA Linux and Red Hat as among the top stock losers in 2000. “It’s been a particularly wild ride for Red Hat shareholders, given its 1,800% gain last year. Despite the software
company’s reversal of market fortune, Red Hat has continued to grow revenue, which more than doubled in its most
recent quarter to $22.4 million. In addition, gross margin is improving and the company expects to reach profitability
next year.
Things haven’t gone as well recently for VA Linux, which sells servers and other equipment with Linux software, and
which was clobbered after reducing its revenue and earnings forecasts in early November. The company’s main
customers are Internet content distributors and Web-hosting outfits that VA Linux says cut back on their equipment
spending recently.” (VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

CNet reports that IBM has “proclaimed itself fastest of the fast in low-end Unix uniprocessor workstations.
The company announced a pair of additions to its entry-level RS/6000 44 P Model 170 Unix workstation, which the company says will
make the machine fastest in its class.”

A Linux.com article asks the question. “Two years ago I was bold and naive enough to assert that my mother would be able
to switch to Linux by now. And if Linux were ready for her, I think there’s a pretty
good possibility that she would do just that. You see, she, like so many other people
with years of experience being an end user, despises Windows. Once a month she
routinely sends a 10-page essay on her latest Windows escapade, which frequently
ends with something like ‘and after 45 minutes on the phone with Compaq tech
support, they had me reinstall Windows and the problem seems to have gone away.’
She always jokes about being an old dog that can’t learn new tricks, but given a
feasible alternative to Windows, I think she’d jump.”

From Mercurycenter.com: “Hollywood has teamed up with some of the biggest players in computer storage
technology to build a copy-prevention scheme into every hard drive and
memory card — opening a new front in the war against online piracy.

If widely adopted, the technology would make it more difficult for consumers to
duplicate copyrighted files such as music and movies without the permission of
the companies that own the rights. Hard drives and memory cards are used to
store information on everything from personal computers and MP3 music
players to digital cameras and palm-size organizers.”

Wired.com reports on fears that ‘Tens of thousands of computer systems may have been secretly invaded by “zombies” that could suddenly spring to life over
the upcoming holiday weekend.
The zombie computers, controlled remotely by crackers, will then eat the brains of the Internet.” That paranoia is brought to you by the National Infrastructure Protection Center.