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DVD-ROMs are not as expensive these days as they used to be. However, DVD burners are still hard to find and are extremely expensive. So, it does not become feasible for most of us to buy a DVD burner. So what to do when you get a required DVD and want to make a copy of it? Well, it happened to me last week. I got this DVD from a friend and found it really useful. Alas! I don’t have a DVD burner. Even if I could copy an image of the contents of the DVD, I would not have been able to write it to CDs. This is due to the difference in storage space between the two mediums, and applications on your DVD may become useless if you try to split them in order to accommodate them on several CDs.
   I was not going to let go so easily. I tried to find a way which would let me have the contents of the DVD, and that too without having a DVD burner or copying the contents onto my HDD. This is when I came across DVDRabbit. I instantly found a way that could satisfy my purpose. Although a tad pricey, it’s certainly more feasible at the moment than buying a DVD burner. You can just download the 1 hour trial version of this software to try it out. Using DVDRabbit you can backup a DVD to a blank CD without buying a DVD burner!
   You can simply use your regular CD-R burner for this purpose. DVDRabbit is actually a one-step DVD- to-VCD backup with ripping off the DVD as MPEG to your hard drive. Foremost, the hardware would need to use this software are a DVD player/ROM, a CD burner and of course a PC. DVDRabbit has a bonus option built into it just to rip the DVD to a MPEG file for your PC. What’s more, this nifty tool is tested thoroughly and works on all Windows platforms from Windows 95 to Windows XP. Simply use DVDRabbit and reprieve yourself from spending tons of money on shareware junk.
   The interface is attractive and colorful, yet at the same time, simple. Even the most naïve of computer users won’t get lost in it. DVDRabbit is never a burden on your system and eats up the minimum of your system resources. There are just 3 easy steps involved in using this software: first pick the DVD drive, pick the CDR drive and then pick your hard drive folder where to rip the MPEG file. You can also pick the desired MPEG size yourself. DVDRabbit then shows you an IFO file to choose and that’s it! A perfect backup is generated that fits on a CD-R.
   I’ll point out one good reason more to prefer this useful software over an actual DVD burner. There are 3 different types of DVD burning formats, and hence you will end up finding them incompatible! With DVDRabbit, you will experience no such problem. Of course, it’s BD. But still, all that coming at a price less than $20!
   You may well ask how to play the generated MPEG files on your PC. You can do so instantly using Windows Media Player or any other MPEG Player. If you write your DVD data on CDs, you would be able to play the CDs on your PC or home DVD players with VCD Support. Repeat: DVDRabbit basically has 3 options: Burn MPEG files to VCD or DVD to VCD; Rip DVD to your Hard Drive as MPEG; and MPEG burned as VCD on Blank CD.
   DVDRabbit has a simple click-click-click interface, and it works quite well. Every DVD-ripper has its defects, but this software is solid within its limits. After encoding the DVD into MPEG, it flawlessly burns it to VCD for quick and easy viewing. However, if you are looking for help and online support, forget it. The developers will immensely disappoint you here. The ‘amount of support’ that this program offers is next to none. There is no help in the program and no help online (gosh!). Although it has been said that this software is able to run on all Windows operating systems, if you have a slow running PC and a Windows 95 operating system, this program may stall and not always run.
   You also have to understand one more thing. At maximum stretch, DVDRabbit can squeeze a 4.7 GB DVD onto a 650 MB CD. So, the picture quality will leave much to be desired. They may end up looking blocky, especially when things are moving across the screen. This is quite logical and you will have to be flexible about this. The best thing about DVDRabbit is that it does not have any registry tweaks. All in all a great, innovative product that deserves some more attention from its users and developers alike.
   
   FACTBOX
   Product description
   Title: DVDRabbit Pro
   Publisher: Geekpipe Software
   Category: DVD backup utility
   License: Free; $19.95 to buy
   Current version: 1.0
   Download size: 3.76 MB
   Platform: Windows 98/NT/2000/Me/XP
   Uninstaller included? : No
   Hyperlinks
   www.dvdrabbit.com
   Ratings
   Our verdict B

NORTH South Univer-sity, arguably the leading private university of the country, signed a Memorandum of Under-standing with Alcatel early this month, promising long-term technical cooperation and enhanced understanding between the industry and the academia.
   The signing ceremony which was organized by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, NSU at the university premises, featured among others Dr Hafiz GA Siddiqi, Vice Chancellor; Dr SAM Khairul Bashar, Pro-Vice Chancellor, and Dr Miftahur Rahman, Chair, Dept of CSE from NSU; Mr Christian Rene Looten, Country Senior Officer; Dr Souheil Marine, Digital Bridge Manager, and Mr Shajel Qureshi, Manager, Market-Business Development Department from Alcatel Bangladesh. The quiet and dignified occasion, also congregated by several other faculty members and administrative members from both parties as well as students and local journalists, is expected to go a long way in the continual infrastructural development of NSU that has always featured a strong bias in ICT.
   And with 18 percent of its 12 billion-plus euros’ worth of sales in 2003 coming from Asia, Alcatel seems to be just about the partner for the occasion. Dr Hafiz GA Siddiqi and Mr Christian Rene Looten signed on the MoU on behalf of their respective institutions.
   Dr Siddiqi described the agreement as a new opportunity and the first of its kind for NSU. He further mentioned that this would open up a new era for private universities in our country. Mr Looten discussed the past and present activities of his company in Bangladesh, citing the projects undertaken by Alcatel in Senegal by setting up a short message transmission and mobile Internet access service for the use of farmers and fishermen.
   Dr Bashar pointed out in his speech that NSU has a good number of faculty members who are capable of contributing to the R&D initiatives of Alcatel, while Dr Rahman said that this collaboration would benefit both NSU and Alcatel through research and development, training and education in the area of IT & Telecom, and the Digital Bridge initiative.
   Alcatel will sponsor research projects and internships and set up high-tech lab facilities for NSU students, and may also work on joint programs on the readiness of Bangladesh for the upcoming submarine cable network and other appropriate technology infusion (WLL, YMAX, XTSL). Furthermore, the multinational company will provide journals and newsletters to the NSU library, provide NSU access to the Alcatel Virtual University, hold presentations for students and participate in different ICT seminars organized by NSU.
   In addition NSU students can develop different telecommunication applications for Alcatel equipments which are aimed at delivering useful services for people living in the rural areas of Bangladesh and are to be distributed through an NGO. NSU R&D teams will also assist Alcatel on local value addition to its Telecom-related products and services for Bangladesh.
   The MoU signing ceremony was followed by a working session in which Dr Marine gave a presentation on Alcatel’s Digital Bridge initiative. He compared the ‘digital divide’ situation, i.e. the gap in access to ICT resources in underdeveloped countries as compared to those with state-of-the-art networks.
   He further added that it is a win-win model in which international and national political willingness is required to develop ICT-based programs and clarification of telecom regulatory environment, including support of universal access effort, encouragement of local entrepreneurship and private community funding, and close partnership with the local players.

THE Punisher is a third-person shooter based on the famous Marvel character by the same name. As antihero Frank Castle, a vigilante who’s declared a one-man war on crime, you’ll be pursuing criminals and super-villains across New York City and beyond.
   The game includes 20 levels that that take place in New York City. You will explore explore an automobile chop-shop, the pristine grounds of a pricey mansion, the decks of a cargo ship, etc. The gameplay aspect is straight forward. Point the gun, preferably at the head, and squeeze the trigger. For the most part it’s run-and-gun with very few exceptions like the 5 or so boss fights in the game. The game takes place in a third person perspective, giving you full view of action while you shoot, dive, duck, and interrogate your way through hordes or enemies. In addition to your collection of shotguns, pistols, assault rifles, sub-machineguns, and grenades, various objects such as baseball bats, bottles, and crowbars can be wielded and thrown as weapons.
   Every now and then you will need to interrogate enemies to gain access to areas or to find weapon stashes. There are four choices of interrogation type: Face Smash, Choke, Punch, and Gun Tension. There are also special interrogation methods which can be employed using items such as piranha filled water or leaf shredding machines. Uhh, human rights, anyone?
   Another notable feature of the game is the ‘slaughter mode’ which is similar to Max Payne’s ‘bullet time’. While in slaughter mode the environment around Frank Castle slows to a sluggish pace, and your health slowly refills while enemies can effortlessly be dispatched. There’s only one path through the levels and only one way to kill the bosses. To boost the replay value there have been plenty of extras installed in the game. Each level will unlock new guns, newspaper clippings, and comic book storyboards for your enjoyment. Overall, this is a good game, but it could have much better. Anyone bored with their current game library might want to give this try, or at least rent it on console.
   
   FACTBOX
   Game description
   Title: The Punisher
   Developer: Volition Inc.
   Publisher: THQ
   Genre: Third-person/Action
   Game website
   http://thq.com/punisher/home.php
   Minimum system requirements
   1 GHz Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP processor, 128 MB RAM, 64MB DirectX 8.1 compatible AGP card with hardware T&L,
   2 GB free hard drive space
   Ratings
   - Pretty straightforward, some intense firefights, great translation of the comic, 16 levels, brutal interrogation methods, plenty of extras, poor AI, no quick-save, too mediocre to leave any sort of lasting mark, no multiplayer
   - Some nice death animations, low-res textures, lame physics, clipping errors
   - Pretty decent voice work by Thomas Jane, solid music, some bugs
   Our verdict B+
   Review CD provider
   New Plug & Play, Eastern Plaza

Microsoft says sorry for AntiSpyware error
   Microsoft has publicly apologized and compensated Web directory Startpagina.nl, one of MSN’s main competitors in Holland, after the software giant’s anti-spyware product incorrectly flagged the site as malicious. A Microsoft representative confirmed on Thursday that the Windows AntiSpyware beta prevented people from setting Startpagina as their home page. The representative said this problem has now been fixed in the latest update of the program. ‘Microsoft has posted a notice on the Web sites of Microsoft Netherlands and Microsoft Belgium that includes an appeal to download the new version of Windows AntiSpyware and provides an apology for the difficulty this issue may have caused Startpagina.nl and its users,’ the representative said. The representative added that Microsoft would not disclose the details of the settlement. Bert Wiggers, the director of Startpagina, said on Thursday that he was unable to state the exact amount of money involved but it was not a significant sum. ‘There was a small amount of money involved,’ Wiggers told ZDNet UK. ‘The most important thing for me is that they offered an apology.’ Wiggers claimed that Microsoft had been slow to react to the problem. ‘In the end Microsoft reacted to my letters and phone calls, although they didn’t react in the first few weeks,’ Wiggers said. ‘I was angry, because the Microsoft software called my site malicious, but they have now repaired the damage they caused.’ Startpagina is one of MSN’s main competitors in the Netherlands. In January, Startpagina.nl received 7.7 million unique visitors, while Google.nl and MSN.nl attracted 7.1 million and 6.4 million respectively, according to figures from online-measurement company Multiscope.
   
   Firefox fix plugs security holes
   The Mozilla Foundation released on Thursday an update to the Firefox Web browser to fix several vulnerabilities, including one that would allow domain spoofing. The open-source project released Firefox 1.0.1 to fix, among other bugs, a vulnerability in the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), a standard for handling special character sets in domain names that lets companies register domain names that appear to be the same in different languages. The IDN vulnerability allowed an attacker to create a fake Web site on a non-Microsoft browser in order to pull off a phishing scam. A spoofed link would seem to be a legitimate URL in the address bar of affected browsers. But instead of taking the victim to the trusted site, the link would lead to a phony Web site with a domain rendered as the same address under the IDN process. The updated browser will display the IDN Punycode in the address bar, preventing URL spoofing. Punycode is the encoding of Unicode strings into the limited character set supported by the Domain Name System and IDN. ‘Regular security updates are essential for maintaining a safe browsing experience for our users,’ Chris Hofmann, director of engineering for the Mozilla Foundation, said in a statement. Phishing attacks, which try to fool consumers into handing over sensitive information by creating legitimate-looking Web sites and e-mail messages, have become a central security concern recently. While vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have been the focus of much of the concern, other browsers also have had their fair share of flaws. The update is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux at Mozilla.org. Firefox recently surpassed 25 million downloads, achieving that mark in 100 days. Mozilla, which released the free 1.0 program in November, said an average of 250,000 people download Firefox every day and more than half a million Web sites feature Firefox promotions. Mozilla, an open-source software foundation formed by Netscape, was spun off from Time Warner in 2003.
   
   Man charged with selling
   dinosaur fossils on eBay
   Thai police have seized hundreds of fossilized dinosaur bones and arrested a man for selling the valuable relics through popular Internet auction Web site eBay, officials said Friday. Police working in conjunction with U.S. customs officials charged 25-year-old Thai businessman Piriya Watchajitpan with hiding and processing antiques for trade. US customs first got wind of the trade when they intercepted the dinosaur bones coming from Thailand, but officials said Piriya had also been shipping fossils to Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, China and Japan. ‘We have been investigating this one for about eight months,’ said Mark Robinson, a U.S. customs and immigration official in Bangkok. The online auction of the fossils started at as little as $1,000, even though scientists say they are priceless. Piriya bought 30 large dinosaur fossils from a villager in northeast Thailand, where they were first discovered in 1976, for as little as $1,300 (50,000 baht) to $2,600. He faces up to seven years in prison and an $18,250 fine if found guilty.
   
   Ready or not, Windows XP
   update is coming
   Microsoft is alerting customers that it will soon start delivering Windows XP Service Pack 2 to all customers using Automatic Update, whether they want it or not. In response to requests from businesses, Microsoft last year released a tool that allowed companies to continue using the automatic update feature but temporarily block the security-oriented update from downloading. However, the grace period comes to an end on April 12. Microsoft has posted a warning on its Web site, alerting people about the impending deadline. ‘Time is running out!’ Microsoft said. ‘Please note that the mechanism to temporarily disable delivery of Windows XP SP2 is only available for a period of 240 days (eight months) from Aug. 16, 2004. At the end of this period (after April 12, 2005), Windows XP SP2 will be delivered to all Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 1 systems.’ Microsoft first released the SP2-blocking tool in August, saying it would allow customers to put off the upgrade for 120 days. In September, Microsoft said it would double the length of time, to 240 days, to give businesses more time to test the software. In a statement, Microsoft said it is sticking to that schedule. ‘SP2 is an important, free security update for Windows XP customers that is already delivering value to over 180 million customers worldwide,’ said Jon Murchinson, a Microsoft product manager. The move affects only those who use Windows’ automatic update to connect directly to Microsoft servers. Some businesses have reconfigured the automatic update feature to connect to their own corporate update servers.