The Great Geek Manual

1999
A website of the Republic of Indonesia is hacked by “Toxyn”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

1998
The website www.odi.com.pl in Poland is hacked by the “TPSA team”.

2000
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) introduces the 850MHz Athlon processor, featuring a 512KB Level-2 cache and a 200MHz Front Side Bus. Price: US$849 in 1,000 unit quantities

Per Lidén releases version 0.5.3 of the CRUX operating system. CRUX is a lightweight Linux distribution optimized for i686 systems, specifically designed for experienced Linux users. Visit the system’s official website.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses an earlier ruling that had prevented Connectix from shipping the Virtual Game Station PlayStation emulator software for the Macintosh.

2001
The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) project reports that its researchers have found that the human genome consists of 30,000 genes and that only about three hundred of those genes are unique to the humans species, as opposed to being shared with mice. The researchers also announce that the FOXP2 gene has been identified as the first gene to be definitively linked to human language. Scientists then published their first examinations of nearly all the human genetic code on February 12, 2001. As was reported on April 28, 2001, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania used gene therapy to reverse a type of congenital blindness in dogs. Their findings will be published the following day, February 12th.

2003
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) releases the fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) EverQuest Online Adventures for the PlayStation 2. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

2004
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Harbinger” first airs. (No. 315) In it, the crew encounters the race who built the Spheres throughout the Delphic Expanse. Memory Alpha entry

2005
Blizzard Entertainment releases massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft for personal computers in Europe. Within three years, over two million players will subscribe to the game. Visit the game’s official website. PEGI: 12+ USK: 12

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “The Aenar” first airs. (No. 414) In it, Archer visits Shran’s home world to meet with the Aenar in an attempt to determine their part in a Romulan plot. Memory Alpha entry

An unnamed fourteen year old is sentenced to three years probation and three hundred hours of community service by Chief Judge Robert S. Lasnik for releasing a computer worm in August 2003 that attacked the same vulnerability in computer software as the Blaster worm did in August of 2003. The juvenile directed computers infected with the RPCSDBOT worm to launch a distributed denial of service (DoS) attack against Microsoft’s main website, crashing the site for approximately four hours.

2006
Steve Fossett sets the world record for the longest non-stop flight when the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer sets down at Bournemouth airport in England at the end of its 76 hour, 45 minute flight. Fossett covered a distance of 26,389.3 miles (42,469.46 km) before having to declare an emergency and landing due to a complete electrical failure.

VGMix, a website devoted to video game music, is closed temporarily due to repeated hacking attempts on the site’s database code. Visit the VGMix website.

2008
Apples releases version 10.5.2 of the Mac OS X operating system. Visit the official Mac OS X website.

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