ASRock recently stated it wanted to start targeting the enthusiast crowd, and making good on that intention, the company will start slapping a new UCC chip onto its motherboards.

So what's the big deal? UCC stands for Unlock CPU Core, and as you might have guessed, it's designed to make easy-work out of turning AMD's triple-core processors into unlocked quad-core parts. All you do is go into the BIOS, enter one of the options, and if the parts play nice together, you'll be sitting pretty with four cores where previously there were three.

The best part about this is ASRock said it intends to plop the UCC chip onto entry-level motherboards too. This tactic of putting high-end features onto lower-priced parts has helped ASRock build a following, and something like this could go a long way in upping the company's geek cred.

Image Credit: Fudzilla

ASRock recently stated it wanted to start targeting the enthusiast crowd, and making good on that intention, the company will start slapping a new UCC chip onto its motherboards.

So what's the big deal? UCC stands for Unlock CPU Core, and as you might have guessed, it's designed to make easy-work out of turning AMD's triple-core processors into unlocked quad-core parts. All you do is go into the BIOS, enter one of the options, and if the parts play nice together, you'll be sitting pretty with four cores where previously there were three.

The best part about this is ASRock said it intends to plop the UCC chip onto entry-level motherboards too. This tactic of putting high-end features onto lower-priced parts has helped ASRock build a following, and something like this could go a long way in upping the company's geek cred.

Image Credit: Fudzilla

One of Mozilla Firefox's bigger advantages over Google Chrome has just been wiped away and, dare we say, Google Chrome has actually one-upped its rival in terms of overall usability and ease-of-installation. We're referring, of course, to Greasemonkey. You might have heard this name echoed across tech and tweak sites far and wide. As well you should have--the functionality you can achieve by this upgrade to your surfing experience is simply unsurpassed in its depth or scope by any conventional add-on or extension.

It's quite simple, really. You install Greasemonkey to gain access to a gallery of add-ons that benefit your browsing experience just as much as your favorite official "add-ons," if not more. By add-ons, we mean "scripts." In its conventional format, Greasemonkey is a browser add-on that grants you the ability to automatically integrate new Javascript-based modifications to a site whenever you load up the page. You don't have to design these modifications yourself--a huge gallery of scripts (more than 40,000!) have already been written for a wide swath of functions and locations. Consider Greasemonkey scripts to be analogous to extensions for Greasemonkey--itself an extension for your main browser.

Or, at least, for most browsers--Google Chrome doesn't force you to install a separate extension in order to access this huge body of customized tweaks and modifications. You can thank Aaron Boodman for that. He created Greasemonkey back in 2004 and, as luck might have it, now works at Google as a software engineer. The whole point of that short story is to give a little bit of background for Chrome's interpretation of Greasemonkey scripts. It's rather ingenious, really. Chrome automatically converts these hunks of Javascript into browser-suppoted extensions, which gives you the ability to install, uninstall, and configure your Greasemonkey scripts just as easily as you would a normal extension. You don't need a separate add-on, nor do you even need to restart your browser to fiddle around with all the scripts you want.

And by "all the scripts you want," we mean, "most of the scripts you want." Not all Greasemonkey scripts work perfectly in Google Chrome. The running estimation is that roughly 20 percent of what's out there is currently broken for Google's browser. That's not great news for a person who's easily frustrated by failure. However, here's where Maximum PC comes into the picture. We've run through a large swath of awesome Google Greasemonkey scripts to achieve two key goals: to see what works and to see which scripts, of the 40,000+ available, are awesome tweaks for your browser. That said, here's a list of 11 excellent Greasemonkey scripts that you should put at the top of your must-have list, depending on your browsing preferences:

Inline Google Player

This one's a Lifehacker original and, if you find yourself often searching for new jams on the Web, a complete lifesaver. The premise is simple. Whenever the script detects a link to an MP3 file on a page, it'll throw a little "Play" link after the actual hyperlink. Click on "Play," and a small Flash-based streaming player will appear. Preview your tune. Decide if you like it. Rock out.

Download it here!

Yays! (Yet Another YouTube Script)

We, like most people, enjoy watching videos on Youtube. But what we don't enjoy is waiting for these videos to buffer, and especially when the playback catches up to the end of said buffering. When we want to watch cats chasing each other around, we want it in its full, uninterrupted glory. The Yays script makes this possible... and more! You can now toggle whether you want Youtube videos to autoplay or not, and you can also select a default quality setting for said videos--no more paused playback or 360p videos when you can instead be watching a full, uninterrupted, 1080p stream.

Download it here!

Remove Facebook Ads

Annoying advertisements, especially those related to Mob-based Facebook games or hints of things to come (are YOU getting married! Buy a RING TODAY!), are often a source of laughter--and complaints--on good ol' Facebook. Install this script and you'll never be prompted to "CHECK OUT THIS NEW ENERGY DRINK" or "HEY ARE YOU PREGNANT" ever again.

Download it here!

Greased Lightbox

If you find yourself often searching for images on the 'net, then this script should increase the awesomeness of your conventional experience to a great degree. Instead of jumping to normal HTML pages when you click on picture links--like on Flickr, for example), Greased Lightbox slaps these images into, well, a lightbox. The background of the page you're viewing fades down and the image you're looking at appears in the center of your screen. You can then use keyboard commands to scroll through subsequent images and increase or decrease the size of the picture you're viewing.

Download it here!

Secure Connections on Sites

This one's simple -- when you hit up a particular site on this script's list (like Amazon, Facebook, or Paypal), the script will automatically force your browser to use the more secure https:// version of the page.

Download it here!

BugMeNot

Little is more annoying than when you've gotten yourself all emotionally invested to read an article online only to find that the site hosting said article won't let you through an imposed gateway without registering for a free account. Grumble. BugMeNot adds a little menu to the login pages of sites like this, allowing you to pull up a login and password from BugMeNot's archives instead of having to submit your own info.

Download it here!

LookItUp

What the heck is that? It's a fair question to ask yourself when you stumble across a word or phrase you simply don't recognize. This occurrence might normally result in a trip to an online dictionary or Wikipedia, which would require you to open up a new tab in your browser, go back to the original tab, copy the word, go to the new tab, load up the appropriate site, paste the word, et cetera. Psh to that process, I say. With LookItUp, you can simply highlight words and use keyboard hotkeys to automatically pull up what you've selected in a sidebar of various reference sites.

Download it here!

Virtual Keyboard Interface

Worried that you might be surfing the Web or typing up information on a compromised machine? Virtual Keyboard Interface adds a clickable keyboard below any text field on a Web page. Use your mouse to do your typing, and you'll spare yourself the wrath of an angry keylogger!

Download it here!

Multi-Column View of Google Search Results

Alright, widescreen enthusiasts. If you're sporting a huge monitor, you might be frustrated by the typical wasted space you see in a given Google search result. This script fixes that by allowing you to split Google search results into columns. Change back and forth between one, two, or three columns by using the hotkeys alt+1, alt+2, or alt+3!

Download it here!

Chromium RSS-Feed Detection

Does the site you're browsing have an RSS feed? If the site's layout is poor, good luck finding that little orange icon that represents your ability to subscribe to said site's updates. This script aims to fix that by placing an RSS icon in a little drop-down display in the upper-left corner of Chrome. If you see this, congratulations--you're one step away from accessing the RSS feed you seek!

Download it here!

Helvetwitter

We know how much typical Maximum PC readers love Twitter (read: none), so here's a special one that might just get you back into the service. If you're tired of Twitter's color-filled interface and just want a simpler way to read what's going on with your friends and/or random strangers, grab the Helvetwitter script. It strips everything out of the Twitter interface save for the essentials: names, Tweets, and a box for updates. Instead of a ton of colors, you get three: white, black, and red. This is Twitter minimalism to the max.

Download it here!

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. Befriend him on Twitter, especially if you have an awesome app or game you're dying to recommend!

Stealing Internet service is serious business, especially when you've made a business out of allowing others to hop online for free. That's what 26-year-old Matthew Delorey of New Bedford, Mass., is accused of doing, who was arrested for allegedly selling hacked cable modems that gave customers free Internet access. Charged with one count each of conspiracy and wire fraud, if convicted, Delorey will face up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Delorey's undoing was when he sold a pair of modified modems to an undercover FBI agent, according to authorities. The U.S. Department of Justice says Delorey ran a website called Massmodz.com, where he allegedly sold cable modems that had been modified to spoof the device's MAC address.

But that isn't all that has Delorey in hot water. He's also accused of posting instructional videos on YouTube titled "How to Get Free Internet Free Cable Comcast or any Cable ISP -- 100% works" and "Massmodz.com How to bypass Comcast registration page with premod cable modem SB5100, SB5101."

Should a court ultimately find Delorey is guilty, what do you think, does the potential punishment fit the crime? Sound off in the comments section below.

Hackers set their sights on cracking a new video game console just as soon as it arrives. Their tenacity can usually bear fruits within months of the console's release unless the machine happens to be the PlayStation 3, which has remained unconquered for more than 3 years.

But finally, a hacker claims to have sneaked past the PS3's supposedly inviolable defenses. The PS3's ramparts may have successfully fended against hackers and the prospect of unsigned code for “3 years, 2 months, 11 days” but it took an eminent hacker just 5 weeks to come up with a hack. The man behind the crack, George Hotz, aka Geohot, has a penchant for hacking impregnable gadgets. A couple of years ago, a 17-year-old Geohot became the first person to jailbreak the iPhone.

Hotz revealed on his blog that he cracked the PS3 using a combination of hardware and software hacks. Although he claims to have gained full read/write access and the power to “make the system do whatever I want,” Geohot is in no hurry to release his hack, which is avowedly quite unstable and  needs some fine-tuning.  "If I posted what I have now, people would get fed up with it," he told El Reg in an interview.

Image Credit: GeoHot

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the Cookie Monster was up to when he gets his hand caught in the cookie jar, and in similar fashion, the evidence is starting to pile up against China in its suspected involvement in the recent attacks against Google.

After a series of highly sophisticated cyberattacks targeting Google and 33 other large U.S. companies in the technology, financial, and defense sectors took place last week, fingers began pointing at China, where Google says the Internet break-ins originated from. And while email accounts of several Chinese human rights activists were compromised in the attacks, there hasn't been any irrefutable proof, at least until now, sasy an American computer researcher.

Joe Stewart, a malware guru with SecureWorks, says he has figured out the main program used in the attack contained a module based on an unusual algorithm from a Chinese technical paper that had only been published exclusively on Chinese-language websites, The New York Times reports.

"If you look at the code in a debugger you see patterns that jump out at you," Stewart said.

Stewart, a self-proclaimed "reverse engineer," said that he couldn't rule out that the evidence was intentionally placed in the program by its programmers, but said such a scenario is unlikely.

Let’s face it, for hackers digital rights management (DRM) protections are a challenge that can’t be passed up. Not just because of the notoriety hacking a DRM brings, but because DRMs are so darned easy to crack--sort of the cybercrime version of wolves culling the weak from the heard. Case-in-point, the Israeli hacker “Labba”, with a little help from his friends, has cracked the DRM that protects ebooks on the Kindle.

The DRM for Kindle content is intended to keep what’s sold for the Kindle on the Kindle. Labba and his cohorts weren’t too keen on the restriction, and have hacked the DRM so that Kindle ebooks are converted into an open format, allowing PDF versions to be produced. Once in PDF format, the ebook can be moved to any number of electronic devices.

It’s a good bet that Amazon isn’t too pleased by this, and will move to ‘repair’ the DRM for Kindle ebooks. Which, of course, starts but another round of fox-and-hare with hackers. Given the rising popularity of the Kindle, it’s a game that might go on for some time to come.

Image Credit: Amazon

We place such a premium on USB ports because, let's face it, just about every digital gadget plugs into one these days, many of which are capable of recharging themselves through your PC. But instead of keeping track of both a USB cable and a power plug, why not just convert a spare in-wall outlet or two into a USB outlet? In the words of the Guinness brewmasters, "Brilliant!"

All this mod takes is about $10 and a half-hour of your time, with a little bit of courage and a whole lot of safety precautions highly recommended. The relatively simple mod involves taking a pair of cheap USB chargers easily obtainable for a few bucks on eBay and stripping off the extra casing. Mod the faceplate, wire it up, and you're good to go!

You can find more detailed instructions here, and when you're finished, hit up this link to see all of what you can plug into your new outlet, including a USB fridge.

Image Credit: Instructables

It has long been said that software activation merely inconveniences and punishes honest customers, while pirates rarely have to deal with the same restrictions. It was true in the past, and it has been proven true again today with new reports from the pirate community claiming that the Windows 7 online activation has been successfully bypassed (yet again). Not only do those using the new crack not have to activate, but they don't even need a CD key at all. The crack apparently nullifies sppcompai.dll, and even takes care of those pesky popup reminders that would normally keep nagging you to activate.

The most unfortunate part of this story however, is the fact that the crack seems to take advantage of the leniency of the activation mechanism which was tweaked in Windows 7 to try and reduce false-positives or accidental activation errors. We can only hope that Microsoft's response to this hack will be even handed, and not encourage them to tighten up the activation process so much so that it makes it harder on legitimate purchasers or upgraders.

Have you had any "unfortunate" experiences with online activation? Feel free to share them below.

With the release of Windows 7, tablet PCs are drawing a ton of attention, and if you don't mind getting your hands dirty inside a Dell Mini 9 netbook, you can roll your own.

The hack comes courtesy of Rob928 from MyDellMini.com and involves stripping off the lid, trimming down the hinges, and other somewhat scary tasks when dealing with electronics. The end result is that Rob928 was able to fuse a Dell Vostro A90 with a Hoda Technology solderless touchscreen kit. He also tossed in an accelerometer for good measure giving the homebrewed tablet the ability to automatically rotate the screen.

It's not easy, nor is it for the faint of heart, but for anyone willing to follow in Rob928's footsteps, this is one of the coolest mods we've seen in awhile.

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Image Credit: mydellmini.com Rob928