Archive for March, 2006
The end of the Internet as we know it?
Molly Wood at cNet has an interesting piece Is the end of the Internet upon us? She says that, to begin with, there are technical problems:
From a purely technical standpoint, the current Internet architecture has some problems. Many people, including the folks who originally helped build the sucker, think it’s just about tapped out in [...]
Windows Vista is delayed
Microsoft just announced that it will be delaying the consumer version of Vista until after the Christmas season. Yahoo news says
The world’s largest software maker pushed back the consumer version of Vista until January 2007 from an earlier target for the second half of 2006 and pledged to ship the next version of its [...]
How to read your cell phone bill
When I get my cell phone bill, there are always a number of entries like “Universal service charge” whose origin has been a little murky. An article at cNet explains the mysteries of cell phone bills.
The benefits of competition
It has been clear that the existence of AMD as a viable competitor for Intel has meant that the consumer gets better prices and more innovation in the area of CPUs. It is very likely that if Intel had the same sort of monopoly that Microsoft has, PCs would be slower and more expensive.
I think [...]
Windows resource kits and support tools
Not everybody will use them but there are a number of useful utilities available in the several different Windows resource kits and support tool packages that are offered by Microsoft. If you have a full Windows XP installation CD, it should have a folder \Support\Tools. If these tools have been previously installed, [...]
Flash flaw
Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash is a common format on Web pages. Most PC users have a Flash player on their system. A new security hole has been found in the player that could subject systems to malware downloads. The patch should be downloaded and installed.
Time-out for travel
I will be traveling for a few days and will be giving the blog a rest.
More on the patent mess
The total ineptitude of the US Patent Ofice in assessing software continues to create turmoil. Now it’s eBay’s turn to have its business disrupted. Ed Burnette at ZDNet writes about it in eBay faces partial shutdown in patent dispute. He also comments on the Blackberry fiasco at Patent terrorists ruin an industry.
As I commented before, [...]
Anybody can install a new hard drive
Adding a new hard drive to a system is not something the average PC user is likely to consider as a do-it-yourself project. But it’s really not that difficult. Fred Langa tells you all about it in this Desktop Pipeline article.
What do Google and other search engines know about us?
The search engines are accumulating massive amounts of data about the habits of those who use their search facilities. The data are supposed to be anonymous for the most part but they can in fact be used to track down information about individuals. Internet Week has an article What Google Search Reveals About Us that [...]
New version of Microsoft Management Console
I have previously written about using the management consoles that come with Windows XP to help carry out system administration and configuration. Microsoft has posted a new version of the tool called Microsoft Management Console or MMC. While the average PC user probably doesn’t make much use of MMC, power users might want to [...]