Archive for January, 2007
Worst vendors of 2006
Ed Foster writes a regular feature at InfoWorld called the GripeLog, where readers can relate their troubles with various technology-related products. He has recently taken a poll to see who gets voted the worst vendor of 2006. And the winner is Symantec, who very narrowly edged out Microsoft. A regular reader of this blog will [...]
World facts
Want to look up some facts about a particular country? Like to know the annual cotton production for Argentina? Or the median age of the population of Bulgaria? If used properly, standard seach engines like Google or Yahoo are pretty good for finding that kind of information but there are some sources that specialize in [...]
The spam deluge
As bad as the spam problem was, its volume has taken another leap. According to an article at InformationWeek, spam was 94% of all email in December. I don’t know how accurate that number may be but I can attest to the fact that there’s a lot more spam being sent out. I have seen [...]
Vista, Vista, and more Vista
The consumer launch of Vista is at midnight tonight and the Internet is awash with Vista postings. I feel I have been hearing about Vista for an eternity. I actually wrote almost a year ago that I was tired of hearing about Vista. Now I am tired of writing about Vista as well and I [...]
Google tries to defuse “Google bombs”
A “Google bomb” (also written “Googlebomb”) results when a group of people use the way Google ranking algorithms work to cause a search for some name or phrase to turn up a derogatory or humorous result. A famous one was when political opponents got the search entry “George W. Bush” to show “miserable failure”. Another [...]
How to defend against ActiveX and other malware exploits- Part III
This is a continuation of two previous posts on different approaches to computer security. In the first I discussed configuring Internet Explorer for greater security against ActiveX exploits. In the second the use of “sandbox” software to isolate the browser or other parts of the system to keep malware from spreading was reviewed.
Today I [...]
Sysinternals site
In a previous post I mentioned Sysinternals and all the great free system software that Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell had provided over the years. I noted the sale to Microsoft and wondered what would happen to all the good stuff that used to be freely available. Well, Microsoft has given them a new site [...]
Another review of Vista
Writing at CNET, Robert Vamosi is lukewarm about Vista. He concludes:
The bottom line: Windows Vista is essentially warmed-over Windows XP. If you’re currently happy with Windows XP SP2, we see no compelling reason to upgrade. On the other hand, if you need a new computer right now, Windows Vista is stable enough for everyday use.
Drivers for Vista
One of the headaches that is going to come with the changeover to Vista is the driver problem. If the Windows 98/Me transition to Windows XP is any guide, it will be some months before all the hardware manufacturers get around to writing updated drivers for existing peripherals and other hardware. In some cases, it [...]
Windows Vista upgrades
If your present computer has the necessary horsepower and you want to upgrade to Vista from XP, here’s some facts about upgrade routes. Microsoft has a rather convoluted set of rules about what version of XP can be upgraded to what version of Vista. Since an upgrade version of Vista costs less than a full [...]
Burning a CD in Windows XP
Windows XP comes with native CD burning capability. It’s not the greatest but it can be convenient. I have found that many PC owners do not know how to use it or are even unaware that the capability exists. A detailed description of using the XP CD burning application is given at this link. [...]