Archive for February, 2007
Will Google save the earth from a horrible fate?
Hollywood makes movies about it. Certain TV channels are constantly showing programs about it. Chronic worriers fret about it. Astronomers calculate it. “It”, in this case, is the doomsday scenario where a big chunk of something from outer space collides with the earth and wipes most of us out. Fortunately, the odds against this [...]
Are all these blogs a good thing?
Over at ZDNet, Dan Farber has a short retrospective marking the first ten years since blogging was born. One interesting part of his article deals with the question of whether all the millions of blogs that have sprung up are a worthy democratizing force or mostly a lot of ill-informed, repetitive blather. In particular he [...]
Vista WGA problems just keep coming
Bad reports about Vista WGA keep rolling in. Here’s another, this time at InformationWeek. Alexander Wolfe reports:
Hello, my name is Alex and I’m apparently running a bogus copy of Windows Vista. At least that’s what my computer told me earlier today after I booted up. Funny thing is, I got my copy of Vista directly [...]
Just how far will Microsoft go with its anti-piracy methods?
I have posted a number of times on the possible problems that might arise from Microsoft’s increasing obsession with piracy. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has an article on the subject that everyone should consider reading before getting Vista. Apparently the anti-piracy measures are going to be ratcheted up even more. The Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, seems to [...]
Searching video content
A recent article in the NY TImes that says speech recognition is the coming thing in searching videos has triggered some rebuttal from search expert Danny Sullivan. He says:
“Millions of Videos, and Now a Way to Search Inside Them” from the New York Times is a big giant love story to video search firm Blinkx, [...]
Explaining botnets
I have often referred to “botnets” in these pages and they constitute an enormous Internet security problem. If you are not quite sure what a botnet is or what it does, read security expert Roger Grimes’ primer on botnets at InfoWorld.
Fee Based Google Apps
Google has announced an online office suite that may (or may not) be serious competition for Microsoft’s big desktop cash cow. Some details are here and at this link. This latter article comments:
It’s widely seen as a serious threat to Microsoft’s office suite, primarily since it costs $50 a year per user, which deeply [...]
Some more portable applications
Here’s some more information about software that you can put on a thumb drive. PC World writes about http://portableapps.com/:
A ton of great software exists out there. But who has the time to try it all? And even if you do take the time to install, say, a new e-mail program on your home PC, your [...]
Phishing protection in browsers
Both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 come with an anti-phishing feature. Both rely on a database of known phishing sites to warn you. And that is a weakness. Phishers often use a given URL for just a few hours and then move on to a new one. The lists of known phishing sites cannot [...]
Will Vista UAC be successful for home users?
The theory behind the Vista security measure called User Account Control (UAC) can’t be faulted. The idea that people should run their computers with as little access as possible to sensitive system functions has long been preached by security experts. But how to implement that idea in practice is a big question. There are [...]
Software for babies
An article at PC World says that a company has developed software for the very young. According to the article:
Giggles Computer Funtime for Baby is a software application aimed specifically at babies and toddlers aged 6 to 24 months. Mac and Windows-compatible, it costs US$24.95, and two versions are available — one with shapes [...]
