Archive for July, 2007
What’s in a name?
Does name triumph over substance? Well, at least in part, according to this article about Microsoft’s new effort at coming up with better names for its products. There’s no doubt that Microsoft has been clumsy about naming things, as in the example, “Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere”, that has now morphed into the more elegant “Silverlight”. The [...]
The future of search
Wonder how Internet search will be changing? Here’s an interview with the head of Google research. Nothing startling here but it’s an interesting overview. One area that is getting a lot of work is speech recognition.
How to check your RAM
One source of computer problems can be faulty RAM. Sometimes all that is needed is to reseat it. However, RAM can be bad or marginal and there are numerous diagnostic accessories for testing the memory for problems. Microsoft has a free tool and a guide to checking memory. The site says:
The Windows Memory Diagnostic tests [...]
Microsoft patents the acme in adware
Yes, Microsoft not only wants to control your computer but they also want to sell advertising on it. Or at least, the company’s recent patent application seems to point that way. Ars Technica reports:
It’s such a tremendously bad idea that it’s almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an “advertising [...]
The story behind digital rights management
Are you having a nice day? Then don’t ruin it by reading Cory Doctorow’s revealing but depressing article on how the consumer is being trampled by the entertainment industry with the help of our elected representatives and the connivance of the electronics industry. It’s all about that carbuncle on the posterior of computing called [...]
Windows utilities
Most of us have some assortment of utility programs that we find helpful or even indispensable in our day-to-day use of the computer. Computerworld has selections from one Windows expert in an article 20 must-have Windows utilities. Naturally, not everybody has the same needs or preferences but I agree with many of the author’s choices. [...]
Greeting card scam
Many people are getting a flood of email claiming that they have some sort of greeting card. It’s a scam. Don’t fall for it.
Get your Vista drivers here
One of the big headaches from adopting Windows Vista has been the slow release of drivers for a lot of common hardware. Even when a driver exists, it is not always easy to find it. Ed Bott is assembling a master list and says:
The rules:
1. Only primary download locations (official sites run by [...]
A little computer history
Maybe only someone like me, who wrote computer code first in binary, then in assembly, and finally in Fortran, will be interested in this little article about the history of computer code but I couldn’t resist blogging it. It brought back memories of my early days using computers. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
The term [...]
How to automatically run a program at shutdown or logoff
Sometimes it is desirable to run a program or script automatically when the computer is shut down or when a user logs off. You may want to do some cleaning up or perhaps back up some regularly used files. Although automatically running a program at startup is easy, it is more complicated to run something [...]