Archive for September, 2008
Find a song by humming it
Computer search is getting more and more interesting. Have some music running around in your head whose name or lyrics you can’t remember? Get a mike and hum or whistle the music to a site called Midomi. I haven’t tried it but Tech Support Alert says it works reasonably well.
Update for Hotmail
If you use the Hotmail service, an update is coming. Details are at this Microsoft blog.
How to play any video file
Video clips now have a large presence on the Internet. Also, more home PC users are making and distributing videos. Although many files are in the common formats like Flash, AVI, WMV, QuickTime, and RealMedia, there are still many variations and formats and it is not uncommon to find that you need yet another player [...]
Web email password reset danger
Recent news about vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin having her Yahoo email account hacked illustrates a weak point in the security of many Web based services. Many services allow you to request a new password if you have forgotten your existing one. Usually, the only information needed to obtain a new password is the login name [...]
Microsoft view of the future of computing
Dan Farber ar CNET reports on a recent speech by a top executive about Microsoft’s ideas on the future of computing:
Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie on Thursday offered a long-term view of where Microsoft and the world of computing are heading over the next few decades. Speaking at the MIT Emerging Technology [...]
Stitching pictures together
There are a number of programs for stitching images together to create panoramic views. Some are free and among these is Image Composite Editor from Microsoft. Adam Pash gives it a good review at Lifehacker. The Microsoft link is here.
The shame of Intel and Microsoft
Amidst all the news about the recent popularity of netbooks, we shouldn’t forget that it was Nicholas Negroponte at MIT who got the idea of a small inexpensive PC off the ground with his “One Laptop per Child” project. Nor should we forget the shameful behavior of Intel and Microsoft (actually, Bill Gates himself) in [...]
About Windows bundled apps
The news mentioned yesterday about certain previously built-in applications being optional in Windows 7 has sparked some general appraisal of Windows’ bundled applications by Adam Pash at Lifehacker. Pash doesn’t think too highly of the apps included in Windows and compares them unfavorably with the many Apple applications that come with the Mac. Pash writes:
Microsoft [...]
Firefox 3.0.2 available
The latest version of the Firefox browser is available. According to Mozilla, the update fixes some security and stability issues as well as some page layout problems.
Update: A bug in 3.0.2 has been fixed and 3.0.3 is the current version.
Windows 7 to drop some Vista features
One of the few pieces of solid information about the next Microsoft operating system seems to be that certain built-in features are being dropped made optional. Mary Jo Foley reports:
Back in March, I heard Microsoft was going to replace some of the applications it traditionally has bundled with Windows subsystems with Windows Live services [...]