Archive for December, 2008
What’s an ISO file?
A lot of useful things come packaged in a large file with the extension ISO. Unfortunately, neither Windows XP nor Windows Vista knows what to do with an ISO file. Neither do many home PC users. They download some application they want to try out and are then baffled by what to do next. Some [...]
Internet Explorer patch available
The patch for Internet Explorer that we have been anticipating is now available. This is a critical security patch so be sure to install it. If your Windows Update does not find it, go to this link.
Millions of historic photos
Google has made an arrangement to place photos from the old Life Magazine archives on the Web:
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
Via the Ewing SeniorNet site.
Yahoo reduces data retention time
Privacy advocates will be glad to hear that Yahoo is cutting the time that it keeps data about its users before anonymizing it. Reuters reports:
Yahoo is cutting to three months from 13 months the time it stores personal data gathered from Web surfing. This retention policy is the lowest among its peers. Google earlier this [...]
Data storage by molecular memory
When I was young, computer data was typically stored in small amounts on very large devices. As time went on, devices got smaller and smaller and capacities got larger and larger. Today, 1 terabyte hard drives are readily available for home PCs and the future promises to have ever larger storage, For example, a new [...]
Microsoft to patch security hole in Internet Explorer
Microsoft has announced that it is issuing an emergency security patch for the Internet Explorer problem that has been attracting attacks over the last few days. PC World reports:
Microsoft’s emergency security patch will become available Wednesday at 1 p.m. EST at the Microsoft Update site as well as at the Microsoft Download Center. All [...]
Microsoft answers your questions- maybe
The Microsoft site has plenty of information for the technically adept but an ordinary home PC user has had fewer sources at Microsoft for finding answers to Windows problems. There were the Microsoft newsgroups but newbies and the technically deficient did not always find them a friendly place. And newsgroups have been fading away. MSN [...]
Google flight simulator
You can launch a flight simulator in Google Earth with the keyboard combination Ctrl + Alt+ a. The controls can be done with a mouse, joystick, or with different keyboard commands. Google lists the keyboard commands here.
Sign in without signing up- redux
There are a lot of Web sites that I would like to visit but they insist on a sign-up. I posted about possible solutions three years ago and the post is worth repeating:
There are numerous Web sites that contain information of occasional interest but which require you to sign in. Rather than being bothered with [...]
Top ten list
It’s that time of year when everybody is making lists of the ten most something or the other of 2008. Lifehacker makes top ten lists all through the year and here is its compilation of Lifehacker most popular top ten lists of 2008.
List of specialized search engines
Google may be the king of general search but, as I have mentioned several times before, there are a number of search engines devoted to specific subjects. Google itself has some of these but there are others. A good compilation is available at the Ewing SeniorNet site. The list is from Romina Gutierrez, Technology Initiatives [...]
