Archive for May, 2009
Microsoft DirectX security problem
DirectX, which Windows uses in displaying multimedia, has a security hole that is being attacked. Details are given by Ryan Naraine at ZDNet.
Addendum: Microsoft has a temporary work-around at this link.
Second addendum: I should have mentioned that the security problem does not apply to Windows Vista.
PCs from the 1980s
Ah, nostalgia. If you were one of the few who had a PC in the 1980s, you might enjoy a gallery of pictures of old PCs from the recently opened National Museum of Computing in London.
LAN settings can slow Internet Explorer
Most home PC users do not use what is known as a proxy server. Sometimes it happens, however, that a LAN setting in Internet Explorer (IE) causes it to look for a proxy server when you try to connect to the Internet. This causes an annoying delay. Another LAN setting that sometimes causes delays is [...]
Review of “Bing”
Microsoft has just officially announced the revamp of its search engine. It’s now called “Bing” as was discussed in a previous post. The facility will not be fully available for the general public until June 3 but Emil Protalinski of Ars Technica has been using it for several weeks and has a review. He concludes:
I’ve [...]
Time Warner dumping AOL
The spin-off of AOL from Time Warner previously indicated is about to happen. This will mark the end of a deal that was the apogee of dot-com folly. Details are at All Things Digital.
Buying or selling a car
Whether you are buying or selling a car, the Internet is an indispensable source of information. There are a number of sites that provide invaluable data about car prices. I last mentioned this subject over a year ago and here is an update. Some useful sites are:
Edmunds.com
TrueCar.com
Kelley Blue Book
AutoTrader.com
How we are being changed by technology
It’s not news that society is hugely affected by technology. The effects on transportation, communication, warfare, health, etc, are clear. But what about basic human behavior? That is also heavily influenced and some aspects are referred to in an article at Computerworld that asks, Are computers transforming humanity? The article reports:
Researchers and technologists alike say [...]
Linux and the home PC user
Every now and then, I say something about Linux because I keep hoping it will become more familiar to home PC users. In particular, the distribution called Ubuntu seems to offer a usable desktop alternative for the more knowledgeable. It keeps getting updated and presumably more easily used. Unfortunately, it still relies too much on [...]
Computer interfaces of the future
As technology evolves, we can wonder how we will interface with PCs in the future. For example, touch is playing an increasing role along with the keyboard and mouse. Some touch possibilities are demonstrated by Microsoft computer scientist Johnny Chung Lee. (At Guardian. UK)
Now, when are they going to make speech a more viable interface?
New government data site
The US government gathers all sorts of statistics and data and makes much of it available to the public in various formats. To make the data easily read by computers, there is a new site called Data.gov. It is described by The New York Times:
But Data.gov is different. It is primarily for machines, not people, [...]
Free upgrades from Vista to Windows 7?
There has been a lot of talk that Microsoft would at some point offer buyers of new PCs with Vista the option of a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out. At least in Australia, it seems that there will be an upgrade offer starting with systems purchased on June 26. The Australian [...]