Author Archive
Cyberwarfare is a reality
A new report from the security firm McAfee says that political activities involving Internet attacks are increasing:
McAfee, Inc. today revealed that the global cyberarms race has moved from fiction to reality, according to its fifth annual Virtual Criminology Report. The report found that politically motivated cyberattacks have increased and five countries – the United States, [...]
Gopher still lives
Unless you were using the Internet before the World Wide Web came along, you probably never heard of the Gopher protocol or the search facilities called Archie and Veronica. I didn’t realize that Gopher still lived until I saw an Ars Technica post, The Web may have won, but Gopher tunnels on. It brought me [...]
Left-handed mouse pointers for Windows
I’m not left-handed but, from teaching, I know that the standard mouse setup can be inconvenient for those who are. Changing the buttons on a mouse is a standard Windows adjustment but Microsoft has also supplied a set of mouse pointers (AKA cursors) for left-handers. They can be downloaded at this Microsoft link. The download [...]
Searching for meaning
The type of Internet search that we have now is mostly based on scanning for specific text although searching pictures is beginning to add some graphical features. The present search algorithms work remarkably well but have serious limitations and often turn up irrelevant links.
For example, if you ask a question, search engines will be [...]
Can you trust eBay reputations?
An important consideration in dealing with others on eBay is their reputation rating. These ratings are supposed to reflect the feedback from those who have had previous transactions with the person in question. But are those reputation ratings reliable? Science Daily reports a study that says there may be problems:
A new study to be published [...]
Did Apple blow a golden opportunity?
When Microsoft was struggling with the poor reception for Vista, poor search market share, security holes, and other problems, Apple made some inroads on Windows. However, several observers have written that Apple failed to really take advantage when Microsoft was in a hole. Now with Windows 7 revitalizing Microsoft, they say the chance to [...]
More things to read
There are always a lot of interesting things on the Web to read but never enough time to comment on them all. I’ll just pass along this selection of links for your consideration:
Intel pays off AMD with $1.25 billion
India becoming global tech power
Microsoft puts ads on the desktop
Windows 7 for Beginners – Free eBook
New PC [...]
Scrap files scrapped
Windows is a complicated operating system and has many properties and features that most PC users are unaware of. One of the odder and lesser known features in Windows 98/XP was something called a scrap file. I wrote about scrap files some years ago in connection with their use by virus writers. I visit the [...]
Men don’t read the manual
We have all heard about the reluctance of males to ask for directions when lost or needing to find some location. (I plead guilty. I get my wife to ask.) Well, it also seems that men are less likely to read the manual before calling tech support. (I’m not guilty in this instance. I hate [...]
Google developing new protocol to speed up the Web
I have often thought that it is quite remarkable how well the methods have held up that were instituted at the beginning of the Web. Here we are, years later, and we are still basically using the initial designs.
However, the enormous increase in Internet traffic means that some of the old methods need updating. [...]
Google improves movie searches
Updates and changes to search keep pouring out of Google. Here’s one for movie fans. Google has announced:
Did you know you can immediately discover movie times and locations by typing a simple search on Google? For example, search for [where the wild things are] and you’ll see times and places to watch the film, or [...]