PROBLEMS WITH 1AND1

Yet another tale of woe.1and1.com is one of the largest web hosting companies in the world. They established themselves in Europe before making a big splashy entrance in the US a couple of years ago, with huge advertising sections on thick glossy paper in dozens of...

SECOND THOUGHTS ON SECOND LIFE

Second Life looked like it was poised to be the Next Big Thing when the media gave it blanket coverage a few months ago. (I got caught up in the hype and wrote a description of it that was way too enthusiastic. I’m sorry.) It’s still growing and making its...

VIDEO MAY OVERWHELM INTERNET

Google is running more than 450,000 servers around the world. It’s building “Project 02,” which will be one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, to be housed at a data center in Oregon the size of two football fields, with four-story...

AMAZON’S SECRET PRICE GUARANTEE

I can’t vouch for this, but Timothy Noah at Slate writes that Amazon has a 30-day price guarantee – if the Amazon price drops on any item within thirty days after you purchase it from Amazon, you can get a refund of the difference just by asking....

COMCAST INCREASES DOWNLOAD SPEEDS

Comcast cable Internet service is currently marketed at 6Mbps and 8Mbps download speeds – very speedy indeed compared to DSL service that typically runs 1.5Mbps or less. There are rumors that Comcast will increase speeds again next year.In the meantime Comcast...

EARTHLINK & MISSING E-MAIL

Remember Earthlink? It’s still in business but not particularly relevant. (Companies providing dialup access became an anachronism when the telcos and cable companies shut them out of broadband access. Earthlink all but disappeared, and AOL is following it down...