R.I.P. ENCARTA

Microsoft announced today that it is discontinuing its Encarta encyclopedia in all of its various incarnations. The DVDs will be off the market by June, existing subscriptions will stop getting updates later this year, and the MSN Encarta web sites will be turned off...

INTERNET EXPLORER 8

At 9am PDT on Thursday, March 19, Microsoft is scheduled to release Internet Explorer 8, with a number of new features and under-the-hood security improvements. I’ll let you know if I find anything exciting in the next week or so, after I’ve had a chance to check it...

CLUTTER & CRUD

When I got back from vacation, I got a quick lesson from Microsoft about how we get unwanted programs that slow down our computers, and how our computers are changed behind our back. It’s nothing underhanded or evil, just a reminder that we have to read every screen...

SBS 2008 & REMOTE ACCESS

Two issues have come up several times for my SBS 2008 clients connecting to Outlook Web Access or their office computers. OUTLOOK WEB ACCESSIf you go to your remote access web site (e.g., http://www.domainnamenet.com, or http://remote.domainname.com) and click on...

THE FAILURE OF THE OPEN FIELD

Microsoft has a reputation as a monopolist but built its dominance by opening the Windows world to partners – thousands and thousands of partners. Microsoft controlled the underlying environment and reserved some highly profitable parts for itself, but the world is a...