BRUCEB NEWS
Colonial Pipeline And The Business Of Ransomware
Ransomware is big business. I mean that in the most boring way possible. Have you been following the news about the Colonial Pipeline hack? There is a nuance that sheds much light on the modern world, but to get to it I need to be sure you have the basic facts of...
iTUNES 8 UPGRADE CAUSING CRASHES
New slogan for Apple: iTunes ain't done till Windows won't run! After its iPod conference this week - more of a non-event than usual for Apple - a new version of iTunes started...
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 7
Adobe is taking orders for its annual upgrade to Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, the photo and video programs for consumers. Over the years I've found it hard to know...
RESTORING A CRASHED COMPUTER WITH WINDOWS HOME SERVER
Windows Home Server deserves more recognition. It had a nasty bug that took too long to cure but that's over now and it's back to being the helpful tool that I described a year...
DELL INSPIRON MINI 9 – 2.28 POUNDS OF FUN
I speculated a couple of days ago about a cheap device that might run Google's Chrome Internet browser - and here's the reality, right in front of us. Dell just formally...
SETTING UP LIVE MESH
Microsoft's Live Mesh service, now in beta testing, has the most promise of any of the online services. With an easy setup, you can make your files available on multiple...
GOOGLE CHROME & IE8
There are new Internet browsers available in the news - Microsoft made a beta release of Internet Explorer 8 available last week for testing, and Google caused a fuss when it...
OFFICE LIVE WORKSPACE – NOT PERFECT YET
I've stopped using Office Live Workspace for now. It's a service with a lot of potential but a few areas that are rough around the edges. Although I encourage you to try OLW and...
XO COMMUNICATIONS & CARL ICAHN
The New York Times has an article today about XO Communications, a company that most of you have never heard of. It gave me a little wave of nostalgia - XO is irrelevant now but...
GRANDCENTRAL & GOOGLE BLACK HOLE
GrandCentral is a wonderful free service for handling phone calls. When you sign up, you pick a new phone number and do a few minutes of easy setup. Then when someone calls that...
SETTING UP A WINDOWS LIVE ID
Windows Live ID is a single sign-on service from Microsoft that allows people to log into many websites and services with one account. A Windows Live ID is an email address and a...
NATURAL LANGUAGE SEARCH IN VISTA
Windows Search 4 is an important upgrade for Windows Vista and Windows XP, enabling lightning-fast searches through your files and email for any word or phrase, anywhere. Here's...
AT&T TECH SUPPORT vs. ETERNAL DAMNATION – A TOSSUP
I'm occasionally asked why I have such a negative opinion of AT&T's DSL service. This chilling account should answer that question - a complete log of one person's...
MICROSOFT OFFICE ULTIMATE DISCOUNT
If you're sending a student off to college with a new laptop, Microsoft has a pretty good deal. A student with an email address at an educational institution (typically the email...
ANATOMY OF A MALWARE SCAM
Jesper Johansson has been working in information security for more than 20 years and has earned a good reputation for doggedly identifying and chasing the bad guys. He's written...
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SBS 2003 & SBS 2008
Small Business Server 2008 is nearly here! The final code was released to manufacturing yesterday. I wrote an overview of SBS 2008 last month. Here's an exhaustive rundown of the...