BRUCEB NEWS
Shooting Fish In A Barrel: Microsoft Is Rebranding Office 365
Shared communication is one of the underpinnings of civilization. It sets humans apart from animals. Microsoft is engaged in a long-term effort to prevent us from being able to understand each other. I don't know why. The company doesn't appear to be run by a...
REMOTE ACCESS
You may not realize it, but the world of computing is changing this year faster and more fundamentally than ever before. Slowly but unsurely we're being untethered from our...
INTERNET ACCESS CONTROL
I installed NetNanny software on the kids' computer to control their access to inappropriate web sites and to be able to shut off services if necessary - for example, to turn off...
BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES
Perhaps a glimpse of the future: this Slate article describes a company that has rolled out broadband Internet service over power lines to 16,000 homes in Cincinnati. (New...
SECRETS HIDDEN IN MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENTS
Microsoft Word saves "metadata" along with a document - extra information ranging from identification of authors and reviewers of a document to all text added and deleted in...
BITTORRENT
Music downloading is taking off in new directions. Kazaa continues to load annoying adware onto your computer when it's installed. It's harder than ever to find anything other...
DEATH OF THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY
Here's a funny article predicting the death of the video game industry. The author makes some telling points - the technology used for games on computers and consoles has reached...
DIGITAL VIDEO
The cost of digital camcorders is coming down and software is flooding onto the market for video editing. The field is still in its early stages; like many new directions for...
SATELLITE BROADBAND
Hughes Electronics has been struggling with Internet access by satellite for years. Although it can be better than dialup in rural areas with no other options, it's been wildly...
“I’M NOT DEAD!”
Monty Python fans will recall the scene in Holy Grail where the wagon trundles by collecting the bodies of people struck down by the plague. A peasant comes out carrying the body...
MORE AOL INSTANT MESSENGER GRIEF
AOL Instant Messenger was updated recently to version 5.5 - and apparently it secretly installs Wild Tangent, a "game content delivery service," along with the IM program. Wild...
VIRUSES EVERYWHERE
Be careful! There seems to be an odd sort of war between two sets of virus writers. Virus-laden e-mail messages are flying everywhere. Don't open ANY e-mail attachments unless...
MP3s AND COPY PROTECTION
The mp3 file format is not free. Manufacturers of software that can create mp3 files pay a royalty to Thomson and Fraunhofer, the companies that license and own the patents...
AOL AND SPAM-BLOCKING
Everybody complains to their ISP about spam, even though it's not really the ISP's problem. They've responded with spam filters and message blocking which occasionally goes awry....
DIGITAL PHOTOS ON THE ROAD
A friend just pointed out a device that fills a need in an elegant way. When you travel with a digital camera, it can be hard to know what to do with the images you accumulate....
SETBACK FOR DVD COPYING
After eight months of deliberation, a San Francisco federal judge ruled that popular DVD-copying software from 321 Studios has to be yanked off the market within seven days....