BRUCEB NEWS
The Dangers Of Location Tracking
Having government and big companies track our locations is a horrific invasion of privacy. We can be sure that big companies will be careless with private information about us, allowing it to be misused by bad actors. The government will almost certainly weaponize it...
WINDOWS XP – THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STANDBY AND HIBERNATE
Notebook computers with Windows XP can be set to "hibernate" when the lid is closed. The system memorizes what the computer is doing and saves that information, then turns off...
COMCAST CABLE INTERNET
Comcast claims to be moving forward to roll out Internet service on its cable systems in Sonoma County. If you're in a rural area and you haven't checked out cable or DSL...
DELL PROMOTIONS & MICROSOFT SMALL BUSINESS SERVER
It's a good week to buy a computer at Dell. Computer prices don't change very much from week to week - they just keep going down at a pretty steady rate. Dell's promotions are...
AMERICA ONLINE WOES
The online-advertising market is beginning to rebound, and profits are on the rise at Yahoo and MSN. Meanwhile, things keep getting worse and worse at AOL. Ad sales were down 50%...
MORE URBAN LEGENDS
Time for our annual reminder that most e-mail warnings of bad things are false, ranging from the intentionally harmful to benign urban myths. An e-mail message is circulating...
DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Microsoft has put together a rich source of information about digital photography on this page. It includes a fair amount of advertising for Microsoft products and partners, but...
NEW LOOK FOR HOTMAIL
Hotmail got an overhaul yesterday, including a new interface that resembles Microsoft Outlook 2003. Theoretically the junk mail filter keeps improving, grouping and viewing of...
SPAMMERS HAPPY WITH FEDERAL LAW
As you watch Congress and the President congratulate each other over the new federal anti-spam legislation, keep in mind that the spammers are thrilled with the new law. Here's...
MASTER & SLAVE
I'm a fan of politically correct speech. I think it's important to avoid using expressions that perpetuate stereotypes, even if it's reasonably clear that the words are meant...
YAHOO AND PRIVACY
Here's a good description of why Yahoo just sent out millions of notices about its "privacy policy." "One time Pac-Bell (now under SBC name umbrella) users were promised...
WONDERFUL WORLD
The Guardian reports that a media watchdog group is investigating a new ad from Intel showing mountaineers on Mt. Everest accessing the Internet using a Centrino wireless...
CAMERA PHONES
Here's an article about cell phones with cameras, which are the fastest-growing consumer technology ever, according to a recent study. Eighty million camera phones have been sold...
WHAT TO DO IF YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION GOES DOWN
As we grow more dependent on the Net, it's important to have contingency plans. Here's a useful collection of tips and tricks in case your Internet connection goes down.
MICROSOFT VS. GOOGLE
Microsoft has begun testing a news service to aggregate headlines from a variety of publications. The new service, MSN Newsbot, is currently targeted at the UK and three European...
WEB BROWSER HIJACKING
I just ran into a browser hijacking that wasn't repaired by AdAware. "LuckySearch" came up as the browser home page and default search engine every time the system rebooted, even...