BRUCEB NEWS
Location Tracking Could Help Combat Covid-19 – But At What Cost?
Health authorities could track your location and use the data to monitor and model the spread of Covid-19. It would help researchers learn how long the virus survives on a surface, what percentage of the population is asymptomatic, and where to target medical...
NAPSTER REBORN
Napster 2.0 will open for business next week, when Roxio releases a “public beta test version” of a new music downloading service. Roxio purchased the “Napster” name last year,...
SBC CUTS DSL PRICES AGAIN
SBC has reduced the price of its basic DSL service to $26.95 for new customers signing up online. The service requires a one-year commitment, with a prepayment penalty. That's...
MUSICMATCH DOWNLOADS
MusicMatch Jukebox is the most popular program available for playing and organizing mp3 music files. Personally, I find it confusing and difficult to use, but millions of people...
BUGGY SOFTWARE
Even though Windows XP is solid and stable, it's still possible to write bad programs - and sometimes it seems that buggy software is on the rise. The Register has an article...
DELL MOVES INTO HOME ELECTRONICS
Here's an interesting article about Dell's move into home entertainment. Dell is conservative and only goes into new areas that it intends to dominate, so expect a big marketing...
SONIC DSL SALE
Sonic is passing along reduced prices on DSL to match SBC's recent promotions. Basic DSL service is $34.95/month from Sonic - similar to SBC's price, but with none of the hassles...
HAVE YOU DONE A BACKUP LATELY?
Hard drives stop working sometimes. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. Sometimes a system can’t be started because files are damaged that Windows relies on. That can be...
KAISER AND YOUR HEART
This has nothing to do with technology, but these statistics are too extraordinary to miss. Kaiser Permanente shed its poor reputation decades ago and is now well known for the...
AFFORDABLE COLOR LASERJETS
HP has an overlooked line of business color inkjet printers - here's the 1100 series, and here's the 2230 series, for example. There are more expensive models as well. They're...
ORSON SCOTT CARD ON MP3s
Popular SF/fantasy author Orson Scott Card has written a nice article deflating the recording industry rhetoric and explaining why mp3s are not necessarily to blame for the...
ANOTHER WINDOWS CRITICAL UPDATE
Go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and install Critical Updates. There is another important security update. Another vulnerability has been discovered, very similar to the...
OPUS RETURNS!
Life is worth living again! Opus the penguin is returning to the comics pages! Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, creator of Bloom County and Outland, will...
TOYNBEE TILES
I love stuff like this. For years, a reporter for the Kansas City Star had noticed an odd tile embedded in the street near a favorite restaurant. Made of a rock-hard material,...
SUBPOENAS AND COMPUTER CRIME
Here’s a fascinating – and chilling – article by a former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit describing a recent decision by a federal appeals court in...
GOOGLE TRICKS
You know how valuable Google is for web searches, but take a look at this page for other equally valuable Google services - among others, a price comparison service, an index of...