BRUCEB NEWS
Power And Cruelty In George Orwell’s America
Power Eric Lutz / Vanity Fair, April 3, 2020 Tierney Sneed / Talking Points Memo, May 13, 2020 Yahoo News, May 13, 2020 George Orwell on power: “Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not...
BROADBAND: SATELLITE
Part 2 in a series describing choices for Internet access in rural Sonoma County Almost everyone can get satellite Internet access – access to the southern sky and some expensive...
EVEN THE CUSTOM TOILET PAPER?
Alas! The iLoo is a hoax (see my item on May 8). Microsoft’s computer-equipped, Internet-ready portable toilet is a benign prank by the British MSN division, which probably...
BROADBAND: DSL & CABLE
Part 1 in a series describing choices for Internet access in rural Sonoma County If you live in an area where you can get either DSL or cable Internet access, you should. Nobody...
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ALBUM
I use Microsoft Digital Image Pro for virtually all my photo editing and graphics projects. It does a better job of combining ease of use with powerful editing tools than...
MICROSOFT TESTS THE ILOO
A news item that’s absolutely serious. I can’t think of any jokes that would do justice to this concept. You’ve just gotta love the technology world. Microsoft’s MSN division in...
SPAM
I’m sure it takes creativity for the spammers to come up with new ways to force their messages through the spam filters. An increasing number of spam messages are sent with...
NEW VERSION OF MEDIA JUKEBOX
In the background I’m downloading the new version of Media Jukebox, renamed Media Center 9. Here’s the page with all the details. Media Jukebox has long been my favorite program...
WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 9
Microsoft introduced Windows Media Player 9 a few months ago. It’s got a better interface and much improved technology for streaming audio and video – far better than RealPlayer...
APPLE MUSIC SERVICE: HYPE AND REALITY
The press is gushing about Apple’s new iTunes service, hailing it as the first appealing online service for downloading music. Articles hailed it as "revolutionary"...
PHONE BOOK SEARCHES ON GOOGLE
Google has added a new service that will make you go, hmm. Do a Google search for your home phone number. Type in the number like this: 707-xxx-xxxx. If the number is listed in...
CENTRINO NOTEBOOKS
Make sure you’re up to speed on the Centrino notebooks. Within a year it’s likely that they will completely dominate the notebook market and you’d regret having bought anything...
THE WIRELESS WORLD
An interesting sign of things to come. I fired up the laptop today at a lovely bed & breakfast in Mendocino and an open wireless network popped up. In ten seconds I was...
NEW COURT DECISION: FILE SHARING PROGRAMS ARE LEGAL
A federal court judge in Los Angeles handed down a decision about file sharing that actually makes sense for a change. Judge Wilson ruled that the parent companies of Morpheus...
THE TWO TOWERS ON DVD
The Two Towers will be released on DVD in two editions, as with The Fellowship of the Ring. On August 26, the theatrical release will be available on DVD – but the one you really...
WINDOWS XP UPDATE BUG
It’s not clear how widespread this problem is, but there are reports that a Critical Update posted by Microsoft last week can cause Windows XP systems to slow down dramatically....