BRUCEB NEWS
A Few Nice Things
We can all use some nice things. The illustration above is from Charlie Mackesy's book The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse, a gentle book about love and friendship and how they build resilience; about hopes and fears; about courage in difficult times. It's a...
MAC OS X – THE MANDATORY UPGRADE
Apple has a problem – its users aren’t flocking to the new operating system, OS X, as fast as Apple needs. So Apple came up with a plan to fix their problem. Guesses, anyone?...
RECORD INDUSTRY AND SLUMPING SALES
Dan Bricklin is an old-timer in the computer industry – among other things, he developed VisiCalc, the granddaddy of the spreadsheets. He’s done a lengthy statistical analysis of...
INSTANT MESSAGING IN THE DOLDRUMS
At one time it appeared that instant messaging would be standardized and as a result would become a mainstream tool, widely adopted by businesses and as common as e-mail. Then it...
SERVICE PACKS
Now that Windows XP Service Pack 1 is out the door, almost everybody should be installing one of the recent updates. Although the service packs fix a slew of bugs, their primary...
PRIVACY POLICIES
Nobody reads privacy policies. If you’re like me, you assume that a web site’s reference to a “privacy policy” must mean something good. Here’s an ominous reminder that we must...
NEW MICROSOFT HARDWARE
Microsoft is rolling out a completely new lineup of mice and keyboards. Here’s the Microsoft press release. The lineup includes new wireless equipment, plus a smaller mouse sized...
SAM & MAX HIT THE ROAD AGAIN
LucasArts announced that another game is in the works featuring Sam & Max, “popular madcap dog and rabbity thing.” Here’s the press release. The original game, Sam & Max...
WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 1
Service Pack 1 for Windows XP will be available at some point during the next ten days. It’s a big update, full of security fixes and a few new features (including built-in...
WORDPERFECT: THE DEATH WATCH CONTINUES
Corel has announced a couple of bundling deals for slimmed down versions of the WordPerfect suite. Hewlett Packard is installing WordPerfect on all of its Pavilion computers, and...
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT PALLADIUM AND “TRUSTED COMPUTING”
Here’s an extensive discussion of the “Palladium” software that Microsoft is developing for future versions of Windows, to work with hardware designed by the “Trusted Computing...
FREE AMAZON SHIPPING
Amazon has improved its free shipping offer – starting today, you can get free shipping for any purchase over $25.
THE TEN IMMUTABLE LAWS OF SECURITY
This is important reading for everyone that owns a computer: The Ten Immutable Laws Of Security. The article has a short, non-technical discussion of each one. Highly...
USB 2.0 vs FIREWIRE
There’s two new ways to connect devices to your computer, USB 2.0 and Firewire (aka IEEE 1394). Each requires new hardware to support it – either a new card added into your...
GATEWAY COMPETES WITH IMAC
Gateway is taking aim at Apple Computer and the flat-panel iMac. Gateway has had an all-in-one, flat-panel-based Profile PC series for far longer than Apple’s new iMac. The new...
NEW PATCH FOR INTERNET EXPLORER
There’s another update for Internet Explorer versions 5.0, 5.5, and 6.0, to fix a slew of vulnerabilities that have come to light recently. Here’s an article with details....