BRUCEB NEWS
Is Zoom Safe To Use?
The world has adopted Zoom for video chats with friends and family while we shelter, for good reasons: it's free or inexpensive, it's easy to use, and it works very well. Naturally, there's been a backlash, because, I don't know, good things must be punished? So there...
RECORDING INDUSTRY MARCHES ON
More developments in the recording industry's relentless war to make sure we can't actually hear any music. Yesterday KaZaA, the Dutch software and products company which founded...
DUNGEON SIEGE
Got a new computer, an Nvidia GeForce 3 or 4 video card, and a bunch of free time? Check out the reviews of Dungeon Siege and see if it looks like you might be tempted. I don't...
REPRIEVE FOR INTERNET RADIO
On May 2, I wrote about an order due to take effect this week requiring Internet streaming radio stations to pay punishingly high royalties for songs - far higher than comparable...
XBOX LIVE AND ONLINE GAMING
The next hot market is online gaming - plenty hot already, but due for a big push in the next eight months. Many people are joining massive online worlds and investing oodles of...
CRACKING CDs WITH MAGIC MARKERS
The recording industry is going to elaborate lengths to create music CDs that are copy-protected - to prevent you from copying, or "burning," music onto recordable CDs, onto a...
VIRUSES REAL AND IMAGINARY
REAL: A particularly nasty new virus named "Klez" is making the rounds by e-mail. It has the usual characteristics: it arrives in a randomly-generated message from someone you...
EXTRAORDINARY DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
"Personal video recorders" (PVRs) are the hot new item in the television industry. Tivo and Sonicblue Replay are the market leaders. These boxes act like a super VCR. They record...
SCANNER TUTORIAL
PC Magazine has an article about scanning that answers a lot of basic questions about digital images, scanning resolutions, and what to do with some of the scanner controls -...
COPY PROTECTED CDS CAN CRASH COMPUTERS
More copy protected CDs are hitting the market - especially in Europe, but clearly the US is next. They corrupt the CD in ways that make many of them unplayable in a computer or...
INTERNET PRIVACY AND APATHY
In March Yahoo changed its marketing policy. With no warning, it suddenly granted itself the right to send advertising spam, postal mail, and telemarketing phone calls to tens of...
KAZAA LITE
Kazaa has taken over as the best music sharing program - most users, best selection, best interface. But Kazaa has been rightfully attacked for including other "spyware" programs...
STAR WARS REVIEWS
Pick your flavor of early reviews of Attack of the Clones. On one side: a very favorable review from BBC News. Sample: "This is quite possibly the best Star Wars of the series....
STATES BAIL OUT ON MODULAR WINDOWS DEMO
The states in the Microsoft trial screwed up in a big way yesterday. The lawyers blew it, and the states may have blown a hole in their case. The states have been insisting that...
ROBERT HEINLEIN AND THE RECORDING INDUSTRY
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the...
BACKUP SOFTWARE
Stomp Software is a new name to me. They've partnered with Veritas (well-known at the enterprise level) to produce BackupMyPC, the latest iteration of Veritas Backup Exec. It's...