BRUCEB NEWS
The 2019 Bruceb News Year In Review
(This will be the last Bruceb News article until I recover from an upcoming business conference trip to Hawaii. Happy holidays!) I think I accomplished two goals in 2019: writing articles about privacy and security that were so terrifying that they kept you awake at...
CABLE INTERNET ACCESS
AT&T now owns most of the cable system in Sonoma County. They've amusingly named the cable division "AT&T Broadband," and cable Internet service has been rolled out to...
MICROSOFT & SMALL BUSINESSES
Microsoft has revamped its bCentral web site, a collection of services and resources for small businesses. One interesting example is the offer to design and host a web site from...
NEW ADOBE ACROBAT & QUICKTIME
I don't know whether these are compelling upgrades - haven't tried them, don't know about new features - but Adobe has released Acrobat Reader 5.0 and Apple finished work on...
WEB SITE OF THE DAY
You were probably thinking to yourself, gosh, I wonder where I can see stick figures fighting Jackie Chan-style? Aren't you glad I'm around to help? (Requires Flash and a bit of...
BORDERS HANDS ONLINE OPERATIONS TO AMAZON
Did you see that Borders is handing its web site to Amazon? Borders will close its own site, and Amazon will open a new site that features both logos, with Amazon essentially...
LINKS TO PUNDITS
A new addition to the Favorites page (under News / Links): Slate links, a collection of links to hundreds of political columnists, editorial pages, movie critics, book reviewers,...
GATEWAY PULLING OUT OF OFFICEMAX
Tough year! Gateway is struggling with slumping sales and a fuzzy business plan. It's closing a bunch of its own Gateway Country stores, and it just announced that it's going to...
MICROSOFT CORDLESS MOUSE
I should have expected that Microsoft would release its own cordless mouse, to counter the recent successful releases from Logitech. Here's an early review of the Microsoft...
CHEAP COMPUTERS
Prices are nosediving again. Want a cheap computer? There's only a few left, but how about an E-Machine E-Monster 1000 - a Pentium III 1GHz processor, 20Gb hard drive, 64Mb of...
DEATH TO MP3’s
A fascinating article in today's Wall Street Journal discusses some of the ways that software manufacturers are going to cooperate with the recording industry and attempt to kill...
SATELLITE STORY, PART 3
More about Pegasus Communications. Pegasus turns out to be a big company, but relatively new to the broadband world. In addition to their consumer service described below, they...
SATELLITE STORY, PART 2
Pegasus Communications gave me a call this morning. They're going to start taking orders in a couple of days, and promise to have equipment delivered and installation scheduled...
JURORS MISCALCULATE MP3.COM DAMAGES
My lawyer friends will appreciate this story. Last week jurors in a federal court trial in New York awarded $300,000 to an independent record label for copyright violations -...
THE SATELLITE STORY
How about if I use this page to share my experience with satellite Internet access? Okay with everybody? When we last checked, Starband was the only company offering two-way...
NO SUPPORT FOR BLUETOOTH OR USB 2.0 IN WINDOWS XP
Last week Microsoft announced that Windows XP won't support Bluetooth. Today Microsoft turned its back on another emerging technology when it announced that Windows XP won't...