If you are young or young at heart, and have the luxury of free time, it's worth noting the release tomorrow for the PC, XBox 360, and PS3 of Grand Theft Auto IV, latest installment in an increasingly important franchise. Early reviews are flowing in and GTA IV seems on its way to becoming the best-reviewed game in history - currently standing at 99% at metacritic.com.

If you're too old to be playing a violent game in a seedy underworld, don't overlook Sam & Max, a big floppy dog with a fedora and a hyperkinetic smart-aleck rabbity thing, who triumphantly returned a couple of years ago in consistently hilarious adventure games released at regular intervals on the Gametap service. The New York Times just wrote a rave review of the concluding episode of season two - it makes me wish there were extra hours in the day.

"As episode 5 begins, the freelance police Sam and Max - an anthropomorphic dog and rabbit - find themselves at the entryway to hell. Since the entryway turns out to be located just under their office, the pair could just go home, but that wouldn't be much of a game.

"Hell turns out to be a bland corporation where every day is Monday and the clock always shows 4:59. Rabbit Max is disappointed, having expected more acid baths and karaoke bars.

"Sam and Max soon discover that they have their own wing in hell, filled with dead enemies, friends and casual acquaintances undone in past episodes. Each lives in a small personal hell. A chef becomes the sidekick on a cooking show for rats while a child-hating Santa Claus who likes his job because he has to see children only one day out of the year is hounded by kids. One tormented soul, forced to stand on stage naked in front of his mother and his therapist, says, 'It's like being in the bad place people go where it's really hot.' To which Max replies, 'Tampa?'"

Labels: games

posted by bruceb at 4/29/2008 12:42:00 PM | permalink

In 2006, Ray Ozzie took over the title of Chief Software Architect from Bill Gates at Microsoft. Ozzie was instrumental in the development of Lotus Notes and his company Groove Networks was folded into Microsoft in 2005, leading to Microsoft Groove, one of the less well known programs included in the Microsoft Office family. Last week he announced some details of the project occupying his time for the last couple of years, Live Mesh.

Although the first group of testers is getting a look at Live Mesh, the service is still in its infancy. The features that are visible now overlap other Microsoft services, so it's hard to know whether this is revolutionary or just another half-baked proprietary service that will be advertised badly, like so many of Microsoft's recent products.

If we give Ozzie the benefit of the doubt, then Live Mesh represents a long-term effort to develop Microsoft services that are not focused on the old vision of a user sitting at a single computer. Live Mesh assumes we will be using multiple computers, smart phones and cameras and other mobile devices, and participating in multiple online communities - email, instant messages, text messages, online social networks and more. Live Mesh is intended to unify all of those, acting as the infrastructure to unify those devices and services and share information seamlessly with others.

Let me underscore the significance of that. Microsoft is developing an online cloud in which a computer is just one of many components. It is the first time Microsoft has embraced something that competes with (and potentially undermines) its lucrative Windows and Office franchises.

At the moment Live Mesh includes only the ability to sync files and begin remote desktop sessions on connected devices. File syncing is easy to understand: imagine that you've got a collection of photos.

• Live Mesh stores that folder online, so it can be accessed from any computer running any operating system.
• It allows you to create a hub of devices that each have a copy of that folder - the photos can be edited on your computer or displayed on your phone or played in a slideshow in your living room. When you edit a photo on your computer, the updated version is immediately synced with all the other devices.
• You can share that folder with others, who might just view the photos or might be given permission to edit them.

That's basically a combination of Foldershare (sync folders among multiple computers and share folders with others), and Windows Live Skydrive (store files online). Users of those services have been hoping for them to be consolidated, but that may wind up being superseded by Live Mesh. Microsoft often acts like a collection of little fiefdoms that don't communicate well; this is the kind of overlap that deserves a clear vision and a single coherent choice for users.

It's also exciting to think about easily being able to start a remote desktop session. From a web site, connect to your office computer, drop a file into your Live Mesh folder, and have it appear on your notebook computer a few seconds later - that's good stuff! It's possible to do that now with LogMeIn (and it's one of the best features of Windows Home Server) but it gains much value if it's part of a unified system.

File syncing is only the first and simplest function of an interface that's being developed to support far more. At the moment it's rudimentary and limited to PCs, but support for Macs and mobile devices will appear shortly. There won't be a final product until much later this year.

If you want a long explanation of the service and how it fits into Microsoft's past and future, this article gives the background and details about program features.

And if you want to put it in perspective, here's a smart guy blowing up and predicting that Live Mesh spells corporate doom for Microsoft, "a confused company with no control over its creations and a new direction with each passing day. It demonstrates a core Microsoft frustration that partners, developers and now even customers are avoiding Microsoft for: A series of incomplete and incoherent solutions for general information technology use." And he makes a good point:

"This amazing company, with billions of dollars invested in software creations supported and utilized by tens of thousands of partners worldwide has decided to scap all that and provide yet another incomplete synchronization framework to live in complete void of all its desktop applications existing sync features. I suppose the sync, presence, and access in Grove, SharePoint, Outlook, DFS, ActiveSync, Exchange ActiveSync, Live.com Office Live, FolderShare, Spaces, Live Messenger and Office Communicator was just too perfect that it needed no improvement, but a better way of unintegrated document-based sync was necessary.

"This from a company whose new slogan is 'Better Together'?"

Labels: file_sharing, Microsoft, mobile, remote, web_services

posted by bruceb at 4/28/2008 12:46:00 AM | permalink

The advertising industry is starting to turn its attention to advertising on cell phones.

Here's an article that forecasts a "perfect storm" of annoying advertising. "It audibly interrupts your life like telemarketing. It?s cheap to mass-produce like e-mail spam. And it holds you hostage like TV ads."

"eMarketer projects that the $421 million spent on cell phone ads in the United States in 2006 will grow to $4.7 billion by 2011 and exceed $6.5 billion in 2012.

"Advertisers speak of an ominous sounding ?paradigm shift? in mobile advertising, where more of the spam will be multimedia, targeted and tracked. . . .

"One use for ads will be subsidized services. We may very soon see major carriers offering free wireless service in exchange for ads. Those ads will pop up in the middle of YouTube videos, or play at the beginning of phone calls."

We deal now with dropped calls and proprietary equipment and incomprehensible calling plans. In hindsight, this may look like the good old days.

Labels: business, mobile, phone

posted by bruceb at 4/25/2008 12:55:00 AM | permalink

Microsoft has begun pushing Vista Service Pack 1 out through the Windows Update service. If you have automatic updates turned on, you'll get an alert that an update is ready to be installed; when you check, it will be Vista Service Pack 1.

My installations of SP1 have been taking 30-45 minutes, with several automatic restarts. You cannot use your computer while it's being installed. There are a couple of opportunities to cancel the installation if it isn't a good time to stop work.

You also may not get that update alert for weeks or months! The rollout will be gradual - not all Vista users will be offered the service pack tomorrow.

Microsoft has identified several pieces of hardware that don't work after the service pack and is taking steps to make sure that doesn't cause problems. The manufacturers are writing new drivers now; in the meantime, if you've got any of that hardware, you won't be offered SP1 until after the new drivers have been pushed out through the Windows Update system and installed on your computer.

You don't have to do anything, just don't worry if the service pack doesn't turn up right away.

Labels: Vista

posted by bruceb at 4/24/2008 12:24:00 AM | permalink

Microsoft is working on a package of software and online services that might be exactly right for students and home computer users.

Although Vista includes important features out of the box, it does not include Microsoft Office - Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. That's surprising to many people. (Dell will preinstall Office if you remember to check the box, but all the other manufacturers leave it off to keep the computer sale price down.) I talk to a lot of people about why they have to make an unexpected trip to Costco or Office Depot to buy a copy of Office.

The computer manufacturer may include security software but all too often it's a bloated suite from whatever vendor paid the most to be included, or it's only a trial version.

Similarly, most people have a poor experience with badly designed software for editing and sharing photos that comes preinstalled with their new computer or installed along with the driver for a new printer or camera.

These are not deep mysteries. Any technically adept person is able to jump in and clean things up! Uninstall the crap. Sign up for online services - lots of people have favorites of the hundreds available. Use Google Docs or OpenOffice for free or buy a copy of Office 2007 Home & Student Edition.

The package from Microsoft isn't aimed at those people.

Instead, Microsoft will be packaging up a collection that's good enough for people who want the choices to be made for them and presented in a neat, easy-to-use package. And Microsoft will be experimenting with selling the package as a cheap monthly subscription instead of an expensive box at Best Buy. (Microsoft sees subscriptions as an inevitable shift in the long run but it's had trouble figuring out how to jump in without cannibalizing its current license fees.)

The "software plus service" bundle is code-named "Albany" during testing. Let's fantasize and assume that Microsoft delivers a well-designed integrated experience. Here's the way it will go sometime this fall.

• If you don't have one, you'll get a free Windows Live ID.
• You'll agree to pay a monthly fee - not yet determined but probably $10-15/month.
• A single installer will download and install these programs on your new computer, and set up access to their online components:
  • Microsoft Office 2007 Home And Student - Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote
  • Windows Live Office Workplace - online file storage and sharing for Office files, integrated with the Office programs, as easy as clicking a button; files can then be viewed and retrieved from any computer
  • Windows Live OneCare - easy-to-understand program for antivirus, spyware protection, firewall management, backups, printer sharing, and system maintenance
  • Windows Live Photo Gallery - the easiest and best-designed program for working with the photos on your computer and sharing them online
  • Windows Live Mail - full-featured and safe mail program, better than Outlook for home users, easy to integrate with Hotmail so mail can be viewed from anywhere
  • Windows Live Messenger

The programs would then all be updated automatically.

There's nothing new about the package except the integration and the subscription pricing. Most of those components are free; Office 2007 Home & Student is about $140 and Live OneCare is $49.99 or less, so this is under two hundred dollars of software.

But the integrated experience is everything! If I've learned anything over the last ten years, it's that many people don't want to think about their computers. They want to sit down and do stuff! If this package was installed on a nice cleaned-up computer, people would be able to do stuff with a minimum of fuss. I think it's a winner.

Here's an article about Microsoft's official acknowledgement that this package would enter beta testing soon, leading to a final release sometime this fall.

Labels: computers, mail, Microsoft, Office, OneCare, photos, security, software, Vista, web_services

posted by bruceb at 4/23/2008 01:28:00 AM | permalink

Columnist Ed Bott was curious about a friend who complained bitterly about the way Vista ran on his brand new Sony Vaio laptop last year, so he asked permission to look it over. Recently he got a similar new Vaio from Sony to see what had changed in a year.

He describes the experience in this article - interesting reading because it describes the process I engage in all the time on your behalf, evaluating how much time will be required to give you a better experience with your computers.

The original Vaio was a disaster, slow and overloaded with crapware that would have taken hours to uninstall manually. When the hard drive was formatted and Vista was installed from scratch, the laptop ran at full speed with none of the frustrating slowdowns and popups and clutter that had been driving his friend crazy. But Sony had not provided the tools to install Vista from scratch without simultaneously reinstalling all the craplets, and installing from a different Vista source was only successful after tracking down drivers for the devices that did not come to life automatically.

The new Vaio was better - Sony included less crapware - but still required laborious removal of trial versions and poorly chosen crap.

"Lessons learned?

"Well, for starters, Vista doesn't suck. And neither does Sony's hardware. That four-pound machine with the carbon-fiber case is practically irresistible, as my wife continues to remind me.

"But when you shovel Windows Vista and a mountain of poorly chosen drivers, utilities, and trial programs onto that beautiful hardware without thinking of the customer, the results can be downright ugly. That was certainly the case with the early-2007 vintage Vaio, and it's still true today, with too much crapware and not enough attention to quality or the user experience."

Labels: computers, Vista

posted by bruceb at 4/22/2008 12:15:00 AM | permalink

Microsoft announced today that Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be released on April 29, although there will be a delay before it is pushed through the Automatic Update process.

The service pack incorporates the hundred or so patches that have been released since Service Pack 2, which have been making it a time-consuming slog to set up a new WinXP computer for the last year or more. There are virtually no new features; if a computer has been kept up to date, the service pack will change nothing onscreen and will make almost no changes under the hood.

Here's more detailed information about Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Labels: WinXP

posted by bruceb at 4/22/2008 12:09:00 AM | permalink

There are many visions of our online future. Google and many others envision a world of cloud computing, where our programs and our data are both hosted online. Google Docs provides a word processor and spreadsheet, and online storage of files, all accessible from any computer anywhere. At the moment these services are mostly presented in an Internet browser but the technology is already appearing to let online programs run in their own windows like any other program, giving us access to programs that look elegant and can be accessed from anywhere. Google's vision (and Microsoft's nightmare) is a world where those programs run on any operating system, so you can have the same experience regardless of whether you're running Windows, Mac OS, or Linux.

Not a bad vision! So far the implementation isn't very exciting but Adobe Photoshop Express is quite nice for simple photo editing and sharing, and Google has come a long way with Google Docs.

The universe of computer users includes many people and businesses who are reluctant to change their habits. The habit of running programs on our desktop computers will be hard to break, and Microsoft may do quite well with a vision that takes smaller steps - allowing us to keep our familiar programs but integrating online services to enhance them. Microsoft Office Live Workspace is one of the steps on the way to fulfilling Microsoft's vision of "software plus service."

Microsoft is betting that you're comfortable with Word, Excel and Powerpoint installed on your computer. Office Live Workspace extends the familiar Office programs so files can be easily saved online, where they can be viewed by and shared with co-workers or third parties, or retrieved from a different computer to open in the Office programs on that computer. The online files can be accessed from a web browser but they can also be opened with a click on a toolbar button in the Office programs, just like you're used to doing when you open your Documents folder.

Office Live Workspace uses your Windows Live ID and it's currently free. Microsoft is mulling over the ways to make money - possibly advertising (although there are no ads now), possibly subscription packages (I'll describe one tomorrow Wednesday), and possibly "premium" packages for increased file storage space or other extra features.

This overlaps the Windows Live Skydrive service, which also offers free online storage and file sharing. Office Live Workspace is focused on Word, Excel & Powerpoint files - they can be previewed on the web site and opened directly from the web site into your Office program for editing, with no fumbling with uploads and downloads. There are rudimentary tools for collaboration - if two people have access to a file and one is editing it, the other will be told that the file has been "checked out."

This has the potential to be extremely useful but I don't suggest diving in without reading more about what to expect. Here's a few links to help you get oriented: a comparison with Google Docs; an overview of the new service; comments from a well-informed blogger; Microsoft's announcement at the official rollout. This is very exciting stuff! Small businesses may well want to start using this right away but there are issues of file security anytime files leave your local computers; this will require care to make sure documents are protected appropriately.

Labels: file_sharing, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Office, software, web_services

posted by bruceb at 4/21/2008 01:22:00 AM | permalink

Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T, made some extraordinarily stupid comments in London this week.

ISPs are doing a full-court press to ensure they can shape our Internet traffic to maximize their revenue. They want to do deals with media companies for preferred delivery of certain web services, or charge you for "excessive" use of your connection - basically converting your Internet connection into something more like your cable television service where your choices are restricted and metered.

"U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010.

"'The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today," he said. "In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today.'"

Really? In three years, twenty typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today? That's a remarkable prediction. Is it just me or is it obvious to everyone that it's complete horseshit?

Interestingly, without investment, the world will run out of food in 2010. Also all of our roads and bridges will start to crumble. And airplanes will fall out of the sky and there will be worldwide power shortages and mankind will begin a descent into a thousand years of Dark Ages.

Or - and I'm just thinking out loud here - possibly individuals and companies will continue to invest in projects they hope will be profitable. And perhaps - unlike AT&T - some of those companies will be honest about their motives instead of trying to reshape the global communications network solely for their own benefit by fearmongering.

Maybe the real harm from seven years of the Bush administration is the widespread belief by politicians and big companies that they can say anything at all, no matter how ludicrously stupid.

Addendum 04/21: Cicconi was the assistant to James Baker in the Reagan Administration, staff secretary for Bush Sr. (and sits on the board of his presidential library), and served on George Bush's White House transition team. He knows the world of outrageous fearmongering lies more deeply than I realized.

Labels: broadband, business, Internet

posted by bruceb at 4/18/2008 11:41:00 AM | permalink

Did you know you can have multiple Outlook windows open? Try right-clicking on "Calendar" or "Contacts," then clicking on Open in new window.

This will be very exciting for some of you. But wait! There's more!

By default, Outlook opens into your Inbox. You can change the default folder by clicking in Outlook on Tools / Options / Other / Advanced Options.

But you can also create shortcuts for your desktop or Quick Launch bar that open directly into your calendar, contacts folder, or task list. Each one will open a new Outlook window automatically.

Try this out!

• Right-click on your desktop and click on New / Shortcut.
• The location of the item is the path to the Outlook program, followed by a command line switch that selects the folder to open. Note that the quotation marks have to be included!

OUTLOOK 2003

• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Inbox
• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Calendar
• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Contacts
• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Tasks

OUTLOOK 2007

• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Inbox
• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Calendar
• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Contacts
• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe " /select Outlook:Tasks

• On the next screen, type a descriptive name - e.g., "Outlook Calendar."
• Right-click on the shortcut and click on Properties. Click the Change Icon button and pick an icon that matches the folder.

Bingo! A convenient way to open multiple windows directly where you want to go.

Note: If Microsoft Office is installed on a different drive or in a non-standard folder, your shortcut will have to be modified with the correct path. It's possible to open any Outlook folder this way, but it gets slightly trickier to create shortcuts to public folders or folders with spaces in their names.

Labels: Office, Outlook

posted by bruceb at 4/18/2008 12:40:00 AM | permalink

I've gotten several calls recently about an odd type of spam attack that also happened to me a few days ago.

As other clients had reported, I began getting "non-delivery reports" - messages from mail servers all over the world that messages from me had not been delivered. Typically the sender is "System Administrator" or the like. Of course, I hadn't sent any such messages.

In the next hour or two, similar messages started coming in faster and faster until they were arriving every minute or two.

They tapered off after a while and stopped in a couple of days.

If you're running current antivirus software, chances are good that you don't have a virus and nothing is originating from your computer. These messages are yet another attempt to get through your spam filter. It works this way:

• The spammer finds an email server that sends NDRs when a message arrives that does not match anyone in the company. The mail server for @fictitiouscompany.com might take a message for john@fictitiouscompany.com, but would send an NDR if a message arrives for oswaldrabbit@fictitiouscompany.com.
• The spammer decides to send you spam. Presumably you and a million others, but you're the most special, right?
• The spammer sends his spam to fictitiouscompany.com. He shows your email address as the sender and intentionally sends it to a bad email address that doesn't exist on the fictitiouscompany.com server.
• Since the server is sending NDRs, it does as it's told and sends a message to you that the message wasn't delivered.
• Here's the trick - the original email (the spam) is usually attached to the NDR. Voila! The spammer has bypassed your spam filter and you have his spam.

Very few people will open the attachment to a non-delivery report, and fewer still will respond to it or click on a link in it, but spammers are working on volume. They only need a very, very small number of people to respond for their scheme to work.

This is nothing new. I don't know why it's happening in volume all of a sudden. There's an easy workaround if it happens to you while you're using Outlook: create a rule that deletes all messages with "undeliverable" in the subject line.

My clients running Small Business Server are not contributing to this problem - I've turned on recipient filtering in Exchange Server. If a message arrives that is not addressed to an active mailbox, the message is dropped with no notice to the sender. More and more servers worldwide are being set up that way but there will always be some servers for the spammers to exploit.

Labels: mail, security, spam

posted by bruceb at 4/17/2008 12:32:00 AM | permalink

This is for my lawyer friends and clients - and anyone who enjoys seeing a lawyer smack down a company that deserves it.

Monster Cable makes high-end, expensive audio and video cables. It's not obvious that Monster Cables are worth the price - recently blindfolded audio aficionados could not distinguish between audio delivered on Monster Cables, on the one hand, and coat hangers, on the other hand.

But Monster Cable just loves suing people to protect its trademarks and patents. In fact, some people have suggested that maybe, just maybe, Monster Cable uses litigation bullying tactics to intimidate competitors and browbeat them into unwarranted settlements. (It makes Monster's CEO sad.)

Monster Cable sent a cease and desist letter to Blue Jeans Cable, a small competitor, alleging that an audio cable made by Blue Jeans Cable infringes on various Monster design patents and trademarks. Little did they know that Kurt Denke, president of Blue Jeans, had been a litigator in his former life and that he was not only perfectly capable of pushing back but would do so in public. He gave permission for his response to be posted online and promises to make future correspondence public.

His letter to Monster is long but worth reading for entertainment - someone at Monster's law firm was soiling their pants by page three. Skip the details if you like, but don't miss the last few paragraphs! This closing comes after a detailed recitation of facts and law:

           "I have seen Monster Cable take untenable IP positions in various different scenarios in the past, and am generally familiar with what seems to be Monster Cable's modus operandi in these matters.  I therefore think that it is important that, before closing, I make you aware of a few points.

      "After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues.  My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle.  In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table.  I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word.  If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds.  As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.

       "I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion.  Your client threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session that ends with payment and a licensing agreement.  Your client then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince others under similar threat to accede to its demands.  Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me.  You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction.  It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind.  If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--from start to finish.  Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it."

Lovely! It makes me want to buy something from Blue Jeans Cable.

Labels: audio, business, law

posted by bruceb at 4/16/2008 12:55:00 AM | permalink

I had a feeling of deja vu when I was talking to a friend about a new computer last week.

In the late 1980s and early 90s, I set up dozens of Gateway computers. They were comparatively inexpensive, they were pioneers in the business of custom configurations for mail-order computers, and they shipped everything in way cool cow-spotted boxes.

But Gateway was also doing something right that outweighed everything else. Gateway was making smart choices about what to put on computers. Gateway installed CD drives and modems before it was obvious they would be necessary. They put in more memory and bigger hard drives and better video and sound cards than people realized they needed.

I could send people to shop at Gateway with confidence that they would get the right equipment even if I didn't hold their hand through the entire order.

There's only one computer company doing the same thing today.

Apple.

I can get you a good PC from Dell or off the shelf at a local store - if I hold your hand through the entire process. For most people, it's easier to put together the order myself. I ask everyone else to go through a list of detailed specs and keep an eye on hard drive rotation speeds and the amount of video card memory.

PC manufacturers will let you buy equipment that will not make you happy. The options are there for you to buy PCs that don't have enough memory, that have crappy video systems, that have slow hard drives, that don't have DVD drives, that have the wrong version of Vista to use in an office, or that are missing something else that will leave you gnashing your teeth later.

I cringe at the thought of anyone using a new computer until I've had a chance to remove the unnecessary crap installed by the manufacturer that will slow the computer down and give you a terrible experience.

I was explaining this to a friend who was also considering a Mac. She asked what kind of Mac she should get.

I told her, "I don't know, but I don't think it matters - all the choices are made for you. You'll probably get something you'll like regardless."

When I realized what that meant, I had to lie down and put a wet cloth on my forehead. No wonder people are buying Macs! There's no way for a non-technical person to have that feeling of confidence when we buy PCs. People sit down at their cheap new Vista computer and it's slow and unexpected advertisements appear when they click on desktop icons and it crashes when two crappy programs collide. They blame Vista and call a friend who describes how lovable her Mac notebook is. Sound familiar?

Apple is making smart choices about what to put on computers and including things people don't realize they need, which helps ensure the customer stays happy later.

PC manufacturers are making stupid choices. The availability of underpowered hardware is a big part of the perception that Vista is a "failed" operating system; people's poor experiences with new computers are part of what's driving people to Macs.

I miss the cow-spotted boxes. I miss the philosophy that drove Gateway to sell people the right stuff on their PCs.

Labels: Apple, computers, hardware

posted by bruceb at 4/15/2008 12:57:00 AM | permalink

Many of you practice safe computing - you install security updates from Microsoft and other vendors, you run antivirus and adware/spyware programs and keep them current, your email program has a spam filter and blocks .EXE and other potentially dangerous attachments, and you don't click on strange links in email messages or on web sites.

You probably haven't seen a virus or gotten adware on your computer in a long time. You may be wondering what the security fuss is about. Is it really necessary to be so paranoid?

VIRUSES

By the end of this year, security experts expect to have identified a total of more than one million viruses. The chief technology officer for Sophos says about 25% of unique malware has been created in the last six months. Another security company executive said it identifies about 25,000 malware samples a day.

As security programs improve, virus writers get less results from email attachments, so they're switching their focus to creating web sites that can infect unpatched computers automatically just by visiting the site. A couple of years ago those attacks were limited to installing advertising programs and popups, but now malicious software is being installed without the user's knowledge.

Google owns Postini, a messaging security company, which recently promised that security challenges will grow exponentially in 2008 as the Bad Guys become more skilled at "social engineering" - presenting you with an email message or web site that in some way convinces you to make a fatal click or divulge personal information. There might be references to current events or messages that purport to be from legitimate business agencies - the IRS or Securities & Exchange Commission for example. The Bad Guys are getting better all the time at presenting messages that appear to be genuine. Their grammar is getting better, too.

BOTNETS

At one time viruses were designed to break computers. If malware is installed on your computer now you might never know it. The latest exploits are designed to hide away undetected and respond to commands from Bad Guy Central.

The most sophisticated malware authors use compromised computers to send spam. A security researcher just examined 11 "botnets" that send spam and estimated that they control over a million computers and are capable of flooding our mailboxes with more than 100 billion spam messages every day.

PHISHING

Identity theft starts with disclosure of personal information. If you can be persuaded to type in a bank account number or a password, the Bad Guys win.

Read this chilling account by a Symantec researcher about a virus that steals bank account details. The sophistication of the scheme is striking.

"Targeting over 400 banks and having the ability to circumvent two-factor authentication are just two of the features that push Trojan.Silentbanker into the limelight. The scale and sophistication of this emerging banking Trojan is worrying, even for someone who sees banking Trojans on a daily basis.

"This Trojan downloads a configuration file that contains the domain names of over 400 banks. Not only are the usual large American banks targeted but banks in many other countries are also targeted, including France, Spain, Ireland, the UK, Finland, Turkey - the list goes on.

"The ability of this Trojan to perform man-in-the-middle attacks on valid transactions is what is most worrying. The Trojan can intercept transactions that require two-factor authentication. It can then silently change the user-entered destination bank account details to the attacker's account details instead. Of course the Trojan ensures that the user does not notice this change by presenting the user with the details they expect to see, while all the time sending the bank the attacker's details instead. Since the user doesn't notice anything wrong with the transaction, they will enter the second authentication password, in effect handing over their money to the attackers. The Trojan intercepts all of this traffic before it is encrypted, so even if the transaction takes place over SSL the attack is still valid. Unfortunately, we were unable to reproduce exactly such a transaction in the lab. However, through analysis of the Trojan's code it can be seen that this feature is available to the attackers.

"The Trojan does not use this attack vector for all banks, however. It only uses this route when an easier route is not available. If a transaction can occur at the targeted bank using just a username and password then the Trojan will take that information, if a certificate is also required the Trojan can steal that too, if cookies are required the Trojan will steal those. In fact, even if the attacker is missing a piece of information to conduct a transaction, extra HTML can be added to the page to ask the user for that extra information. (In the example below the user is asked to enter their encryption key, in addition to the regular information.) . . .

"Add to all of the above the ability to steal FTP, POP, Web mail, protected storage, and cached passwords and then we start to see the capabilities of this Trojan."

PCs VS MACs

Fewer attacks are aimed at Macs than PCs, primarily because PCs have a 90%+ market share. That is sometimes misinterpreted to mean that Macs are less vulnerable and Apple does a better job of addressing security holes. This has not ever been true. Two years ago I highlighted reports that Apple was slow to respond to security flaws when they were discovered, and Apple's products have required a constant stream of updates to fix security problems. Here's Paul Thurrott's report on the most recent study reporting the same results:

"Microsoft actually fixes security vulnerabilities much more quickly than does Apple, meaning that users of Windows are, in fact, better protected by their vendor than are Mac OS X users. Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology independently examined six years of data and found that 658 high- and medium-risk vulnerabilities affected Microsoft products during the time period, compared with 738 for Apple products. Then they looked at how well the companies did at fixing these bugs. The conclusion? 'The number of unpatched vulnerabilities are higher at Apple,' a researcher involved in the study said. 'Apple [was] just surprised or not as ready or not as attentive. It looks like Microsoft had good relationships earlier with the security community. Based on our findings, this is hurting [Apple].'"

Labels: Apple, computers, Internet, Microsoft, OneCare, security, spam

posted by bruceb at 4/14/2008 01:46:00 AM | permalink

Microsoft has updated its Remote Desktop software for Macs, allowing them to connect to a computer running Windows XP Professional or Vista Business and control the Windows computer just as if sitting in front of it.

Remote Desktop has been so thoroughly optimized on Windows computers that menus pop up and down, windows appear and disappear at virtually full speed, sounds are played, until it's easy to forget that the computer under control is in a different office (or across the world). I won't be using the Mac software but it is also reasonably mature at this point; Mac users can hope for a similar experience.

For most people, however, Remote Desktop does not work over the Internet. It's possible to configure a firewall to forward port 3389 to a computer and control it with Remote Desktop but it's difficult to set up and it's not secure.

Businesses running Small Business Server can use Remote Desktop over the Internet because SBS does a special trick - it sets up a web page with an ActiveX control that can start a Remote Desktop session on office computers. SBS users can use Remote Desktop to control their office computer from any PC running Internet Explorer, anywhere in the world.

Mac users cannot take advantage of that SBS function - and as far as I know, the new Remote Desktop software for Macs does not change that. People with Macs at home that want to work remotely with an office PC should look at LogMeIn, which has software that runs on both PCs and Macs.

So the Remote Desktop software for Macs is really only useful for computers in the same network - using a Mac to work remotely on a PC across the room or down the hall in the same home or office. That's useful but not quite as exciting as it looks at first.

Labels: Apple, computers, Microsoft, network, remote, SBS

posted by bruceb at 4/11/2008 12:14:00 AM | permalink

Microsoft has a special price of $99 for an upgrade to Vista Ultimate on PCs purchased from Best Buy, Staples, Circuit City, and Amazon through June, according to Paul Thurrott, normally a well-informed source. (I can't find any reference to it on the Microsoft web site. Maybe there's a coupon in the box or something.)

That seemed like a bit of a yawn until an extra piece fell into place, courtesy of Susan Bradley. PCs purchased from one of those stores will undoubtedly have Vista Home Premium installed - and Vista Home Premium cannot be used effectively in any business run by a server. The $99 upgrade to Vista Ultimate allows the computer to be joined to the company domain without the expense and difficulty of buying a copy of Vista Business and wiping the hard drive.

The upgrade offer makes it a little easier to tell the boss about the next step when he or she proudly shows off the computer they bought for themselves at Best Buy.

Here's information about the versions of Vista if you need a refresher course. In short:

• Vista Business is required if the computer will be used in a business, and is the preferred choice for many home users.
• Vista Home Premium is a fine choice for parents or people who are going to focus on multimedia, and perfectly adequate for most home users.
• Vista Ultimate has everything.
• Vista Basic will serve if you simply must buy the cheapest computer on the market and have no self-esteem.

Labels: computers, domains, SBS, Vista

posted by bruceb at 4/10/2008 10:46:00 PM | permalink

Network Attached Storage devices ("NAS") are starting to appear regularly at small businesses. An NAS device is a small box with one or more hard drives and a simple operating system that can add huge amounts of storage space on a network just by plugging them in. They're frequently designed with multiple hard drives that can use RAID drive management to hold data very safely, but without the expense or maintenance required for a Windows-based server.

This article is a useful primer on network attached storage. Every computer user should start to become familiar with this technology!

"As the name indicates, NAS devices connect directly to a computer network, rather than to an individual PC. Therefore, the files they contain can be made available to anyone on the network that needs them. Unlike a PC, NAS devices don?t use monitors or keyboards. Instead, you configure a NAS device using a Web browser such as Internet Explorer. From there you can do things like set up folders for employees to store files in, as well as create user names and passwords to control who is allowed to have access to those files.

"NAS devices can be an option for any size business because they come in a variety of sizes, prices and storage capacities. Depending on the features and amount of storage provided, the cost of a NAS device can be quite inexpensive--as little as $200--or as much as several thousand dollars. Although some NAS devices can be physically large, models designed for small businesses can be easily tucked away almost anywhere. Most are smaller than an average PC and many take up barely more space than a hardcover novel."

More expensive NAS devices will have four or more hard drives in a RAID 5 array, which allows the device to be completely functional and keep the data safe even if an individual hard drive fails. Some of them integrate with Active Directory running in a Windows domain (including a domain run by Small Business Server) so that the NAS device knows the names of users and can enforce different levels of access to shared folders.

They have quirks, of course. I've gotten several Buffalo Terastation Pro II devices to store backup archives for my SBS clients; on Sunday all of them refused to allow the backup program to store files, with an "access denied" message. Headscratching, memories of the setup process - ah! This weekend was the original date for Daylight Savings Time to go into effect; the Terastations mistakenly set their clocks forward one hour. When the time on the Terastations doesn't match the rest of the network, the Terastations won't recognize the credentials of domain users. Why? I've stopped asking that question. None of the quirks we face with our computers make any sense. When I set the Terastations' time correctly, everything went back to normal.

Labels: backup, computers, domains, hardware, network, SBS

posted by bruceb at 4/09/2008 11:38:00 AM | permalink

Your computer will restart tonight.

It's Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month, when Microsoft releases security updates that will be automatically installed overnight. All of you have upgraded to Microsoft Update so you get patches for Office programs and you have Automatic Updates turned on, right? (If you have Windows Live OneCare, you're covered.)

Leave your computer running tonight but close all your programs - the computer will need to be restarted to finish the installation.

There are roughly eight patches, all of them important. There's a different mix for Windows XP and Vista but there are patches for all flavors of Windows, including Vista Service Pack 1. A couple of the flaws addressed by the patches are potentially able to be exploited by bad guys without too much difficulty. Here's an article with details about today's critical updates.

Labels: computers, Microsoft, security, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 4/08/2008 03:25:00 PM | permalink

I have a bit of downtime while I wait for my Comcast connection to come back to life. It was out Sunday for an hour or so, which might (or might not) have been a side effect of this major East Coast weekend outage. This morning it went down at about 11am and hasn't come back yet. Fortunately Verizon's data connection is strong enough to reach my notebook this afternoon - usually Verizon's coverage in west Sebastopol is so weak as to be useless for cell phones or computers.

Comcast has been darned reliable - I can't complain too much today. It's the first outage in a long time. Well, I can complain. It's quiet and lonely without email and the slow notebook connection is a poor substitute for 8Mb download speeds.

Labels: broadband

posted by bruceb at 4/08/2008 01:10:00 PM | permalink

Wrestling with a black screen drew my attention to the world of video cards and computer graphics.

Vista's pretty visual effects - translucent borders, 3D flipping through windows, live thumbnail previews of windows from the taskbar and the like - come with a price. Something on the computer has to work hard to deliver all those visual effects to the screen.

Microsoft originally intended the marketing for Vista to be perfectly clear that it would only be satisfying with a video card capable of displaying those effects quickly and clearly. Intel complained that some of its popular motherboards with integrated graphics were not capable of delivering a great Vista experience. Microsoft gave in to Intel, changed its marketing and delivered a hopelessly ambiguous and confusing message about Vista's hardware requirements, which played a significant role in Vista's failed marketing and poor consumer perception.

That's why it's a bit ironic that Intel is giving interviews claiming that any day now people "probably won't" need discrete video cards in their computers, because Intel's motherboards will do such a swell job on graphics. (Gamers will get a kick out of the video demo linked in the article, which is singularly unimpressive to anyone who has played a computer game in the last couple of years.)

I continue to insist that anyone buying a new computer get a 256Mb video card, typically from ATI or Nvidia. There are wide variations in video cards with 256Mb of memory but even the least of them will meet the needs of typical computer users today and for the foreseeable future. Buying anything less means the computer is starting out with a handicap that will slow things down - and these days we need to remove every bottleneck we can find.

ATI and Nvidia have been making video cards for a long time, trading places back and forth for the fastest and biggest and most macho. The latest video cards are frighteningly powerful and new models continue to be introduced at a dizzying pace. There are video cards on the market with a gigabyte of memory and so much hardware that computers need bigger power supplies and special cooling. Systems are being built with two and three and four huge video cards linked together and generating enough heat to warm small buildings.

It shouldn't be a surprise that the hardware outpaces the software drivers, which are updated constantly; each update purports to cure hundreds of bugs but seems to introduce a few more. ATI's drivers were a constant source of irritation in the early days; I can remember waiting impatiently for long-delayed releases of driver updates that invariably disappointed. Ooh, I hated ATI products!

Microsoft released a startling chart in its Vista-related litigation summarizing the causes of logged Vista crashes, grouped by company. Thirty percent of all Vista crashes were caused by Nvidia driver problems! That's remarkable, and awful. There's no additional information to put that in context - the time period, the details of driver and OS versions - so we're left with that hideous pie chart.

I'm so cynical about this imperfect industry that I don't see that as a reason not to buy Nvidia video cards. ATI drivers have their own idiosyncrasies and I'd bet things are already better for Nvidia after a few more months spent updating its drivers and working with Vista Service Pack 1. It's just another reason to sigh and grit our teeth when a system goes down.

Labels: computers, hardware, software, video, Vista

posted by bruceb at 4/07/2008 12:41:00 AM | permalink

At its heart, "net neutrality" involves a simple question: Should your Internet provider have any control over how you use your Internet connection? You're accustomed to being able to reach any Internet site freely and you assume you can run any kind of program that uses an online connection. AT&T and Comcast and the rest don't necessarily agree.

Damian Kulash, lead singer for the band OK Go, has written a lovely short piece for the New York Times explaining the issue of "net neutrality" - what it means and why it matters. Highly recommended!

"Most people assume that the Internet is a democratic free-for-all by nature - that it could be no other way. But the openness of the Internet as we know it is a byproduct of the fact that the network was started on phone lines. The phone system is subject to 'common carriage' laws, which require phone companies to treat all calls and customers equally. They can't offer tiered service in which higher-paying customers get their calls through faster or clearer, or calls originating on a competitor's network are blocked or slowed.

". . . But in the last decade, the network providers have argued that since the Internet is no longer primarily run on phone lines, the laws of data equality no longer apply. They reason that they own the fiber optic and coaxial lines, so they should be able to do whatever they want with the information crossing them.

"Under current law, they're right. They can block certain files or Web sites for their subscribers, or slow or obstruct certain applications. And they do, albeit pretty rarely. . . .

"When the network operators pull these stunts, there is generally widespread outrage. But outright censorship and obstruction of access are only one part of the issue, and they represent the lesser threat, in the long run. What we should worry about more is not what's kept from us today, but what will be built (or not built) in the years to come.

"We hate when things are taken from us (so we rage at censorship), but we also love to get new things. And the providers are chomping at the bit to offer them to us: new high-bandwidth treats like superfast high-definition video and quick movie downloads. They can make it sound great: newer, bigger, faster, better! But the new fast lanes they propose will be theirs to control and exploit and sell access to, without the level playing field that common carriage built into today's network.

"They won't be blocking anything per se - we'll never know what we're not getting - they'll just be leapfrogging today's technology with a new, higher-bandwidth network where they get to be the gatekeepers and toll collectors. The superlative new video on offer will be available from (surprise, surprise) them, or companies who've paid them for the privilege of access to their customers. If this model sounds familiar, that's because it is. It's how cable TV operates."

Labels: broadband, business, Internet

posted by bruceb at 4/06/2008 12:11:00 PM | permalink

Spent a few hours chasing down a problem with my office computer last night. It's just remarkable how many ways our computers can go wrong, isn't it? Honest, I would gladly give up much of my job security if it meant our technology would work more reliably.

The symptom: the computer starts up and presents a login screen; when the name and password is entered, the screen goes black and stays black, with nothing except a mouse cursor that moves around quite happily. Lots of hard drive activity as if the system is starting normally.

It wasn't the first time this had happened but it never lasted long before. It happened once or twice while I was working on the problem I described here. I thought I had resolved it. Not!

Shut down, restart. Cross my fingers while restarting. Turn the monitor off and on.

Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and the screen immediately appears with the options to lock the computer/log off/change password and "Start Task Manager." That would be good, eh? Try and start Task Manager but oops - right back to the black screen. If I log off, the login screen appears right away, fully lit up. The screen is only black when I log in.

Log in to other accounts - black screen, moving cursor.

A little Googling and imagine my surprise - people have experienced the same problem, plus variations on the problem, and there's no consensus on what causes it or how to solve it. I don't have all the links - I'll just give you the flavor.

Problems:

• Windows doesn't start; computer displays black screen with blinking cursor
• Windows starts but login screen doesn't appear; mouse cursor moves around.
• Windows starts and login screen appears; screen goes black after logging in on some user accounts but not others; mouse cursor moves around.
• Windows starts and login screen appears; screen goes black after logging in to any user account; mouse cursor moves around.
• Some people have seen this after returning from sleep or hibernation; others after remote desktop sessions; others (like mine) have no connection to anything in particular.

Possible solutions:

• Disable all Cyberlink programs (makers of PowerDVD) from starting automatically.
• Disable LSASS.SYS (deep part of Windows responsible for some networking functions) from starting automatically.
• Disable [fill in the blank] from starting automatically.
• Remove NTUSER.DAT from the user profile after logging into a different administrator account and let it rebuild on the next login.
• Bring up Task Manager and restart Explorer.exe.
• Change video card settings for multiple monitors, or plug single monitor into other video card connector on multi-monitor cards.
• Update (or roll back) video card drivers.
• Install USB Cumulative update in KB941600.
• Blame a virus or adware/spyware.
• Boot from Vista DVD and use Repair function.
• Use System Restore to return to "Last Known Good Configuration."
• Reinstall Vista.
• Reformat the hard drive.

Each "solution" works for some people and not others. I ran across at least one person complaining that their screen was still black after reformatting their hard drive and another continued to have a black screen after replacing his video card.

Of course, this is undoubtedly not a single problem but rather similar symptoms resulting from a lot of different problems.

I used my notebook computer to connect to my office computer using Remote Desktop. My desktop appeared and it was clear that the office computer was starting up completely normally in all respects except sending a signal to the monitor. I tried to change the display resolution and refresh rate, which turns out to be hard to do when the monitor is black. Those settings aren't available in Remote Desktop sessions and there's no obvious command line options.

After three or four hours I had a black screen and a headache, along with a lingering suspicion that it might be a hardware problem with the video card after all. I shut the computer down overnight. This morning when I logged in, my desktop appeared in all its bright glory - no black screen - and everything has been working for five hours straight. Could the video card be overheating? The system was set to put the monitor to sleep - did I overlook that and it won't happen again until the monitor goes to sleep next time?

I've got a new video card on the way. I wonder if it will make any difference?

When I'm cautious with my clients about troubleshooting hardware problems, it's experiences like this that are in my mind. But next time you want to throw a computer through a window, call me so I can help.

Labels: computers, hardware, video, Vista

posted by bruceb at 4/04/2008 01:41:00 PM | permalink

Sharp-eyed Microsoft Office users might have noticed that the default fonts are changed in Office 2007. The old familiar names are still there - Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, and Courier New - but the defaults are newcomers Cambria, Calibri, and more.

Microsoft had originally proposed standardized fonts for the Internet in 1995 and built Arial, Times New Roman, and several more deeply into Windows XP and Microsoft Office. They became ubiquitous across the web and virtually every computer user has them installed on their computers. For more than ten years most web sites have been designed with just a handful of fonts, usually Arial, Verdana, or Times New Roman.

With the release of Vista, Microsoft updated those core fonts with a family of new fonts closely resembling the old styles but with improved legibility for printing and onscreen viewing. Here's a chart that compares Cambria with Times New Roman, Calibri with Arial, and so on.

There are people who care about these things. On the whole, they're impressed by the work done by Microsoft's typography team. There are sophisticated studies of legibility where the new fonts have done well.

It's not completely obvious that Cambria and Calibri will be as dominant as Arial and Times New Roman, but there's no reason to resist them. Don't go back to Times New Roman in Word 2007 out of nostalgia!

Labels: Internet, Microsoft, Office, Vista

posted by bruceb at 4/03/2008 12:05:00 AM | permalink

When I set up a new computer these days, I spend almost no time describing new features in Windows Vista - people are generally able to start using it right away with a minimum of fuss. Outlook 2007 is so similar to Outlook 2003 that I don't even mention that it's a new version. The programs that get the most attention are Microsoft Word 2007 and Excel 2007, which got a complete overhaul that leaves people disoriented at first. (Most of them become big fans of the new design after a couple of weeks.)

Outlook 2007 is stable and fast but it has a few idiosyncrasies and no shortage of the kind of odd problems that promise to keep me employed for many years.

When Outlook 2007 is started for the first time, it presents a dialog box asking if you'd like to combine and synchronize the lists of RSS feeds in Outlook and Internet Explorer. Say what? For most people, this dialog box might as well be written in Sanskrit. Virtually everyone should choose "No" and move on. Choosing "Yes" without consciously following up to configure Outlook's support for RSS feeds can lead to slow performance, oversized mailboxes, crashes, sweating, drowsiness, and headaches.

(Although Outlook 2007 is not a very good RSS reader, it's worth knowing about RSS feeds, a useful way to keep up with blogs and other frequently updated web sites! Here's some basic information.)

Today I set up a new computer, installed all security updates and Vista Service Pack 1, then started Outlook for the first time. It refused to close, ignoring clicks on File / Exit and the upper right corner. It froze completely when I clicked on Tools / Trust Center - not just once, but repeatedly. After repeating the same steps five or six times, hoping that magic fairies would fix the problem if I just believed real hard, I finally convinced it to display a message that a dialog box was open. No box was anywhere in sight, but each time Outlook had started I had seen the dialog box appear and disappear in a flash that's intended to collect the user name and initials. It was acting exactly like a program with a hidden dialog box.

A little Googling led to a bug introduced by a recent security update that prevents the name/initials window from displaying correctly if Outlook is started for the first time after it's installed. Although it's possible to uninstall the KB946983 update, all it took was opening another Office program and filling out the same window. Outlook then opened and behaved normally.

This made me grouchy.

After restarting a computer, many people see Outlook's message that it must "check the data file for consistency because it was not closed down properly." Outlook 2007 does its check in the background but the computer slows down and Outlook is not very usable until the check is complete. I take it personally, since I'm very fastidious about closing programs before I shut down or restart.

It happens when a program keeps some portion of Outlook running even after the main window closes - a search program, a security program, or some other addin. This blogger found it happened less if he did not close Outlook before restarting Windows - somehow that gave Windows a better opportunity to close the entire program gracefully. Heck, it might work - I'm going to try it.

Some people found that Google Desktop was the culprit. I've been uninstalling Google Desktop pretty freely and so far no one has missed it. Most people don't even know it's installed. Dell has been shipping it on new systems for quite a while and it sometimes turns up riding along when other programs are installed.

There's a long list of suggestions on Slipstick Systems that might help troubleshoot the problem. It's another reason to go prune the list of addins that run in Outlook, removing any third party addins that are clearly unnecessary.

One more thing. Did you know you can have multiple Outlook windows open? Try right-clicking on "Calendar" or "Contacts," then clicking on "Open in new window." Typically I'll have Outlook running in three or four separate windows.

Labels: Microsoft, Office, Outlook, software

posted by bruceb at 4/02/2008 12:35:00 AM | permalink

Google Australia launched Gday today, a new search engine that allows users to search content on the internet before it is created.

"Google spiders crawl publicly available web information and our index of historic, cached web content. Using a mashup of numerous factors such as recurrence plots, fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, we can create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now.

"We can use this technique to predict almost anything on the web ? tomorrow?s share price movements, sports results or news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of blogs and newspaper columns, 24 hours before they?re written!"

Google has traditionally introduced innovative new products around this time of year. It's possible there will be more announcements from Google throughout the day.

Labels: Google, humor, Internet

posted by bruceb at 4/01/2008 12:42:00 AM | permalink