BRUCEB NEWS
DROP Promises Privacy But The River Still Flows
California has new rules – the DROP platform – that could interfere with the money being made by California data brokers. The data brokers will find ways around the rules . The profile they put together by spying on you is a tiny twig carried in a rushing river of…
OFFICE 2007 COMPATIBILITY PACK
Microsoft Office 2007 features top-to-bottom rewrites of Word, Excel and Powerpoint, with ribbons replacing the familiar menus and toolbars. There is another change lurking under…
GRAND THEFT AUTO IV (AND A RABBITY THING)
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…
MICROSOFT LIVE MESH
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…
CELL PHONE SPAM
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…
AUTOMATIC DISTRIBUTION OF VISTA SP1
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…
MICROSOFT & THE CLOUD
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…
FIXING WINDOWS VISTA
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….
WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 3
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….
MICROSOFT OFFICE LIVE WORKSPACE
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…
AT&T: PROUD TO BE STUPID
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…
Outlook Shortcuts
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…
NDR SPAM
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…
BLUE JEANS CABLE STRIKES BACK
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…
APPLE & GATEWAY
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…
BAD GUY UPDATE
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,…