BRUCEB NEWS
AI Consumer Basics
Here’s your human-generated summary of the latest AI news. Mankind has never lived through a period of technological change like this. It arrived overnight, it is constantly changing and evolving, and its impact is so multifold that we literally can’t comprehend it…
MP3s AND THE FUTURE OF MUSIC
The music industry is in complete disarray; the shift away from CDs is irreversible and most consumers simply expect music to be free. The recording industry’s hostility,…
ACROBAT 8 TIPS & TRICKS
It’s easy to start using Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional, but it is also full of features that only emerge after a little digging. Here are some cool things that I…
VERIZON’S OPEN NETWORK
Verizon’s announcement that it would open up its network next year to devices not sold in Verizon stores made headlines and generated lots of online buzz. It is a welcome…
NEW YORK TIMES READER
The New York Times has a software-based version of the paper that – for the first time – makes it possible to imagine mornings without a newspaper printed on dead…
THE BAD GUYS NEVER STOP
Google has just purged its index of thousands of malware sites that were being displayed in results lists for hundreds of innocuous search phrases. It’s a quick end to a…
PLUGIN POSTSCRIPT
As if to emphasize my paranoia about plugins, yesterday I got a call from a client who has successfully used the YouSendIt Outlook plugin for months. It stopped working for no…
UNPLUGGING PLUGINS
We’ve become familiar with the slowdowns and crashes associated with programs and services that start up automatically when a computer is turned on. Now I’m running…
YOUSENDIT OUTLOOK PLUGIN
YouSendIt is one of the best-known services for moving large files from place to place – a persistent problem. I just learned about a way to set up Outlook to transmit…
COMPUTER SHOPPING 2007
Thinking about a new computer – home, home office, small business? Let me give you some generalizations that will help you get started. (As always, gamers will be looking…
VISTA FEATURE: DREAMSCENE & DESKSCAPES
Vista Ultimate includes “Dreamscene” as an optional extra installed through the Windows Update system. It’s a completely frivolous bit of eye candy that…
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at bruceb consulting! All my best wishes for a happy holiday filled with family, food, and computers that stay running long enough to show off…
PAYPAL FOR NON-PAYPAL SITES
PayPal has a new service for making payments through its system on websites that don’t take PayPal directly. When you set up a free PayPal account (a login name and…
FOLDERSHARE OUTAGE
Foldershare is an invaluable free service from Microsoft for sharing files and folders among several computers, keeping the folders in sync with each other automatically….
WINDOWS LIVE ONECARE 2.0
At some point next week, computers running Windows Live OneCare will automatically be upgraded to OneCare 2.0. Apparently the intent is to make the update automatic and…
VISTA FEATURE: READYBOOST
Here’s another Vista feature worth knowing about. To perform well, Vista requires 2Gb of system memory. That’s partially because Vista is more demanding than Windows…