BRUCEB NEWS
The Circus of Dr Lao: A Small, Strange American Masterpiece
Psst. Come in, come in! I’ve got a weird and wonderful book for you. There are books that feel like neatly arranged shelves. Then there are books like The Circus of Dr. Lao , which feels more like someone opened a door in the back of the room and a carnival wandered…
ACER ACQUIRES GATEWAY
Acer, the third largest PC manufacturer globally, announced that it is acquiring Gateway and the eMachines brand purchased by Gateway a few years ago. I’m nostalgic about…
BRUCEB.COM FACELIFT
The award-winning bruceb.com web site has been given a much-needed facelift. If you find anything that isn’t working correctly – dead links, buttons that pulse…
BRUCEB REMOTE SUPPORT
Providing support by phone is far more effective when the person at the other end can see your screen. I’m in a position now to work with your computer remotely at your…
GOOGLE NEWS
An interesting collection of news about Google projects today. As the new owner of YouTube, Google will introduce scrolling advertisements to YouTube videos today. They promise…
THE QUEST FOR FREE ONLINE COURT RULINGS
Another attempt is being made to bypass West and Lexis-Nexis and make court rulings available online for free – and it’s coming from Sebastopol. Carl Malamud is an…
VISTA & CONTENT PROTECTION FOLLOWUP
Vista’s implementation of copyright protection for video does its job quietly and effectively. Early claims to the contrary are being debunked. Let’s be clear….
HOTMAIL UPDATE & OUTLOOK CONNECTOR
There are new reasons to use Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail for your e-mail. Hotmail got a facelift a few months ago that made it speedy and attractive, but the interface…
REDUNDANCY IS OUR FRIEND, AND SO IS REDUNDANCY
Very small businesses frequently depend on computer systems with several potential failure points, where a single failure can cause the network to go down for an uncomfortable…
PATCH TUESDAY – AUGUST
Microsoft will release nine security updates today, on its regular monthly schedule. If your computer is set to install updates automatically, then your computer will restart….
DROWNING IN PASSWORDS
There are more web services in our future, and your entrance to each of them will be controlled by a name and a password. If you don’t already have some method of tracking…
WINDOWS LIVE SKYDRIVE
Microsoft has opened Windows Live Skydrive for beta testing. (During development it was known as Windows Live Folders.) It’s a place to store up to 500Mb of files online…
WINDOWS VISTA SP1 PREVIEW
There’s a frequently repeated piece of conventional wisdom: many businesses have delayed buying computers with Vista because they never purchase Microsoft’s first…
GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS & ADVERTISING
Solicitations arrive constantly in my mailbox offering to help move bruceb.com to the top of search engine results (where it so clearly belongs). It is easy to become confused…
WIRELESS HEADACHES
The Wall Street Journal wrote an article last month about wireless networks, expressing a sentiment many of you have probably felt – namely, they’re a pain in the…
DELL & VISTA
In the last couple of weeks I’ve set up several Dell Optiplex computers running Windows Vista from Dell’s small business division. Dell has seriously cut back on…