BRUCEB NEWS
The $240 Question: Is Free AI Good Enough?
In the last article I ordered you to subscribe to a $20/month plan for ChatGPT or Google Gemini. I didn’t explain why and in hindsight I shouldn’t have phrased it as “Follow and obey me, you low-bandwidth peasantry.” That was rude. Let’s talk some more about that….
WINDOWS DESKTOP SEARCH – VERSION CONFUSION
Windows Desktop Search is the invaluable technology from Microsoft that indexes Outlook folders and documents for lightning-fast searches – the same technology that…
BABY BOOMER HEAVEN
The world is awash with music, but the latest offering is a slice of heaven for anyone growing up in the 60s and 70s. Wolfgangs Vault is run by Bill Sagan, an entrepreneur who…
WIDESCREEN MONITORS
Televisions are switching to widescreen displays, 16:9 aspect ratios like a movie screen instead of the more square 4:3 aspect ratio. Computer monitors are following the same…
VISTA RELEASE, PART 1
It was widely reported that Windows Vista was officially released today as the successor to Windows XP. Here’s the New York Times story about the release, and here’s…
IPOD SKINS
There are several thousand accessories for iPod owners – here’s one that would make a great stocking stuffer. Gelaskins makes particularly gorgeous skins, thin vinyl…
FLIMSY TECHNOLOGY
I frequently rant about the declining quality of hardware and software. Here’s an article blaming manufacturers: “Now computers are fast enough, mobile phones are…
DISPOSABLE E-MAIL ADDRESSES
Some web sites require an e-mail address and send a confirming e-mail message to activate an account. The “confirmation” might be an excuse to get an e-mail address…
IE7 & QUICKBOOKS
Some versions of Quickbooks are incompatible with Internet Explorer 7. It’s hard to say why IE7 came as a surprise to Intuit, but only now are patches appearing to make…
IE7 & THE LANGUAGE BAR
The Windows XP language bar reappears in the lower right-hand corner after installing Internet Explorer 7. It makes it easy to change the default language used by Windows XP, or…
MEMORY – THE MAGIC NUMBER CREEPS UPWARD
A few years ago, we routinely got 256Mb of RAM for our new Windows XP computers. Memory was expensive and 256Mb was sufficient to run Windows XP, an antivirus program, an e-mail…
GADGET SLOWDOWN
It briefly looked as if we would be awash in a sea of new gadgets for the holidays, but the flood turned into a trickle – and a pretty disappointing trickle, too. Two…
WINDOWS VISTA RTM
Microsoft completed its work on Windows Vista and released it to manufacturing, beginning a ten-week process of pressing DVDs, putting them into odd looking plastic cases, and…
USE MP3 FORMAT FOR MUSIC FILES!
When you rip CDs to convert them to music files on your computer, a setting in your music software determines the format used for those files, and the bit rate at which the music…
INTERNET EXPLORER 7 – TABBED PAGES, ZOOM
It took me a long time to get used to the tabbed pages in Internet Explorer 7, but I’m starting to learn some of the shortcuts that bring them to life. Try some of these…
MICROSOFT SYNCTOY
Microsoft has released version 1.4 of its wildly useful utility SyncToy, a free program for copying, moving, renaming and deleting files between folders and computers….