BRUCEB NEWS
A Tiny Windows Tip Of Minimal Importance
Press the Windows key + M to minimize all open windows. Your programs are still running on the taskbar but your desktop is immediately cleared. That’s it. That’s the tip. A Tiny Windows Tip should be a “TWIT,” don’t you think? When you talk to me, I want you to think...
GATEWAY STORES TO CLOSE
Gateway announced today that it will close all of its remaining retail stores on April 9, ending an expensive and difficult experiment for a company that has been struggling to...
GOOGLE E-MAIL
Google has begun testing a free webmail service named GMail. Here's a press release from Google about the new service. Google intends to offer each user essentially unlimited...
ADOBE & APPLE DRIFTING APART
Apple fans are increasingly hard-pressed to justify clinging to a product with an insignificant, dwindling market share. The conventional wisdom is that Apple computers have some...
OUTLOOK 2003 SPAM FILTER UPDATE
If you're using Outlook 2003, go to the Office Update site and install whatever updates it suggests. Among other things, you'll get a brand new update for the spam filter in...
MICROSOFT PASSPORT TO NOWHERE
Microsoft's Passport was envisioned as a central place for your personal information, safeguarded by Microsoft, which would then be accessed during your online shopping so you...
REMOTE ACCESS
You may not realize it, but the world of computing is changing this year faster and more fundamentally than ever before. Slowly but unsurely we're being untethered from our...
INTERNET ACCESS CONTROL
I installed NetNanny software on the kids' computer to control their access to inappropriate web sites and to be able to shut off services if necessary - for example, to turn off...
BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES
Perhaps a glimpse of the future: this Slate article describes a company that has rolled out broadband Internet service over power lines to 16,000 homes in Cincinnati. (New...
SECRETS HIDDEN IN MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENTS
Microsoft Word saves "metadata" along with a document - extra information ranging from identification of authors and reviewers of a document to all text added and deleted in...
BITTORRENT
Music downloading is taking off in new directions. Kazaa continues to load annoying adware onto your computer when it's installed. It's harder than ever to find anything other...
DEATH OF THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY
Here's a funny article predicting the death of the video game industry. The author makes some telling points - the technology used for games on computers and consoles has reached...
DIGITAL VIDEO
The cost of digital camcorders is coming down and software is flooding onto the market for video editing. The field is still in its early stages; like many new directions for...
SATELLITE BROADBAND
Hughes Electronics has been struggling with Internet access by satellite for years. Although it can be better than dialup in rural areas with no other options, it's been wildly...
“I’M NOT DEAD!”
Monty Python fans will recall the scene in Holy Grail where the wagon trundles by collecting the bodies of people struck down by the plague. A peasant comes out carrying the body...
MORE AOL INSTANT MESSENGER GRIEF
AOL Instant Messenger was updated recently to version 5.5 - and apparently it secretly installs Wild Tangent, a "game content delivery service," along with the IM program. Wild...