BRUCEB NEWS
The Bad Guys Are Gonna Git You If You Don’t Watch Out
Be careful when you read your email! I’ve noticed an increase in phishing messages in the last few months. The bad guys continue to improve their grammar and the presentation of their fake messages, to make it more likely that you’ll be fooled into giving them a...
UMAX PIONEERS NEW PRICE GOUGE
Umax is one of the leading manufacturers of scanners. A week ago, they began charging for driver updates that previously had been available as a free web download. And prices are...
THE FBI, PROUD GUARDIANS OF OUR RIGHTS
Gotta love this story. In 2000, the FBI apparently used Carnivore electronic surveillance in an attempt to collect information on Osama bin Laden's network. Unfortunately they...
ADVERTISING ON TIVOS
A nasty surprise lies ahead for users of personal video recorders. TiVo and Replay market devices that are godsends to serious TV hounds. They connect at night to a program...
RECORDING INDUSTRY MARCHES ON
More developments in the recording industry's relentless war to make sure we can't actually hear any music. Yesterday KaZaA, the Dutch software and products company which founded...
DUNGEON SIEGE
Got a new computer, an Nvidia GeForce 3 or 4 video card, and a bunch of free time? Check out the reviews of Dungeon Siege and see if it looks like you might be tempted. I don't...
REPRIEVE FOR INTERNET RADIO
On May 2, I wrote about an order due to take effect this week requiring Internet streaming radio stations to pay punishingly high royalties for songs - far higher than comparable...
XBOX LIVE AND ONLINE GAMING
The next hot market is online gaming - plenty hot already, but due for a big push in the next eight months. Many people are joining massive online worlds and investing oodles of...
CRACKING CDs WITH MAGIC MARKERS
The recording industry is going to elaborate lengths to create music CDs that are copy-protected - to prevent you from copying, or "burning," music onto recordable CDs, onto a...
VIRUSES REAL AND IMAGINARY
REAL: A particularly nasty new virus named "Klez" is making the rounds by e-mail. It has the usual characteristics: it arrives in a randomly-generated message from someone you...
EXTRAORDINARY DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
"Personal video recorders" (PVRs) are the hot new item in the television industry. Tivo and Sonicblue Replay are the market leaders. These boxes act like a super VCR. They record...
SCANNER TUTORIAL
PC Magazine has an article about scanning that answers a lot of basic questions about digital images, scanning resolutions, and what to do with some of the scanner controls -...
COPY PROTECTED CDS CAN CRASH COMPUTERS
More copy protected CDs are hitting the market - especially in Europe, but clearly the US is next. They corrupt the CD in ways that make many of them unplayable in a computer or...
INTERNET PRIVACY AND APATHY
In March Yahoo changed its marketing policy. With no warning, it suddenly granted itself the right to send advertising spam, postal mail, and telemarketing phone calls to tens of...
KAZAA LITE
Kazaa has taken over as the best music sharing program - most users, best selection, best interface. But Kazaa has been rightfully attacked for including other "spyware" programs...
STAR WARS REVIEWS
Pick your flavor of early reviews of Attack of the Clones. On one side: a very favorable review from BBC News. Sample: "This is quite possibly the best Star Wars of the series....