BRUCEB NEWS
A Cautionary Tale About Always-Connected Computers
This is a fun and interesting story that ends with me so angry that I want to feed my laptop into a wood chipper. Fair warning: to get there, you have to read a bit more about ARM processors and Intel processors. Yuck! I know, right? But this story is WAY easier than…
DELL COMPUTERS
As other computer manufacturers fall by the wayside, Dell continues to stand out. They ship promptly, they don’t make very many mistakes, and their customer support is as…
ORBITZ.COM
Five major airlines are working to bring Orbitz.com online next month as a one-stop source for airline reservations. Every other human being connected with the travel industry is…
EASY CD CREATOR 5 & WINDOWS 2000
Easy CD Creator is the software I use for burning CDs. It’s got a reasonably simple interface and it does almost everything most people want to do with their burners. (Out…
WINDOWS XP PRODUCT ACTIVATION
Tech types are all atwitter over the “Product Activation” requirement that will be introduced with Windows XP. After you install a retail copy of Windows XP, you…
MORE CHEAP COMPUTERS
Look, this is getting ridiculous. Costco has a few dozen E-Machines today with these specs: Celeron 633MHz processor, 64Mb RAM, 15 Gb HD, plus a DVD drive and the usual…
SATELLITE STORY, PART 5
My purchase order is in for Pegasus Express Plus service. The price has dropped a bit in the last two weeks. Startup costs are about $600 for hardware (including installation)…
CABLE INTERNET ACCESS
AT&T now owns most of the cable system in Sonoma County. They’ve amusingly named the cable division “AT&T Broadband,” and cable Internet service has…
MICROSOFT & SMALL BUSINESSES
Microsoft has revamped its bCentral web site, a collection of services and resources for small businesses. One interesting example is the offer to design and host a web site from…
NEW ADOBE ACROBAT & QUICKTIME
I don’t know whether these are compelling upgrades – haven’t tried them, don’t know about new features – but Adobe has released Acrobat Reader 5.0…
WEB SITE OF THE DAY
You were probably thinking to yourself, gosh, I wonder where I can see stick figures fighting Jackie Chan-style? Aren’t you glad I’m around to help? (Requires Flash…
BORDERS HANDS ONLINE OPERATIONS TO AMAZON
Did you see that Borders is handing its web site to Amazon? Borders will close its own site, and Amazon will open a new site that features both logos, with Amazon essentially…
LINKS TO PUNDITS
A new addition to the Favorites page (under News / Links): Slate links, a collection of links to hundreds of political columnists, editorial pages, movie critics, book reviewers,…
GATEWAY PULLING OUT OF OFFICEMAX
Tough year! Gateway is struggling with slumping sales and a fuzzy business plan. It’s closing a bunch of its own Gateway Country stores, and it just announced that…
MICROSOFT CORDLESS MOUSE
I should have expected that Microsoft would release its own cordless mouse, to counter the recent successful releases from Logitech. Here’s an early review of the Microsoft…
CHEAP COMPUTERS
Prices are nosediving again. Want a cheap computer? There’s only a few left, but how about an E-Machine E-Monster 1000 – a Pentium III 1GHz processor, 20Gb hard…