2004 October

Viruses & Spyware & Worms, oh, my!
Lately it seems like not a day goes by we don’t hear about some new kind of threat aimed at wreaking havoc across machines connected to the Internet. While products other than Microsoft’s are certainly vulnerable, due to anti-Microsoft sentiment coupled with the massive installed base, Microsoft products seem […]

Climb to the top of the ladder by answering fun questions from the Trivia Machine! The game features thousands of trivia questions across nine fun categories. The unique gameplay involves strategy as well as trivia knowledge… it’s challenging and entertaining! New questions are downloaded automatically so you may never see the same question twice.

Modern games are so focused on intense action that you usually don’t even have to think about what you’re doing. Running around while holding down the trigger button often proves to be the best strategy for most games. Some of us actually prefer to think about and plan our moves before we make them. If […]

When traveling, or when any other long stretch of monotony is placed upon you, it’s a good idea to use things that will help to pass the time. Some read books, others use laptops, and even more people can be found listening to portable music players. Let’s also not forget the individuals who opt to […]

Q: There are several open wireless networks that I use while I’m out and about. On a couple of occasions I have done some online banking while I’m on these networks, but after reading about all of the security problems, I’m becoming a little uneasy. Should I be concerned?

I didn’t get my associates degree online. Oh no. I got it the old-fashioned way, with my butt in an uncomfortable seat. I confess. I earned my two-year degree over too too many years–by attending a county college. There was little talk of online associate degrees, or any online degrees for that matter, back in […]

Through the miracle of modern science and medicine, we are doing more to improve the quality and length of life in the world today. The quality of care, the type and variety of medicines, and the miracle of miracles, the ability to transplant from one body to another the gift of life. Today’s Family First […]

I’m making oodles of progress in my quest to finish a Failsafe guide on installing XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). The majority of the eBook is completed; all that is left now is to finish off the “post installation” section, make a video tutorial, answer 300 e-mails related to SP2, and put together a […]

Spammers. E-mail marketing at its worst. Who among us has not asked themselves “Who are these spammers, and why do they do it?”
It is this question, among many others, which Brian McWilliams so deftly answers in Spam Kings, a new book just published by O’Reilly, the people who bring us all those incomprehensible books […]

The idea of a talking computer came into existence long before the PC was ever born. Yet science-fiction aside, the reality is that most people’s PCs don’t actually speak to them at all. We speak to them, whether through voice recognition or desperation, but it’s a one-way thing.

I’m sure most of us are familiar with that ever-popular snake game. It seems to be a staple on cell phones and other mobile devices. The concept of moving around and collecting items while at the same time avoiding the walls and your growing tail is a simple concept, but it proves to be very […]

Man’s best friend is a beloved companion of a huge number of people. No, I’m not talking about money; I’m talking about dogs. These animals can really prove to be a true friend to many, and they are oftentimes more spoiled than an individual’s children. If the desire for a slobbering mammal (aren’t you already […]

As you may remember, I recently talked about a couple of software options that will record streaming video in the Windows Media format. Instead of just giving one perspective on the matter, I asked the audience of Gnomies to tell me what tools they use to preserve streaming video. Many of you wrote in, and […]

Scenario: You have just reinstalled Windows XP Pro on your Boot partition. After everything is up and running, you go to open a text file on your data partition and get an error: Access Denied. How can this happen? Why can you not open your file anymore?
I get this question more than most on the […]

I clicked over to Amazon this morning and saw something featured on the front page that I never would have expected in a thousand years: a home defibrillator. I guess the defibrillator shouldn’t have struck me as being odd, as the big A has become the store that wants to sell everything to everyone. Why […]

In a slightly unexpected move, Google announced that it had acquired
satellite mapping firm Keyhole. Keyhole’s exciting and
innovative technology allows users to “…fly from space to your home town. Visit
exotic locales such as Maui, Tokyo, Rome and Paris. Satellite imagery makes it
real. Explore restaurants, hotels, parks and schools. Think magic carpet
ride,” according to Keyhole, itself.

They were one of the biggest rock groups of the ’60s. They had their own television show (#1 in the ratings), hit record after hit record, and yet their career lasted barely three years. But they are still making music today, in person and in the studio, and yes, they are still walking down the […]

EarthLink, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! all filed lawsuits today against spammers in California, Virginia, and Washington. While it is unclear whether the timing was coordinated, who the heck cares? Good on ya, Aunty says!
EarthLink’s lawsuit, filed under CAN-SPAM, is against “the Mortgage Lead Spammers” and “the Drug Spammers.” (Don’t you just love it?)

This seems like a very good time to lay out the situation vis-a-vis PivX and their product Qwik-Fix Pro Home edition. Let me say right now that my “beef” (as one of the principals in this matter put it) is not necessarily with PivX or with eWeek, who published the review that got ME involved […]

My flight to Denver wasn’t on one of those new-fangled planes with wireless Internet access on-board. And while United lets you listen to the same chatter that the pilots hear, I didn’t even have access to an audio jack. I could’ve opened up my laptop and written a few things en route, but my battery […]