2005 July

It’s not every day that you get to meet one of your musical heroes. Last night, I shook hands with Steven Page of BNL (Barenaked Ladies). I found it incredibly challenging to keep myself from turning into a sycophantic drooling monkey boy while interviewing him. He’s the real McCoy - a rock star who hasn’t [...]

Compare 135 loans at once with Loan Spread Calculator Pro. Then drill into the details using the Loan Summary feature to see the specific details about any of the 135 loans you are comparing. See the big picture with a unique perspective on borrowing money! It automatically displays financial answers on a two-dimensional grid as [...]

K Alert is an add-on for Microsoft Outlook 2003 that can extend the Outlook reminder functionalities by forwarding them to an e-mail address or cell phone number (SMS) if the reminder is not dismissed by the user. If you are out of the office, and an Outlook reminder is activated, you would normally see it [...]

With the introduction of podcasting support in the latest version of iTunes, this new breed of radio has hit the mainstream. We’ve been talking about it relentlessly, and for a good reason. Even when it’s bad, it’s good… most of the time. There’s just something compelling about listening to random strangers spout off about whatever [...]

I mentioned last week that I needed to reinstall Windows XP onto my home computer. Since I wanted to erase the hard disk anyway, I decided to try a little experiment. We’ve all heard that broadband is far more susceptible to malware than is dialup; you have space for dozens of online transactions [...]

Ken Colburn of Data Doctors helps out Don, who writes:
With all of the phishing e-mail messages that are going around, how can I tell a legitimate Web site or message from a hoax?

If your system is currently running Windows, you can perform a re-install of the OS. In other words, you can install Windows over itself. This is often referred to as an in-place upgrade.
When you perform this type of installation, Windows XP is reinstalled to the same folder. Typically you would perform this type of installation [...]

Performing a repair allows you to try and fix your existing installation of Windows XP. The main advantage of doing this is that you do not have to reinstall any applications, restore any data, or reconfigure your personalized settings.
The basic steps for performing a repair are as follows:

Boot your computer using the Windows XP CD.
When [...]

July 31, 1965
Often compared to best-selling children’s author Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling is the biggest thing to hit children’s literature since, well, since Roald Dahl. If you enjoy either reading or writing, you’ll want to know more about the British mom who created Harry Potter from her imagination.

According to this search, Microsoft is going to be releasing a new PowerToy in August 2005 for Windows XP. SyncToy looks to be a winner:
Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store and retrieve files. There are new sources of files coming [...]