.Mobi isn't half of a Melville classic
In 2006, I first stood up in front of the domain world (from my now-collapsed platform as CNET’s On the Dot columnist) and issued a challenge:Call me Ishmael. Go ahead, I dare you. Call me Ishmael,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Holy Week! It's Easter Egg Time!
Now that we're into the week leading up to Easter, the time seems right to examine the old programmer's exercise, the software Easter egg. Once upon a time, these little hidden treats were tucked away...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Easter Eggs we have loved: Excel 4
At the top of the Easter egg list for sheer mean-spiritedness, we have Excel 4.0. Microsoft's coders weren't content with being poised to corner the market on Windows-based spreadsheets back in 1992....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Easter Eggs we have loved: Word 2
I don't know what you were doing in 1991, but Word for Windows 2.0 was crushing its competition--literally. Hidden away in Microsoft Word's About box were six crudely animated stick figures who jumped...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Easter Eggs we have loved: The Hall of Tortured Souls
If you were ever a fan of the exploration and FPS game Doom, there's something tucked away in Excel 95 that you will flip for. It's called the Hall of Tortured Souls.The Hall is a 3-D walkthrough...
View ArticleYour word processor is no typewriter
I learned how to type before I had a computer. In fact, I traded in my quill-sharpening kit for a manual typewriter and learned how to type at night school. I was a graduate student at the time, and...
View ArticleSetting up PCs for multiple users
For the past six years, I've been dealing with Windows XP machines that get a lot of use from a lot of people. They sit in school tech labs. They sit in libraries. And they sit in classrooms. Some of...
View ArticleMac says "Where's the Active Directory?"
Here's the scenario: You're working in an Active Directory network and somebody starts to bring Macs into the workplace. Slowly but surely, you have a cluster of them, and you need to get them onto the...
View ArticleSpace age technology
Like most people who have seen the latest Star Trek movie, I naturally think of space age hardware as the pinnacle of modern technology. To blast ahead at warp speeds, the systems in space must surely...
View ArticleDomain steps
Some people have accused me of "confusing" domain registration with hosting. It's one of the less valid responses to my latest article for Computerworld, a review of three budget domain registrars,...
View ArticleCamera action
YouTube addiction and parenthood are the twin engines that drive the digital video camera industry. Billions of bytes of wobbly-handed footage no longer languish on hard drives; they're all put video...
View ArticleCompuServe...site u like?
RIP CompuServe, my old stamping ground. This venerable online community was my introduction to online world, and once made my pockets jingle with loose change, since I was someone who actually earned...
View ArticleWin 7 : Win Users 31
Like every other journalist who's been writing about technology for a while--and anyone else who could be bothered to download 2.6GB of beta code--I have been working with Windows 7 for six months. For...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spot the error
Care to guess what kind of error Cisco Clean Access Agent is reporting here? Cisco does offer a few clues along the way...
View ArticleHow low can you go?
Just when you thought you'd found the cheapest domain registrar...someone goes and lowers the bar. This is getting ridiculous! Lots of people offer free domains if you buy into their hosting packages....
View ArticleMurky Bucket
It seems that my nation needs me. I left Britain 23 years ago, and now, according to an article in today's Daily Telegraph, people there don't want to say "Thank you" anymore. Of course, they are...
View ArticleBugging out!
I'm in the throes of writing a feature article on computer bugs at the moment. It gave me the chance to revisit an old favorite of mine from 1994. The Pentium floating point flaw was in the news at the...
View ArticleArticle 7
It's Debugging Day! When an editor I've worked with for a decade mentioned she wanted an article on software bugs last spring, we decided to publish it on September 9, because it's the 63rd anniversary...
View ArticleFriday Limerick #1
A corporate man in a suit,Came and told me his laptop won't bootI saw what was wrongIt's the same old sad song"That's a briefcase, you dozy old coot!"
View Article
