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Get ready for the Wireless MAN, baby. Or short for Wireless Metropolitan Area Network.
> All About The MAN

Spam Overload Dept:
According to a recent survey, about 65 percent of Net users spend 10 minutes or more a day dealing with spam. About 37 percent of respondents get 100 junk messages a day, and 63 percent get 50 or more.
Source: Symantec and Insightexpress

Alice Hill's Technology Watch

Saturday, June 26, 2004

Pioneer Dies

Bob Bemer, inventor of ASCII, the ESC key, and even the man who named the COBOL programing language died this week at the age of 84. According to Reuters: "He worked for several years for IBM Corp. in the late 1950s and 1960s, and it was there that he helped develop the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is a format code used in most computers in the world that allows them to read text as a binary number.

"Bemer is also credited with writing the computer sequence that allows for the "escape" command. The escape command was seen as a major innovation in computing because it allowed users to move backward or sideways in a program."

# Posted at 9:19 AM

HP Forgets

Get ready for some Blue Screens of Death you HP portable users! Hewlett-Packard sez it has about 900,000 notebooks out in the general population that could have memory problems. Figuring out whether or not your portable is on that short list will be a little like consulting a Quija board. The problem only occurs within a certain combination of Intel processors, chipsets, and memory module manufactures. Okay, but don't start yelling at HP. Dell had a similar problem four years ago --although it only affected 200,000 to 400,000 laptops.

(Do you see these numbers?! "Oh, it's just a little thing. Don't worry about it..." )

Click on the headline above to get to the ZDNet story this is from where you'll also find a list of probable notebooks affected and a lot of other hilarious stuff. --By Bill O'Brien
# Posted at 9:08 AM

New Virus Alert!
A dead blue jay found in Godfrey tested positive for West Nile virus, the Illinois Department of Public Health said Monday.

Okay, okay... There is a new computer virus around also. Strange one too. Apparently, it was sent out initially to infect popular business sites on the web where it sits waiting for folk like you and me (all right, maybe you, there aren't any other folk like me) to log on. When we do, it jumps to our computers and then hangs out. Why? According to news stories floating around, the infected personal computer then becomes a stealth mail center for spammers whenever it's powered up. So far, there's been no real bandwidth denting reported but think about the implications. A couple of million computers sending out a couple of thousand e-mails could put a serious hurt on the Internet --and about 13 percent of our economy is derived from Internet commerce at this point.

And the frightening point? You don't even need to know how to steer an airplane to do it. ---By Bill O'Brien
# Posted at 9:07 AM

Anti-Spyware Bill Heads for House

The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 45-4 in favor of the Spy Act, which targets software that hides in personal computers and secretly monitors people's activities or displays unwanted advertising. The measure is backed by Rep. Mary Bono, a California Republican, and has 28 co-sponsors.

The Spy Act includes 21 pages of dense regulations that specify what software can and can't do and under what circumstances it must seek explicit permission from the user to proceed. It covers activities such as taking control of a computer, modifying browser settings, installing a keystroke logger, and bypassing antivirus software.
# Posted at 9:06 AM

Comdex Cancelled
"Computer trade show Comdex, once the biggest event on the tech calendar, has been canceled this year, a victim of the growing interest in shows emphasizing consumer electronics and specialist IT gear."

Guest Commentary by Bill, O'Brien: "Comdex has not been doing well for years. In fact, you can trace its slow downhill spiral to the introduction of the first Spring Comdex. And the first time the rights to Comdex were sold, someone should have sat down and figured out, "Hey, why would someone sell a golden cash cow...?"

"Comdex was a beautiful thing. I know this because Alice made me walk back from the convention center to our hotel ("Oh c'mon... It's only a stone's throw!" Yeah, if you had a catapult.) and I got to see everything and everyone up close and exhaustedly personal. Things got stinky when the powers-that-were turned it into a business proposition rather than a celebration of computing. Hopefully it can get back on track but I don't think many will miss it in its current iteration if it doesn't."
# Posted at 9:05 AM

AOL Employee Steals 92 Million Names

Ever since Time Warner took the AOL name off its building we've wondered what AOL would do. Now the truth can be told.... Jason Smathers, 24, was fired from his job as a software engineer for AOL after being arrested at his home in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, company officials said. He was charged with conspiracy. Smathers, who worked at AOL�s offices in Dulles, Virginia, sold the list to Sean Dunaway, 21, of Las Vegas, according to a criminal complaint. Dunaway, also charged with conspiracy, then used it to promote an internet gambling operation and sold it to spammers.

So when you AOL folk have mail, you'll already know where it's coming from...
# Posted at 9:03 AM

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

New Versions of Skype Launch

If you haven't downloaded what we consider the MOST innovative tech product of the year, here's your chance. Skype - the free VOIP download that sounds better than a real phone (we are not kidding) just released a new version of its beta that includes the ability to upload your photo, as well as some future hints about being able to dial non-Skype phone numbers. Oh...and they also released a Linux version.

What are you waiting for???
# Posted at 1:40 PM

Alice Meets Prince Charles

As promised in the July issue of Alice and Bill's Computer Shopper column, The Hard Edge, here are some pictures of Alice chatting with Prince Charles. There is even a short movie clip for those who want to see the real deal.

Why should you care? Because Bill bet Alice she wouldn't tell HRH something technical, and she ended up chatting for some time with him about computer viruses. After he moved to the next person, Alice heard him discussing web viruses with the next few groups in the receiving line. Score!
# Posted at 1:39 PM

New iPod-Based Field Guide To NYC Pizzerias

Mama Mia Dept: Slice, billed as "America's Favorite weblog" has developed a field guide to NY York pizzerias that runs on the iPod.

The guide codes pizza places for fast reference, such as C for coal oven, P for pies only, and of course ++ for highly reccomended sites. Makes us wish we were in NYC right now.
# Posted at 1:39 PM

Intel Shares Technology with Chinese Chipmaker

Intel Corp. has signed an agreement to transfer chip-making technology and equipment to Nanotech Corp., a start-up contract chip maker in China. So this means what? Intel has grown weary of suing AMD for patent infringement? Considering the problem Microsoft is having with the Chinese market, Intel hopefully got better intel than this deal might lead one to believe. --Posted by Bill O'Brien
# Posted at 1:38 PM

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