Last week, I complained about a low-level private investigator forced to plead
guilty in the HP spy case. The state of California might
let
young Bryan Wagner off its Golden State hooks because the 29-year-old is
already being punished (lightly it seems) by the feds.
Meanwhile, former chairwoman Patricia Dunn and three other alleged conspirators
were offered what sounds like the deal
of a lifetime. The feds will drop felony charges if they plead to a misdemeanor.
So far, the defendants haven't taken the deal. As a longtime watcher of "Law
& Order," I've got three words of advice: "Take the deal!"
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/22/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Microsoft doesn't want you to go all the way to the local Circuit City to get
your Vista fix. Instead, you can sit in your chair with your bathrobe (or whatever
else you care to wear) and
just
download the darn thing. Sounds like a decent idea. I just hope there is
a darn good utility to make sure your machine can handle what is a pretty demanding
OS, and an easy way to back out of the deal if your machine chokes on all that
code.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/22/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
There have been a lot of PC leaders in the past. IBM made a run for the crown,
and further back we had the likes of Kaypro, Osborne, Eagle and the very cool
Vector Graphics microcomputers.
HP (with Compaq under its belt) is now the clear and decided leader, and its
recently gained edge over Dell is growing
quarter by quarter. HP now has 17 to 18 percent of the worldwide market
while Dell has 14 to 15 percent.
I contributed to HP's success when I bought my daughter a new laptop late last
year. It turns out that replacing the screen on her old Toshiba was almost as
much as a new lapper. Whadda ya bid for a sweet Toshiba with a dead display?
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/22/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Apparent wackjob Randall Flann has been making
fluid-holding
headgear for years. Gridiron fans can dispense beverages from a football,
and hockey addicts can wear a big beer-filled puck on their heads. Computer
aficionados aren't being left out. For $30, you can get a big plastic thing
that looks like a monitor, fill it full of Jolt and drink your brains out!
By the way, Flann calls himself "Madman." Can someone who calls himself
mad truly be mad? And of course, the question of the hour: Is Weird Al Yankovic
actually weird? I say no, but you can disagree at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/17/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Lucid8 is well-known for GOexchange, an
e-mail maintenance and performance tool. The company also has backup for Exchange
in the form of DigiVault.
Now, the company is getting into the e-mail discovery market with DigiScope.
Lost a critical message? Need to recover a message thread to defend against
a lawsuit or get a new employee up to speed? DigiScope can search, copy and
move around Exchange e-mail that may be stored in any number of places.
The tool can also recover deleted mailboxes and folders, and even get back
corrupted data.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/17/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
A
tenth
of a billion people have already downloaded IE7, and it seems that complaints
about the browser have calmed down considerably. I still haven't upgraded, and
switch between the old IE and the new Firefox. I like Firefox's tabs, but still
find scrolling through bookmarks clunky. Why should I upgrade to IE7? Let me
know at
[email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/17/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
This weekend, Microsoft started a contest with a pretty cool prize --
a
trip into space! Clues were given in Las Vegas, and new ones will be released
in other cities. According to the Robb Report (I can afford to buy the magazine,
just not anything in it!), the Learjet-based spacecraft can reach 150,000 feet
(at which point you can loosen but not undo your seatbelt), and cost a cool
quarter-mil. The craft could beat Longhorn out the door, as flights could start
as early as this fall.
I find it interesting that Microsoft didn't cut a deal with Paul Allen's SpaceShipOne.
Allen's rocket can go more than twice as high as the one Microsoft hooked up
with.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/17/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
According to reports, Mark Hurd, the head of HP, was copied on a key memo discussing
an investigation into reporters, employees and directors looking for leaks (Hurd
neglected to read the memo and missed part of a key meeting on the subject,
he says). Hurd is still running meetings, making the covers of business magazines
and doin' fine.
Meanwhile a 29-year-old peon (let's call him Scooter Libby Jr.) from the PI
firm with all the sneaky tactics, pled
guilty to identity theft -- all for doing the bidding of HP execs.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/16/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
When I suggested that Steve Jobs be let off the hook for possible financial
improprieties, a bunch of you just about ripped my fool head off. You might
get your wish to see Jobs in jeopardy. After being cleared by Apple (did they
put Leslie Nielsen on this case?)
the
feds decided to check up on the charges themselves.
While some might view Apple as some kind of touchy-feely company, it is, after
all, built to make money. In fact, its platform is more proprietary than Redmond's
because it is completely tied to hardware (bring back the Mac clones!).
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/16/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
As beer companies know, sex sells. Domain registrar Dotster agrees, and recently
held a contest to find female spokesmodels. These women are no slouches. One
is a former Miss Arizona (yes, this century!), another appeared on a Dunkin'
Donuts commercial and a third actually speaks Spanish.
I've gotten numerous press releases about this and they all tell me to check
out the Dots at http://www.dotsterdots.com.
But this Internet company doesn't operate on Internet time, as the site is still
just a placeholder. Maybe the company should take a course in Publicity 101
and have the Web site ready before they blast out a million press releases!
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/16/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
While Wise is aimed at IT,
Laplink's
new PCmover for Windows is designed to help end users migrate files, settings
and applications to Vista. The new rev should be out Jan. 18.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/15/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Macphiles, rejoice. You don't have to be stuck with Office 2003 or NeoOffice/J
forever. Unfortunately, the new Mac suite will not use the ribbon interface.
However,
the
new Mac Office will run on new Intel Macs and older PowerPC machines. Now,
if we can just get a Linux port!
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/15/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments