bruceb news

At some point on Tuesday, the web host for bruceb.com will change from XO Communications to GoDaddy. In theory it’s going to go smoothly and you won’t notice. If bruceb.com disappears for a while, rest assured that I’m going nuts trying to fix it.

I can’t unravel the mysteries of domain registration and web hosting in a few paragraphs. It’s a vast landscape filled with mysteries. I have found it surprisingly difficult to get information on which companies provide good service for reasonable prices.

At one time XO Communications was a major player in web hosting as well as being an important Internet service provider. […] continued

Does your technology memory extend back to the 80s? If so, you may shed a nostalgic tear at the news that the last remnants of CompuServe have been shut down by its current owner, America Online. I spent many hours listening to the dialup modem make its bong-bong sounds connecting to a local CompuServe number so I could scroll through text screens of online forums and download little DOS utilities and games. It was a big deal when the first CompuServe software was released for Windows 3.1. Before the Internet was developed, my connection to the online world was defined by my CompuServe ID. […] continued

Pretty tempting, eh? For the next ten days or so, you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium upgrades for fifty bucks, or Windows 7 Professional for a hundred bucks. It’s a really truly cheap sale, a limited offer from Microsoft scheduled to end July 11, and only continuing “while supplies last.” No one knows how many units are being sold by Amazon and a host of other retailers but a report came in from Japan tonight that the discounted upgrades were sold out in that country in less than two days.

The sale prices are about half of what Windows 7 will cost when it’s released in October. […] continued

I love occasional glimpses behind the scenes. In The Wizard of Oz, I would have been Toto, pulling back the curtain to figure out what was running the big head. The New York Times gives us a fascinating look at the data centers powering the online services that drive our world – Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and more. Most of us have only the vaguest idea that somewhere there must be a lot of computers indexing the web and showing us Google search results. Not only are there a lot of computers, the scale of it probably exceeds anything you would guess. […] continued

Have you noticed the collapse in the market for boxed software? We used to go to Best Buy or Staples or Costco and buy the latest programs in boxes. The only time we do that now is for Quicken and Quickbooks. Just about everything else is either preinstalled on our computers or downloaded.

The latest sign of a changing time came in the announcement that Microsoft is dropping Microsoft Money, the competitor to Quicken that never quite found a place in the market. It’s only the most recent of Microsoft’s cost-cutting decisions and its movement to online services. A few months ago, Microsoft dropped the Encarta encyclopedia; Windows Live OneCare will be off the market completely in a couple of weeks; and it’s already been two years since we lost Digital Image Pro. […] continued

Today Amazon began selling a book of photographs and essays about Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency and his first 100 days in office. It’s not the first book like that but this one has an interesting twist, and the publishing industry is hoping you find it compelling – or if not this one, then another one that uses the same technology.

You see, this one can include some of your own photos and words, interspersed throughout the book. Maybe you have some photos related to the inauguration, or you want to turn it into a personal statement about what it meant to see this happen in your lifetime, or you want to personalize it for a child. […] continued

Small businesses should pay close attention to this article about a recent change in the way Google reports search results. Apparently Google recently began analyzing the IP address where a search originates and giving higher placement to local businesses, even if the search doesn’t include a particular location.

For your business, the process begins by putting information into the “Google Local Business Center.” Someone from your business has to log in with a free Google Account and put in a few details about the business. The information is confirmed by an automated phone call or postcard. There may still be national companies listed high in the results but local businesses will show up higher in the results, leveling the playing field a bit – you don’t have to beat everybody, just your local competitors. […] continued

Kaiser is taking an interesting step to make your medical records available to you in a flash. Let me give you some background, then tell you about yet another of the ways that the world is changing around us.

Technology is going to play a major role in the health care debate that is about to take place in the US. For years, the government and industry have recognized the need for medical records to be available online to consumers and to all their various health care providers, but there are enormous obstacles to realizing that goal. It requires providers to trust each other as well as trusting and agreeing on the protocols for storing and exchanging your health data. […] continued

Netbooks will be widespread by the end of the year, shaking up the PC market and changing our world in ways that will be more dramatic than you expect. You might not have foreseen one of the ways they’ll be distributed – sold and subsidized by the cell phone carriers.

Many notebook computer users are familiar with the concept of a separate “mobile broadband” device built into the notebook, or plugged into a USB port, that gives the computer an Internet connection anywhere within a cell phone carrier’s network. Dell has been selling Verizon and Sprint internal modems with its Latitude notebooks for years. […] continued

You can take a peek at one of the experiments by the New York Times as it tries to deliver an online experience that is as satisfying as holding a newspaper in your hands. The “article skimmer” is a work in progress, not a finished product. It presents a single screen overview of a number of articles, so your eye can browse just as it would on the printed page.

Use the space bar to go down a section, or use the arrow keys to go up and down, with sections scrolling into place neatly to create the visual effect of a long scroll of paper. […] continued