bruceb news

Keeping your computer up to date with patches has become the most important element of being secure online. New studies show that fully patched systems have significantly more protection against malware spread by poisoned web sites and the other forms of viruses and malware floating around.

The monitoring and updating service that I offer for a few dollars each month is just as important for your security as your antivirus program. If you haven’t signed up yet, give me a call or drop me a note. It takes seconds to install and gives you the peace of mind that Java, Flash, Adobe Acrobat/Reader, and other third party products are up to date all the time, in addition to Windows, Internet Explorer, Office programs, and more. […] continued

Everything you need to know about the iPad 2.

If the video doesn’t display, look for it here.

All my best wishes for a prosperous and healthy new year, filled with technology that does wonderful things for you (and, with luck, requires just a bit of assistance from your friendly IT consultant).

I wanted to share a couple of the comments that have come in recently in response to articles I’ve posted here. It’s one of the rewarding side effects of creating a site like this – knowing that I’m touching people who are moved to contribute. Here’s one that came in today:

Together with many thanks for such a excellent articles and reviews; this can be a kind of undeniable fact that sustains everyone however out your evening.I’ve forever long been finest all around for the web page next When i seen regarding these types of coming from a buddy in addition to had been thrilled as i was able to uncover it following hunting for a little while.

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Ze Frank has been doing interesting online experiments for almost ten years. He delivered a talk about some of his projects to a TED conference a few months ago; if you can find 20 minutes to watch it, you might come out feeling a little better about community and sharing and connections and what to think about the person staring at their cell phone as they walk down the street.

In the dark ages before YouTube became a global phenomenon – about four years ago – Ze Frank spent a year posting short videos, one per day, which were funny, smart, political, silly, emotional, and thoughtful, sometimes all at once. […] continued

Now I know the answer to a lingering question: if I embed videos into a news post and send it out to my email subscribers, the video links will just vanish. Poof! Nothing to click on.

You’ll have a better idea of what the Ze Frank post is about if you visit the news page online, where the videos should show up quite nicely. Sorry!

If you want to kill some time today, TechCrunch has a list of this year’s April Fools jokes. You’ll be able to quickly discover why Google’s main search page has been renamed “Topeka,” or go try out YouTube’s “TEXTp” mode, or go buy some unicorn meat at Thinkgeek, or about fifty more.

Maybe I’ve been following these for too many years – most of them are a bit of a yawn. Google has added one quiet little touch that I like – it’s reporting the time that it takes to run a search today in odd pseudo-scientific terms (“jiffies” or “epochs”) instead of seconds. […] continued

(Thanks to haha.nu!)

Everywhere I went today the same question came up – who was the stylish figure in the picture of the dual monitors yesterday?

Actually, if you want to be hyper-technical, I didn’t go anywhere today and no one asked, but that’s not important.

That’s St. Anthony, the Patron Saint of Bacon, holding a frying pan with two strips of crispy, delicious bacon. It’s important to keep reminders on your desk of things that are important to you. I can always turn to St. Anthony for answers when my thoughts turn to the enjoyment of quality bacon.

You can get your own figure from many online sources, as you’d expect from an item of such importance. […] continued

My favorite support call this month came from a client reporting that everything onscreen had turned upside down. The little monitor controls that come up when you fiddle with the buttons on the monitor were right side up but everything else was upside down. He had literally been forced to turn the monitor upside down to be able to work.

Hmm.

I have to admit, I didn’t know that some video adapters can rotate displays 180 degrees. Sure, 90 degrees, that makes sense, you can rotate a widescreen display from landscape to portrait and work on a long document. Nobody does that but it makes sense that it’s possible. […] continued

Did you notice that the Google logo on the main search page had a spaceship beaming up one of the “O”s in “Google” for a couple of days? Bless their hearts, Google can be marvelously odd sometimes.

The logo is frequently changed for special events and holidays, but there was no obvious reason for the spaceship last week. Google issued a statement that did not explain anything:

“We consider the second ‘o’ critical to user recognition of our brand and pronunciation of our name. We are actively looking into the mysterious tweet that has appeared on the Google twitter stream and the disappearance of the ‘o’ on the Google home page.

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