Microsoft
Fond Memories Of Patch Tuesday, And Other Windows Update Laments
Once upon a time, O my children, Microsoft had a predictable date for installing updates to Windows, and lo, we called it “Patch Tuesday.” Once a month (well, sometimes twice), we would wake up on Wednesday morning and our computers would have restarted, and we would bellow and curse and rend our garments and then we would resume work because it was, after all, Wednesday, and we understood nothing but at least we knew that Tuesday was ordained to be the day on which updates would be delivered. […] continued
Read moreExciting New Features In The Next Windows 10 Update
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Microsoft Has Improved AutoSave For Office Documents (But Not For Everybody, And With One Bit That Might Make You Curse)
Have you ever lost hours of work in a Word document because you closed it without saving? Of course you have. It’s happened to everyone.
That has never happened to you if you use Google Docs. In fact, you’ve forgotten about that problem because Google Docs automatically saves everything continuously. Now that you think about it, you’re feeling a bit superior, aren’t you? […] continued
Read morePrivacy And Trust Part 5: What Can We Do?
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords.
• Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other companies) in startling ways. Their ability to analyze that data and predict your behavior is more like magic than technology – and it has the potential to change the world, for better or worse. […] continued
Read morePrivacy And Trust Part 3: What Do They Know And How Do They Know It?
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords.
• Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other companies) in startling ways. Their ability to analyze that data and predict your behavior is more like magic than technology – and it has the potential to change the world, for better or worse. […] continued
Read morePrivacy And Trust Part 2: No Escape!
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords.
• Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other companies) in startling ways. Their ability to analyze that data and predict your behavior is more like magic than technology – and it has the potential to change the world, for better or worse. […] continued
Read moreMicrosoft Thinks The Future Belongs To Teams (And It Might Work For You, Too)
Microsoft Teams is an Office 365 service that businesses can use for their employees to chat and collaborate, providing an alternative (and perhaps a replacement) for email inside the company. Although it’s relatively new, Teams has quickly become a strategic priority for Microsoft.
Many Office 365 services only make sense for large enterprises, but Teams might be the exception that even small businesses should closely examine. […] continued
Read moreHow To Pin A Chrome Shortcut To The Taskbar
Google has changed the steps required to pin a website to your Windows 10 taskbar. It’s still possible but it takes a bit of extra effort.
There are some websites that fit your workflow best when they are running in their own separate window. When you set up a website to open in its own window, it shows up separately on the taskbar so you can switch to it easily, and you won’t close it by accident when you’re closing 12 other tabs in your main Chrome window. […] continued
Read moreIt’s Not Just Your Computer – Everything Is Too Hard To Use (And It’s Not Your Fault)
I wrote an article a few years ago about how difficult it is for non-tech people to manage the fiddly bits required to run a Windows computer. It’s one of the things that drove the transition from computers to phone and tablets.
An interesting thing is happening today. The explosion of devices, products and services is causing just as much confusion and frustration in the world of mobile devices. […] continued
Read moreThe 2018 Bruceb News Year In Review
Remember when I wrote an article a year ago predicting that always-connected computers would be heavily promoted in 2018?
Yeah, about that: not even close. Nada. All the buzz died away when the first PCs in that category turned out to be underpowered and, well, pretty awful.
Okay, that prediction didn’t pan out. […] continued
Read moreMicrosoft Has Not Made Any Progress On Sorting Out Its Personal And Work Accounts
Microsoft has two giant identity systems set up by different divisions of the company – one system for personal accounts, a different system for “work or school” accounts. It’s confusing. There is a team at Microsoft trying to make it less confusing; they may be doing things behind the scenes but there has not been any visible change in the last two years. […] continued
Read moreWindows 10 Tip: View Your Clipboard History
Your Windows 10 computer is going to install a major update soon. Microsoft just began rolling out the “Windows 10 October 2018 Update,” bringing Windows 10 to version 1809.
The version number – 1809 – is a code for the year and month of the update. So the version number suggests September and the official name is the “October update” and it’s being released in November. […] continued
Read moreThe End Of New Product Announcements
In the last two months, there have been major announcements of new products by every computer and phone manufacturer on the planet. You don’t know about any of them, do you?
On September 12, Apple put on its annual presentation of new iPhones for hundreds of tech journalists, with the same showmanship that it has relied on since the days when Steve Jobs would take the stage in his black turtleneck and wow the faithful. […] continued
Read moreStore Your Files In The Server In The Sky
It’s time to move your files to the cloud.
Box, Dropbox, and OneDrive now all have plans that support an important feature: You can store your files online and access them with Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder, without syncing the files and without using space on your hard drive. Today I have to explain a bunch of stuff for that to make sense, but I think this will be our natural expectation without a second thought in a very short time. […] continued
Read moreOneDrive Can Automatically Back Up Your Documents, Pictures And Desktop Folders
Microsoft has made it easier to protect your Documents, Pictures and Desktop folders using OneDrive. OneDrive has become more reliable and many of you already have enough storage space to make this protection free. I would encourage everyone to look into this.
This adds a feature to Windows that should have been there long ago. […] continued
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