I'm tracking technology, and technology is tracking me

31.7.03

Are most commercial websites designed by children? It does look that way, given the number of sites that put a "cool" appearance above usability, accessibility and functionality.
Schofield column
Guardian Online


Home page hi-jackers and other parasites are now running rampant in the Windows/Internet Explorer world. However, there are some free programs you can use to clean up your PC, and some utilities that try to prevent scumware from being installed. The lottery scam: how you can lose $1,500-$3,000. Plus: how to stop spam.
Ask Jack

25.7.03

Schofield's First Law of Computing Standardisation and ubiquity mean that buying PC-based systems is virtually risk-free, but this does not mean that computers are no longer a threat to your financial health. There is still a huge risk involved in the part of the system that is the most expensive to create and the hardest to replace: your data.
Schofield column
Guardian Online


Advertising on eBay and someone wants to send you too much money in a form that is supposed to be as good as cash? Yes, it is still a scam. How to get the right keyboard set in Windows. Removing temporary files: it's safer if you do a "staged delete". Backchat: disposing of CDs, alternative browsers, software to change files that are marked as read-only, and software for blogging.
Ask Jack

Formula One 2003, the official Formula One game for the PlayStation 2.
Gameswatch

18.7.03

Beware "migmaf", a new Trojan that could make it look as though your Windows PC is distributing spam, or worse.
Guardian Online

Decorators with keyboards I would love to see a few web designers thrown in jail for designing unusable and inaccessible sites. Not much chance of that, but the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) is backing a number of individuals in taking legal action against various as yet unnamed websites that they say do not comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
Schofield column
Guardian Online


Black and Asian history sites. Internet shopping day. The Schools Web Directory UK reckons it has found all the state secondary schools with Web sites. Building a database of US government employees. A multimedia visit to the Burarra Gathering of indigenous people in northern Australia. Six of the best: Tour de France.
Web watch

What is the best way to destory a CD? Where would you start blogging? Teporary files left around by Microsoft Word. Can you lock a window in Internet Explorer? (If you can, please tell me how!) Backchat: that XP password, software that will click the mouse for you, and changing file attributes from DOS.
Ask Jack

10.7.03

Browser wars 2.0 Netscape has just released the last version of its eight-year-old web browser to not much acclaim. AOL, which owns Netscape, won't use it and has signed up with Microsoft again -- and last year, AOL also laid off almost all of Netscape's browser programmers. But Firebird and Thunderbird -- the next browser and standalone mail client being developed as open source by the Mozilla project -- are starting to look pretty cool, and you can try them now.
Schofield column
Guardian Online


Peter Leckie wants to keep people out of his notebook PC running Windows, while Alan Fletcher has been locked out by Windows XP and wants to get back in. Backchat: Sente has a free program that will change all those read-only files (copied from CD) to read-write format, while SDP from the Streaming Download Project to record Microsoft streaming formats.
Ask Jack

3.7.03

Can Michael Dell keep it up? The company has grown from less than $1bn in sales to $35bn in a decade, and now it plans to target consumers and the digital home.
Schofield column
Guardian Online


America's Do Not Call registry is a huge success. Learn online writing, free, at trAce in Nottingham. Get Usenet newsgroups tracked, with email alerts. The Knockoff Project -- fun with album covers. Karl Marx was an immigrant. Google launches Toolbar 2. Barbie doll collectors and the ones Mattel hasn't produced -- Latex Fetish Barbie, Dominatrix Barbie, Neo-Nazi Barbie etc. Six of the best: Katharine Hepburn.
Web watch

Email for kids -- preferably without the porn spam. Is it worth dividing up a Windows XP hard drive? Those 419 West African scams -- if we all replied, would it slow them down? Backchat: readers suggest free or cheap Web space; Messer -- another program for recording Web audio.
Ask Jack

Why has Sun spent the past six years bashing Microsoft when everybody knows which companies are going to eat its business for breakfast: Intel-based hardware suppliers such as Dell, and Linux suppliers such as Red Hat and SuSE.
Schofield column
Computer Weekly

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