Why VHS was better than Betamax (Web exclusive)
The triumph of VHS is frequently cited as an example of the market choosing inferior technology. This reveals far too simple an understanding of the market and the way consumers buy things.If you look at "the whole product", you can see buyers making rational decisions. However, if you look deeper, it turns out that VHS wasn't inferior technology -- the story is an "urban myth" -- and Betamax actually lost because it didn't do what consumers wanted.
Schofield on Saturday
Guardian Unlimited

Ripping a CD in Windows XP while avoiding WMA (Windows Media Audio). Changing Windows File Types to get multimedia files played with the program you prefer. How much power do you need to handle photo-imaging? (As much as you can get, usually!) Backchat: more on typing accents, and more on recycling PCs.
Guardian Online Ask Jack

Vote for the best of the first decade of the Premier League. Getting the Olympic Games to London. Where to socialise online -- The Sims Online, or There. Feedroom: broadband news on the Web, and an Online Homebase where you could keep jottings. Blo.gs for tracking your favourite blogs. Six of the best: Flight, the first 100 years.
Guardian Online Webwatch

Back after its seasonal holiday, the Ask Jack column points to places where you can recycle an old PC or Mac, and whether it's worth upgrading from Windows 98 to make USB connections. CD: the possible pitfalls of using "packet writing" software (or "drive letter access" software) for backing up data. Getting rid of Lop.com's browser hi-jacker. The solution to switching identities in Outlook Express 6. Backchat: readers suggest different ways to enter accented characters in e-mail applications.
Ask Jack

Clients are putting on weight. Not only did the "thin client"/Network Computer idea flop in the computing industry, things that used to be extremely thin clients -- such as phones and TV sets -- are getting fatter by the day.
Computer Weekly > Technology > Networking

The birth of the "information age" could look like a black hole to our descendants because they won't be able to read out data -- either because the hardware is no longer available, or no-one can read the file formats, or copy protection makes it impossible. The BBC's Domesday discs are a case in point since the hardware needed to read them has already become obsolete. The question is, what to do about it....
Guardian Online

Pixel of the bunch: some models to look at if you're thinking of buying a digital camera for Christmas.
Guardian Online

Christmas games charts: The Getaway has unexpectedly snatched the top spot from the GTA: Vice City, the fastest selling game the UK has ever seen. Deprived of the top spot, Electronic Arts dominates the rest of the charts...
Games watch

Christmas is a good time to back-up your PC (please, not as an annual job) or important file even if it means splitting a large file across several floppy disks. Encrypting e-mail. Unable to switch identities in Outlook Express after installing Service Pack 1. Entering accents/accented characters in Outlook Express. Backchat: Mac firewalls and Partition Magic revisited.
Ask Jack

Chip designers have been putting amusing little drawings on some of their bits of silicon, and you can now see the photo-micrographs online. The Spamarchive is collecting spam. The BBC's Celebdaq (a UK site like the Hollywood Stock Exchange) is to become the basis for a TV programme. The Victorian Dictionary; the search for Great Britons; and Forced Migration Online. Six of the best: digital camera sites.
Guardian Web watch

The C drive is full but you still have lots of space on D: what can you do about it? Mac firewall software. Plugging a Sony PlayStation (or other games console) into a PC monitor. Opera 6 crashing -- it's an ad thing. The jdbgmgr.exe hoax "virus" is still going strong.
Ask Jack

Think about chips if you are buying a PC for Christmas. Under attack: what your firewall can tell you. If you have a router, you still need a firewall. Closing port 139. Outlook to go: a Rex was the smallest portable to synchronise with Outlook but some phones can do it too. Backchat: more websites about digital cameras, and OneTel's support for 64Kbps ISDN.
Guardian Online: Ask Jack

Comdex or CES? The balance has shifted to the Consumer Electronics Show, which is held in Las Vegas in January.
Computer Weekly

What's new at Comdex -- a round up of the Best of Show winners, dominated by Microsoft Tablet PC hardware and software, and some of the less prominent gadgets such as mice and business card readers.
Guardian Online

Most wanted toys; Ruavista, a look at urban streets; Trailsides walking tours; National Geographic's geosurvey questions; where to write reviews of British television programmes; sending e-cards to help GOSH; UCI Cinema's new site for kids; DIY portal software from the Internet Scout Project; and Six of the Best sites for toon lovers.
Web watch

What to do if you can't open attachments in Outlook Express 6 (with SP1 installed). Is it still worth upgrading that old Windows 95 machine? What do you need to do when you get "always on" broadband? Install a firewall. A Web site that could help you choose a digital camera. Backchat: more on linking PCs with USB and Ethernet cables, and the real appeal of ISDN.
Ask Jack

Picture perfect: the market for digital cameras is now worth more than the market for still cameras, in the UK. But if you are thinking of buying one, here are some points to watch.
Guardian Online cover story

Prattle from Seattle: a first look at the Comdex computer trade show, being held this week in Las Vegas, starting with the traditional keynote from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.
Guardian Online

Connecting PCs with a USB-to-USB cable: a warning. ISDN as an expensive substitute for broadband. You can convert your Windows XP hard drive to NTFS but Zip disks and floppies stick to FAT (the DOS file system). Summoning the contact pane in Outlook Express. Which operating systems recognise USB drives. Mouse madness -- how to cope withy superspeed scrolling in Microsoft Word. Backchat: more on getting your Web site onto Google; handling Zone Alarm dial-ups; downloading albums with WinMX; and the McAfee hotfix for a problem that could be making your PC slow down and crash.
Ask Jack

Monday, November 18, 2002

The Bill Gates Show: Microsoft's co-founder kicks off the Comdex computer trade show in Las Vegas with an extended advertisement for Microsoft and many of its works.
Online Web exclusive

Corridor warriors: Microsoft and its hardware partners duly launched the first Tablet PCs (not the first tablet PCs). I can't imagine many people will be tempted to rush out and buy one, but the different models at least offer a choice of approaches.
Guardian Online: What's new

Congratulations to 5 year old Free Pint; Terry Riley and -- literally -- space music; online pronunciation guides; searching Google for cookery recipes; the Web's smallest advert; cowbells; a snap-taking MTV game; and six of the best things to do daily.
Web watch

DVD storage should soon be ready for the mass market with the arrival of cheaper multi-format drives; the searchable Ask Jack replaces Bostik; getting a Web site noticed; Mailwasher (beta version) can now bounce spam from Hotmail; Zone Alarm dialling out; and the problem of spam that arrives via an obscure Windows messaging service (one you probably have not heard of).
Ask Jack

Guardian Online Web site redesigned!

Microsoft and its PC partners launched the Tablet PC at the iMax cinema in London today. Britain's RM (formerly Research Machines) had a starring role thanks to its trials with primary and secondary schoolchildren.
Guardian Unlimited: Netnews (Web exclusive)

The music file-sharing scene isn't what it used to be, but you can still swap songs using a range of different software, including WinMX.
Guardian Online: Working the Web

Backing up a laptop PC. Home Phone Networking (HPNA). Junk mail from Microsoft Hotmail, spamming messages in Microsoft Windows Messenger, and yes, you can keep those e-mail alerts if you switch to Yahoo. Backchat: how Robin O'Connor handles interviews.
Ask Jack

Computer Weekly Web site redesigned.

Microsoft is trying to refine the phone business to make it more like the PC business. So far the only example of a Microsoft smartphone, the Orange SPV, doesn't measure up, but the strategy is important even if the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Computer Weekly > Technology > Mobile Computing

The Olympus DS-330 digital voice recorder has a USB connection and works with both PCs and Macs, but it's pricey and I didn't find the performance compelling. Also out: the first of Palm's new Tungsten range, Hauppauge's £129 DEC2000-t for picking up Freeview TV, a Pen Drive for USB 2.0, and the smallest ever Dell desktop PC.
Guardian Online: What's New

Multikult offers help with British bureaucracy in a wide range of languages, including Albanian. Liberati: a free art show. David Beckham kit on sale at Marks & Spencer. A Babalizer that translates phrases via multiple languages to see what comes out the other end. Road transport museum sites. Links to sites that make charitable donations. BMX XXX, Private Dancer and other rude games, and a miniature golf to play on the Web. Six of the best: Wi-Fi sites.
Web watch

Speech matters. Can you use a speech recognition to transcribe interviews with reasonable accuracy? How does Jimmy Corkhill in Brookside send voice emails, and what other software will do the job? You can get text-to-speech software that will read texts aloud, but can you save the sound to a wav file? What to do if the networking icons have disappeared from the Windows task bar (Systray). Backchat: remember, it is best to install an upgrade version of Windows to a clean drive: you only need a disc from the old version, it does not have to be installed.
Ask Jack

Microsoft enters the smartphone market. Next week, Orange will put the first smartphone based on Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 software, which is based on the PocketPC suite. It certainly has its good points, such as the ease with which you can collect email. It has its bad points: the interface is a mess. But what is perhaps more significant in the long term is that this is not just a phone, it is an attempt to redefine the mobile phone industry.
Guardian Online

What to do if Windows XP fails to start, and you suspect you may have lost data. Why your mail is returned marked "Too many hops". Trying to find a truly silent mouse (help wanted). An ad-removal program that does not need Windows 98 or later: Spybot. Is it worth upgrading a notebook PC from Windows 2000 Pro to XP? Backchat: making PDF files with Ghostscript and Ghostview.
Ask Jack

Miracle workers: South Korea is the world leader in broadband, leaving the UK in the dust. The DTI sponsored a Brunel University mission to find out what we could learn.... and courtesy of an LG Electronics press trip, I made my second visit to see for myself.
Guardian Online

Toshiba has just launched a new PocketPC, and Dell is apparently going to shake up the market by launching two models of a very cheap version codenamed Clemente.
What's New

The Ig Nobels have been awarded, with the Wooden Periodic Table Table making a memorable appearance. Sign language for art and design students. MIT's free (open) courseware. Medicine and Madison Avenue The official site for Premier League football (soccer) fans. Ford Motor's centenniel celebrations. Six of the best sites for Halloween.
Web watch

Satellite broadband, and where to get the various options. More on the Bugbear virus. Closing Windows 98 programs remotely with substitutes for the Task Manager. Changing the From: name in Outlook Express. Backchat: Liberty wireless broadband; retaining Windows XP; PDF in Mac OS X.
Ask Jack

The Bugbear worm/virus is doing well but does not affect Internet Explorer 6 users and should not affect IE5 users who installed the March 2001 security patch for Badtrans, Klez etc. Wireless broadband -- available in certain urban areas, including Slough. Ads added to messages sent by Lycos e-mail users. Windows XP is the best choice for a new PC -- and how to get rid of it. Plus: Backchat on cheap ways to create PDF files.
Guardian Ask Jack

What are the odds on the success of the Microsoft-backed Tablet PC? It has what it takes to be successful, and in the long term, could save companies money on buying multiple machines. However, companies won't be keen to buy them, and -- outside vertical applications -- the idea has been tried before and failed.
Computer Weekly > Technology > Mobile Computing > Columnists

Divide and rule: Palm is launching three new handhelds, starting with the Zire and Tungsten ranges. Separate model ranges for consumers and business professionals should help the company sharpen its targeting, while the ARM-based Tunsten PDA running Palm OS 5 should be more competitive with Microsoft-based PocketPCs.
Guardian Online

Search tips for Googlers: the world's favourite search engine delivers great results with one- and two-word searches, but sometimes you need to do something a bit more complex to get the answers you want.
Working the Web

TimeHunt looks beautiful but will you be able to solve the clues? Big Draw -- get your pencil out. Turner's gallery on the Tate's Web site. Google's great new news service; and can you write the first human words to be spoken live on Mars? Moviepooper, Bob Hope at the Library of Congress, WebListen and more. Plus: the top six sites for word lovers.
Web watch

What is a codec? Making a presentation with PowerPoint. How to open four home pages at once. How mail may automatically be marked as read in Outlook Express. Sending e-mail to Undisclosed Recipients, and another way to keep documents looking the way you want -- convert them to Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) files.
Ask Jack

Keep taking the Tablets: In six weeks, a number of PC manufacturers will launch Tablet PCs with radio-frequency pens and touch-sensitive screens. It could be just the thing if you can't type or for some reason fancy sending handwritten e-mail. But if sales fail to take off, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition should still be welcome in the industries that already use tablet computers -- and there are lots of them.
Guardian Online

Your Outlook Express inbox file seems to be corrupted and you cannot see your old e-mail: what can you do? Here are some suggestions and shareware programs that could help. If the Windows XP Service Pack 1 is too big for you to download, you can ask Microsoft for a free copy on CD. If you use unusual fonts, here's how you can embed them in your Word document files. But if you want to run USB ports from Windows NT, you are probably out of luck. Plus: looking for a cheap notebook PC.
Ask Jack

Whenever someone tells me "all Wintel machines are the same", I know I am talking to someone who has lost touch with reality. There are easily more than a dozen versions of Windows for products that range from mobile phones to data centre mainframes, and Intel now makes at least five types of processor, including four that run the x86 instruction set. Then there's AMD....
Computer Weekly > Technology > Desktop Computing > Opinion

Hyper-Threading for consumer PCs and Banias, a new chip for "thin and light" notebook PCs, were the things that Intel was pushing at last week's Intel Developer Forum in San Jose.
Guardian Online

Hitching a ride into space (sorry, you can't); Future Physical and its Wear Me event; University guides; discover your XP logs online; making labels and licence plates; talk like a pirate day; and six of the best newsletters for PC owners.
Web watch

Buying a £499 PC -- and why the Wal-Mart $199 machine may not be such a bargain; the Microsoft Virtual Machine (VM) is missing from Windows XP; putting video on CD to play in a DVD player; and Locust as another way to send and receive SMS messages on a PC.
Ask Jack

The Getaway: I went to Sony's Soho-based studio for an early look at the most expensive video game ever created in Europe.
Guardian Online

Dual-booting lets your PC run two different operating systems, and Virtual PC for Windows lets you run one version of Windows inside another. Dealing with that TimeSink directory; a way round Outlook 2002's Draconian security, which blocks attachments; getting that Microsoft Office toolbar back; software that locks a CD-ROM drive; SMS gateway software that lets you send and receive SMS messages on a PC, via a GSM modem; Streambox VCR as an alternative to Total Recorder; and why that online spell-checking site is not recommended for the red-green colour-blind.
Ask Jack

The usable £299 business PC is on the way (and "business" means you won't include a monitor or VAT in the price). The reason is simple: the "new" low-cost 1.7GHz Intel Celeron that is now starting to reach the market in volume is the "old" Pentium 4 from last April, albeit with a smaller cache. If you last bought a new PC more than a year ago, the new cheapies will very probably be faster. And if you last bought a PC in a previous century, they are a killer upgrade.
Computer Weekly > Technology > Desktop Computing > Features

Console wars: Sony and Microsoft are fighting it out on the high street and before Christmas will cary the battle online. The latest price cuts and announcements were focused around ECTS, Europe's leading games trade show. Some of the show highlights are covered here.
Guardian Online

Running two versions of Windows allows you to have different languages, but it's not a great idea with Windows 9x. Where to put your holiday snaps online; preventing access to a CD-ROM drive -- physically; software to capture streaming audio; train software for a man with a Mac; and lots of ways to receive SMS messages on a PC.
Ask Jack