When the Internet first came into public use, a decade ago, we had the idea that location no longer mattered: we had done away with geography. Now, almost everywhere, suppliers are starting to use maps, and Location-Based Services (LBS) are seen as the coming thing.
Guardian Online

A site to help kids with problems; Sexiest Geek competition; Irish museum exhibits net art; online graffiti competition; searching Microsoft sites from Google; the descent of man; and Flash 99% Good, or should that be bad.
Webwatch

Blacklisted for spamming, even though it wasn't you; sending faxes via the Web; choosing a notebook PC; unhiding files and folders to find the SendTo directory in Windows Me.
Ask Jack

Last week, I complained (in Second Sight) that Web design was bad and getting worse. There were too many responses to print, but you can read some of the ones not published on the Guardian's Web site. There were good arguments on both sides....
Feedback

Mira, Microsoft's technology for making PC screens portable, is a nice idea, but having had my hands on samples, I have reservations about the implementation. (And hardly anyone seems to have realised that the "screens" are actually portable network computers in all but name.)
Guardian Online

Macromedia's Flash has emerged as a middleware contender with the launch of a more standards-compliant Flash MX, which also supports streaming video.
Guardian Online

The Web is bad and getting worse because most sites are designed for visual appearance -- or the needs of advertisers -- instead of usability.
Second Sight

Can you catch a virus from a Web page? How do you know if your PC has a Trojan? And how do you add something to the SendTo menu?
Ask Jack

Sun has launched a humungous private lawsuit against Microsoft -- one that is far bigger and far wider in scope than the US government's. This will keep a lot of lawyers in new Mercs for a long time. But Sun might do better if it just spent the money on some decent programmers.
Computer Weekly > Technology > Servers > Opinion

Intel has announced the Pentium 4-M -- the mobile version of the Pentium. Costs more, but it's a better idea than using a desktop processor in a small enclosure, unless the case design is "exquisite". With desktop Pentia due to reach at least 3GHz this year, the heat problem is not going to go away....
Guardian Online

Big Brother Awards, DivX 5 (and spyware), Ambridge audio online, Nurses are bullied, The Framley Examiner, top Xbox sites, and more....
Webwatch

Trojans: can hackers take control of your PC? Getting the right size PC screen for Web sites. Removing AutoComplete from Internet Explorer. Startup error messages that may show your PC has a virus infection.
Ask Jack

Chilling Effects is a new site logging legal moves that may restrict freedom of speech on the Web. Other sites watched this week include Viralbank, the Rocklopedia Fakebandica, and one that invites you to vote on the Seven New Wonders of the World/
Guardian Online: Webwatch

Is it worth refilling printer cartridges? Readers have their say....
Ask Jack

PCs are boring, as the Xbox games console shows. But in this case, being boring is a Good Thing.
Computer Weekly

Celebrity tattoos, a game based on Hieronymous Bosch, an interactive guide to numbers used on the net, Microsoft's entry into .Net mapping services, and the Yak's new blog for old Mutant Camels fans. Sorry, Six of the Best -- Chuck Jones sites -- has gone missing.
Guardian Online: Webwatch

Why you could lose your Hotmail account, converting WordPro 97 files, books to help you look after your PC, and backchat about e-mailing Web pages, finding news sources, TrueType fonts, and deleting index.dat files.
Ask Jack

Searching for news by date; seeing pictures in browsers; looking for a font directory; sending a Web page by e-mail. . . and why there's no MacIntel.
Guardian Online: Ask Jack

What if the Internet collapsed? The hole in SNMP, disclosed in a CERT advisory last week, could have catastrophic consequences.
Computer Weekly > Technology > Security > Opinion

PC Health in Windows Me: how to reduce the disk space it uses, or disable it; deleting an index.dat file; running a defrag; finding a printer driver for WordPerfect; and a question: are printer refills worth it?
Guardian Online: Ask Jack

Remote Assistance and other ways to control Windows at a distance; looking after a plethora of passwords (and the single-sign on idea); and the case of the missing Microsoft Backup. (Two Backchat items have gone missing from the Guardian Unlimited version.)
Guardian Online: Ask Jack

Will the hardware suppliers break GNU/Linux by creating different versions that are incompatible with one another? That's how they broke Unix. The Free Standards Group is now promoting two standard platforms instead. If it doesn't work, we could be in for another round of Unix wars with Sun v IBM again. (Unless they learned their lesson last time.)
Computer Weekly > Technology > Systems Software > Opinion

If you don't have any Spyro games and you're the target age for Pixar animated features, Monsters, Inc: Scare Island could fill a few hours.....
Guardian Online: Gameswatch

Finding the souce of a spammer or other e-mail sender, tackling those start-up programs (even with Windows 95), dealing with DINPUT.DLL, password-protecting and hiding folders, speech recognition, and free memory versus system resources.
Ask Jack

Be like Bill Gates and other billionaires: have a home entertainment network to amuse you wherever you are. That's the idea behind he Moxi Media Centre. Microsoft, Sony and a few other companies have the same idea....
Guardian Online

How to debug a problem PC the hard way, get your Outlook Express mail back, and find a new place to put your photos online.
Ask Jack

Next month, Microsoft will launch Visual Studio.Net, the leading program development system for the next generation of computing. Or so it hopes. If the master plan works, it will turn back the tide that has been running towards Java and J2EE.
Computer Weekly > Technology > Development Tools > Columnists
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Thursday, January 13, 2002

Yahoo's music launch (or Launch), WhistlerBlower, KidSmart, Fyuze revisited and more. The missing URL for Stumpers-L is here: http://www.cuis.edu/~stumpers/
Guardian Online: Webwatch

What can you do if your PC's browser is taken over by a service you don't want, such as 2KSearch? Also: moving Outlook Express e-mail, slideshows and other topics.
Ask Jack

Thought of keeping a diary online? You don't have to write about your love life on Blogger. It can be handy just to have a PC and/or palmtop synchronized with Yahoo or whatever.
Guardian Online

This year's most-asked question: how to type a euro symbol. Also test your net speed, try a new e-mail service, clean up the right-click menu, and more about travelling with a notebook PC.
Ask Jack

Some of the technologies to watch this year..... and where they are on the Hype Cycle.
Guardian Online in G2

The Seven Wonders of the Web: you can draw up your own list before you check the one devised by the Online team....
Guardian Online

Don't take that new computer out of its box unless you have already got a yellow plastic briefcase, some sticky labels and a bottle of Tippex. This is stuff the books don't tell you.....
Ask Jack Christmas Special

Thursday, December 20, 2001

If you got any computer games for Christmas, I hope the selection included at least one of these.....
Guardian Online: Gameswatch

There's no doubt about the appeal of a personalised portal on the Web. However, having spent a while playing with what I think is he best effort yet -- Fyuze -- I'm sticking to my personalised Hotsheet.
Webwatch

When it comes to accessing the Internet from various countries around the world, I still haven't found anything better than AOL. (With apologies for Guardian Unlimited's formatting errors,)
Ask Jack

If you can afford a bit of self-indulgence this Christmas, here are some things you can add to your PC.
Guardian Online

This week's agony column focuses on the photopraphic....
Ask Jack

Doesn't seem long since I was using an acoustic coupler to log on at 300 baud (30 characters per second). Now we're heading for 50 megabits per second with VDSL and 802.11a and g....
Guardian Online

Converting vinyl or tape to CD is easy if you don't care much about hi-fi quality, and cheap if your time isn't worth anything. Otherwise....
Ask Jack

What's happening on the Web this week: at least check out Odd Todd and Silly Girls.
Webwatch

There are not many great PlayStation 2 games but SSX Tricky delivers both a challenge and a rush....
Gameswatch

The sudden shift in the US Department of Justice attitude to Microsoft's position is a clear indication of how strongly politics is influencing what passes for justice. However, the case probably wouldn't have been brought in the first place had it not been for political considerations -- staunch Silicon Valley high-tech Republicans getting what they wanted for backing a Democrat Clinton-Gore ticket. Of course, this doesn't say much for America's anti-trust laws, but everyone who has looked into their history knows they were already a farce. Just like the British libel laws, but swapping Klein for Carman.
Computer Weekly > Strategy > Politics & Law > Opinion

A lot of desktop PCs now come with CD-RW drives, but most notebook PCs do not. Manufacturers are now targeting the portable market with small, stylish external drives....
Guardian Online: Ask Jack

If you are looking for the best football game, David Beckham Soccer isn't it :-)
Guardian Online: Gameswatch

I had to file my last Comdex Fall report without an important piece of information: how many people turned up. My finger in the wind estimate is that the show was about half as busy as in recent years, which would put the number at around 100,000. However, it is impossible to say. Probably some people who normally come for five days only came for two, or whatever. One passing observation that would not make it into print. Bill Gates can no longer walk through the halls without being mobbed, but Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer can.
Guardian Online: Comdex Las Vegas

Another observation, based on spending a week in Las Vegas, is that America has a much stronger case of Harry Potter Fever than the UK. The film opened on in the US on Friday, and if you turned on a TV, you did not have long to wait for the latest Pottermania update. Naturally that interest has been reflected in the size and quality of Potter-oriented Web sites, especially since Warner Bros seems to have stopped attacking unofficial fan sites. But I'm not sure if this is because someone at AOL Time Warner CNN Intergalactic Enterprises had an unexpected flash of intelligence or whether they just couldn't hold back the tide.
Guardian Online: Webwatch

Until recently, the mobile phone business had nothing to do with Comdex Fall, but now, the chief executives of mobile companies make keynote speeches and even NTT DoCoMo had a large stand. Perhaps this has something to do with the mobile phone industry's sudden, and horribly belated, discovery that it is also dealing with data, including phone numbers, addresses, appointments, game code and even ring tones. And if you have data, you need common data standards. The question is: who is going to set those? Nokia is trying to make sure it is Nokia, but I will be surprised if that ploy works.
Computer Weekly: Strategy:Mobile Business

What to do when Windows hangs? With hindsight, I think the shortest reasonable explanation needs at least a thousand words. Unless, that is, you do it in three words: upgrade to XP.
Guardian Online: Ask Jack

Most of us are pretty cynical about computer operating systems, so I was surprised by the enthusiam I found when I talked to teachers, school ICT specialists and the educational computing trade about Microsoft Windows XP, which has been used in pilot projects in some British schools. But the consensus was that finally they have a system that is familiar, easy to use, extremely robust, has a wide range of software, and does not leave them at the mercy of a monopoly hardware supplier such as Apple. The obvious problem is, I'd guess, that most school PCs are too old and feeble to run it.
Educ@tion Guardian: A very good job...?

Home Ludens, and while children have always played games, most are now playing computer games. It is not an area where much real research has been done, but some clearly have educational value. One problem is that games are a form of fiction and therefore do not need to be historically accurate. However, this is a problem that is notoriously true of American movies and, as a young Jane Austen pointed out, is also true of Shakespeare.
Educ@tion Guardian: For gaming, read learning

The qwerty keyboard may be a ubiquitous standard in English-speaking countries, but the arrival of millions of handheld devices -- palmtop computers, mobile phones -- that don't have keyboards has stimulated a new burst of creativity. The "virtual keyboard" is a particularly interesting development. I'm looking forward to the same approach being taken to the "air guitar".
Guardian Unlimited: The future for keyboards