Spam, spam, government legislation and spam...
British governments so often seem to get things wrong that the latest "anti-spam" action should come as no surprise. The quotation marks have been added because if it does have any effect, the new regulation seems more likely to encourage spam.
Schofield column
Guardian Online

Spy software; Make a Difference Day wants your IT input; hurricanes online; the 100 documents that helped shape America (and can we have a UK version); Ikea games, and World Globe for Windows. Plus: Six of the best alternatives to Google.
Web watch

Yes another Microsoft virus -- but it didn't come from Microsoft. Predictive text: word processors that guess what you are writing. Baby steps in home networking. Removing Norton AntiVirus. Backchat: more programs that watch the web for you.
Ask Jack

How their kids will learn
What will schools be like in 2033? Will they change as society changes, and how will society change if we develop computers that are smarter than we are?
The Classroom of the Future
Education Guardian

Sony hopes to create its Dream World in reality by exploiting "synergy" between its hardware, software and content offerings, starting with a music download service....
Schofield column
Guardian Online

Time for Windows users to install some of those patches that Microsoft is putting out regularly. Moving IE mail from a Mac to a PC, hiding Internet Explorer and other Microsoft programs in Windows XP, and services that will watch Web pages for updates.
Ask Jack

Orange unveils its Signature version of the new quad-band Handspring Treo 600 smart phone.
What's New

Buying a PDA
Start here

Costly medicine The cost of dealing with computer viruses and worms, and the threat to the public infrastructure, seems finally to have stirred the forces of law and order -- or at least, the FBI.
Schofield column
Guardian Online


Can't reach a Web site? If you use NTL broadband, it may be a cache problem. AV spam: bouncing SoBig e-mails is not useful. Finding the Ask Jack archive, and the propblem of stopping "windows messenger service" pop-ups revisited. Backchat on Thunderbird and sites that tell you your IP address.
Ask Jack

Yahoo gets into blogging -- but only in South Korea. Privacy and Human Rights: read the sixth annual survey. Pop Idol games and ringtones. Freenet founder gets into search with WhittleBit. The BBC's online courses and styleguide are helpful -- and there are other free styleguides. Getting a free trial print from Canon. Understanding American Pie moves to a new address. Six of the best 9/11 sites.
Web watch


Buying a portable PC
Start here

Not just beige boxes....
Schofield column
Guardian Online

Start here: Buying a PC
Guardian Online

How to get into Google
Ask Jack

(No links because the Guardian's Web site is down....)

Licence to 'drive' a computer? You don't need one but maybe you should: users who don't know what they are doing can be a danger to others on the Internet. Having said that, Microsoft could improve things by delivering its systems with security defaults etc turned on instead of off.
Schofield column
Guardian Online

Google now includes a rather wonderful calculator function. Brainboost is another attempt at putting natural language processing on the front of a search function. Collect Britain, from the British Library, has started to put documents online in an entertaining form. An online music competition for piano, oboe, violin and trumpet players, to begin with. European blogging site 20six has moved to a new platform. Gamers can now vote in the C&VG Golden Joystick awards. Tiscali Entertainment has started streaming short films. Plus: Six of the best sites for students.
Web watch

Getting better search facilities in Microsoft Windows XP. Can you keep e-mail addresses away from mass-mailing viruses? You don't need to download the Java version of the Opera browser, unless you need Java for other purposes. Proxyconn caching, and better software for iPod users with Windows.
Ask Jack

Let's go Nutch... Some of the net's self-appointed guardians have launched a project to develop an open source search engine. Apparently there's a fear that Google is or could become too powerful. In fact, it faces tough competition from Yahoo, Microsoft and others.
Schofield column
Guardian Online


The Blaster worm, uploading files to a PC from an iPod, spam, and accessing secure Web pages.
Ask Jack

How to beat Blaster
A step-by-step guide to removing the MS Blast worm from your PC.
Guardian Unlimited

New strain, old refrain
The latest version of the SoBig virus may be the precursor to something far more destructive.
Guardian Unlimited

Challenge-response systems could beat spam. They are a terrible idea, but at the moment, it doesn't look as though there is going to be a viable alternative....
Schofield column
Computer Weekly

Should Linux users pay a licence? What we now call Linux started as a project to clone Unix, through GNU (Gnu's Not Unix). If you wanted to guarantee a non-infringing version, it should have been done as a "clean room" implementation -- but the open development methodology made that impossible.
Schofield column
Guardian Online

The problem of "copy protected" audio CDs, and what to do about them. You can't have Gator without GAIN (Gator Advertiser Information Network). Putting a pinboard online, and a simple UK accounting program for a sole trader. Backchat: old printer cartridges can help the British Red Cross.
Ask Jack

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

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

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

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

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

Spambusters Time to get tough on spam -- and that means action at all levels, from changes in software to changes in legislation.
Guardian Online

IT Matters The Harvard Business Review has stirred up a bit of controversy by claiming it doesn't, but it's not to be taken too seriously....
Schofield column
Guardian Online

Broadband choice -- Ethernet or USB? Changes you don't want -- correcting an AutoCorrect entry in Microsoft Word. The search for free Web space. Backchat: recording Internet radio broadcasts, and another free firewall to try.
Ask Jack

Tracked and tested -- Wal-Mart pushes RFID tags, and it could well have to power to prompt widespread adoption, as it did with bar codes.
Guardian Online

It's in our hands Handheld computers may not be as popular as they used to be as consumer devices, but they still have a lot of potential in the corporate market.
Schofield column
Guardian Online

The Tour de France -- it's time to start picking your team. Re Jesus -- the Bible in txt format, and other bits of fun. Technorati brings home the bloggers. Web Demographic. Pets with pages on the White House site. "Most unwanted Americans" -- the latest deck of cards. Six on the best: Blockbuster films.
Web watch

A firewall can reveal that you are running software you don't know about, and may prefer to do without. Capturing Internet radio broadcasts. Backchat: extending that phone line using the mains, and more on The Proxomitron.
Ask Jack

Palm rescues Handspring ... and gets into the phone business with the Treo Communicator.
Guardian Online

Microsoft is providing a sort of "server stability" by delivering things late, but it is delivering performance and it now has a master plan to create an integrated server system.
Schofield column
Guardian Online

The CD that shattered; connecting a PC wirelessly... without Wi-Fi; Windows Messenger Service pop-up ads revisited; blocking ads and other things with The Proxomitron; livable solutions to the overheating laptop problem; clicking OK when you are not there.
Ask Jack

Munich picks Linux. Judge Jackson thought Linux was a joke but Munich plans to install it on about 14,000 desktops. Brave? Not really. It's following a lead given by the German government, and it will have the backing of the world's biggest computer company, IBM.
Guardian Online
Schofield column


The Webby Awards, and World Environment Day. The portal for people with impaired vision, and the Connexion for troubled teens. Who remembers you? This site could help find out. Broad Brother -- the high-speed version of Channel 4's Big Brother. Geek tests: which Matrix character are you, and other quizzes.
Web watch

Hot Tosh: The Satellite that shuts down after half an hour. There may be a tilde (~) file on your Windows desktop -- here's why. The CD-ROM drive stops reading the disc -- try giving it a clean. Removing browser hijackers, including i-lookup. Backchat: more on Polish caracters (but it helps if you read Polish).
Ask Jack

Blogging software is going to become an important business tool. You should be playing with it now, to learn what it can do.
Schofield column
Computer Weekly

Why we need stupid networks
Guardian Online
Schofield column

All aboard the ARKive, a site for endangered species.
Web watch

The Fizzer virus, driving Windows using MouseKeys, and other problems
Ask Jack

Thursday, May 15, 2003

The Silver Surfer of the Year Award heralds a new push to get the over 50s online.
Guardian Online

Social software -- is it the next big thing, or something we've had for decades? It was certainly the hot topic at the recent O'Reilly Emerging Technologies conference, highlighted by a terrific keynote from Clay Shirky.
Guardian Online

When computer companies collide: it's a year since Hewlett-Packard took over Compaq to create a computer giant. Computer industry mergers are usually a bad idea, but this one seems to be going better than most.
Guardian Online
Schofield column

Art after Levi's. DNA revisited -- the Linux Pauling story. Where did that band name come from? May weeks: time to celebrate National Breastfeeding Awareness Week and National Vegetarian Week, among others. Six of the best: Revision sites.
Web watch

Why doesn't a "40GB" drive hold 40GB of data? How much space is Windows taking up? And how much is a second-hand PC worth?
Ask Jack

Thursday, May 1, 2003

Drive to put in a good word -- Brewster Kahle thinks big. In a world where most people can't back up their own hard drive, he started keeping an archive of the internet, and created the Wayback Machine. His latest project is even bigger: to provide universal access to all human knowledge. Putting about a million books (soon!) in the back of a van is just the start.
Guardian Online

Molecular machines -- Eric Drexler, who coined the term nanotechnology, spoke at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies conference in Santa Clara, California, last week.
Guardian Online
Schofield column

You can copy a Web site to CD, but is it legal to send it to a school in Kenya? Blocking those Messenger service pop-up ads in Windows XP. Getting files off the desktop. Software to synchronise a PC with an external hard drive for back-up purposes.
Ask Jack

You don't have to be clever to crack the computer security of most British companies: all you have to do is stand on Waterloo station handing out cheap pens.
Guardian Online
Schofield column

Sproqit seems to have solved the problem that afflicts almost every serious business user: how do you get access to your Microsoft Outlook data when you are not at your PC?
Guardian Online

Not everyone is interested in the Internet, including 42% of Americans, according to a new study. The Penis Blog. Toolbars for search engines. Online Etch A Sketch. Six of the best: soccer sites
Web watch

How many dead pixels are acceptable on an LCD screen? Putting MS Publisher files on the Web.
Ask Jack

Japanese computer companies (Toshiba, Sony, NEC) are becoming major players while American ones (Packard Bell, Apple, Gateway) are in retreat. The move to notebook PCs and mobile devices plays to the Japanese strengths, so the focus of the industry is shifting towards Japan.....
Computer Weekly

Something old, something new : The last one.
Schofield on Saturday
Guardian Unlimited

Thursday, April 17, 2003

The spreadsheet was the "killer app" for personal computers in business, and it could be killing them.
Guardian Online
Schofield column