I usually agree with Mike of TechDirt, but the trend he points to here worries me: browsing for what you want to buy offline (i.e. in shops) and then buying online. All well and good if you’re talking about big brick and big mortar department stores, megamalls etc, but what about the small corner store… Read More »
Sometimes things change, and it’s hard to stay on top of them. Plaxo is supposed to help with this — an Outlook plug-in (i.e. a little piece of software that attaches itself to Outlook) which will update your contacts with other Plaxo users you know, and vice versa. Nice idea, and on the whole they… Read More »
A program I’ve found highly useful of late is Windows Startup Inspector. It does something Windows XP should do, but doesn’t: Allow you to decide what programs do and don’t start when Windows does. It sounds dumb until you realise that most programs these days — including a lot that should know better — automatically… Read More »
MessageLabs, who track this sort of thing, say that spam and viruses hit all time highs in 2003. Not surprising, but the figures are pretty shocking, revealing the symbiotic relationship between spam and viruses — what I called in a recent WSJ/FEER column The Spiral Of Evil (no, it doesn’t seem to have caught on).… Read More »
The irony is not lost on those writing about it: Sharman Networks, owner of the music-swapping program Kazaa (a Napster imitatator) is closing down Kazaalite K++, a version written by other folk that was designed to do what Kazaa does without all the spyware and adware. They complained about it infringing copyright, or something. The… Read More »