Blue Security, the anti-spam company I wrote about somewhat skeptically for WSJ.com (subscription only, I’m afraid) a few months back, are claiming initial success in their Do Not Intrude Registry. (Simply put, users sign up for the service and Blue Security threatens a kind of mass ‘visit’ to any spammer that continues to spam any … Read more
Anyone having problems installing iTunes 5.0 and encountering the error message The ordinal 21 could not be located in the dynamic link library MAPI32.dll might try the following. It worked for me: Locate Fixmapi.exe (it’s usually in the C:WindowsSystem32 folder. More details here and here.) Run it (double click on it). Not much visible will happen but … Read more
I’ve just spent an hour removing programs from my Windows XP machine. I have far too many programs anyway, but removing them is not made any easier by a lack of basic standards among software developers, who seem to consider software removal as a chance for some creative licence and a last-gasp effort to suck … Read more
If it was from any other company it wouldn’t really matter, but Google’s Desktop Sidebar is important, not because it’s particularly new, but because it undermines the primacy of the browser. Loose Wire ‘s WSJ.com column in June looked at desktop widgets like Konfabulator and Klips before, as well as existing sidebars like the Desktop … Read more
Why are the progress percentage bars in programs so useless? This one in TrendMicro’s HouseCall has been telling me it’s 99% done for more than an hour: This is by no means unusual. Software, whether it’s loading, installing, booting, scanning or whatever, doesn’t seem too hot on the old timing front. The jump from 0–99 … Read more