My mother really, really loves Skype. That's really caught me off guard, because for some reason I've never been very excited by it. So I want to know: do any of you folks use Skype regularly? And can anyone suggest why I might be more hesitant about Skype than I generally am about nifty-sounding new technologies? ('Cause thus far, I haven't come ( Read more... )

Here's what I want as my computer desktop image, or maybe as a screensaver ( Read more... )

Two vaguely noteworthy bits of internet advertising recently:

• Hoping to undermine my marriage, some spammer told me to "Search for Your Soulmate" on the day of my tenth wedding anniversary. Hey, fake-eHarmony: knock it off!
• Just how much does Google know about me, anyway? When my NoScript extension for Firefox[1] was updated this morning, the ( Read more... )

This weekend, Kim and I are going to Penguicon, a "Science Fiction and Open Source Software Convention" near Detroit. I've never actually been to a con before, so it should be a fun experience. This one's a little unusual with its "open source" aspect, but Kim figures that's a plus for me: if there's a time when the sci-fi side of things doesn't ( Read more... )

Anyone know a good reason why I shouldn't get (via startup funds at work) one of the new MacBook Pro 15" i7 models? More importantly, does anyone have advice on ( Read more... )

I appear to unexpectedly be the owner of an Eee PC. I know very little about these things, but it seems to be a fairly high end recent model (EEEPC 1005HA), with an Atom 280 processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, multi-touch capability, and a bunch of other features. It apparently runs Windows XP, though I assume I could install Linux on it if I ( Read more... )

You know what I hate about computers? Or rather, to be totally unfair, about PCs? When they go wrong it's a complete disaster, and yet they leave you feeling like it's your fault.

( Whiny details behind the cut. )

Well, my fears that my entire laptop was quickly turning into an expensive paperweight have receded. Someone pointed out that even fairly thorough memory tests may not catch problem RAM, and that a better test would be to actually pull out RAM modules and see if the problem persisted. Sure enough, ever since I replaced the new memory upgrade I'd ( Read more... )

I appear to have a serious problem with my laptop, and I'm wondering if any of the technically savvy folks I know have any advice on what to do about it. Since I'm guessing that most people aren't particularly interested in reading about problems with my four(?) year old Powerbook (possibly related to overheating), I'll hide most of this behind a ( Read more... )

I figure I'd mention this separately, since it's actually kinda cool. (I have no idea how recent this is, but I hadn't seen it before.) When I wanted to contact Amazon.com to tell them that their apparent price gouging (intentional or not) was not reasonable, I noticed that there was now an option to talk to them on the phone. But they don't ( Read more... )