I love upgrades. But I hate upgrade discs and upgrade pricing. Let's find a way to do away with both, or at least make the upgrade transaction a bit cleaner.
A radio without any knobs. A bathroom where a clear display wirelessly streams vital statistics on your health. And a user interface that takes brain waves and translates them into commands for a computer.
Lars and Jens Rasmussen were broke and jobless -- with only $16 between them -- when they made it big in the Web world by selling their idea for Google Maps.
OK, so after eight years and a lot of grumbling -- Vista, anyone? -- Microsoft has finally released a new operating system that people seem excited about.
If consumers like the new Windows 7 operating system, they'll have the much-maligned Windows Vista to thank.
Microsoft is banking on Windows 7 to breathe new life into a PC world where most computer users are running XP -- an operating system that was released in the early days of the Bush administration.
In my rusted jalopy, a 1991 Volvo 240 sedan, I have installed the future.
International Business Machines posted third-quarter results on Thursday that met analysts' forecasts, then raised its expectations for the rest of the year, citing improving sales trends during the quarter.
When Apple launched its App Store last summer, few imagined it would reach today's numbers so quickly, if ever.
After months of talking about Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft is announcing on Tuesday that the first crop of phones to carry the Windows Phone brand are ready to hit the market.
I love upgrades. But I hate upgrade discs and upgrade pricing. Let's find a way to do away with both, or at least make the upgrade transaction a bit cleaner.
A radio without any knobs. A bathroom where a clear display wirelessly streams vital statistics on your health. And a user interface that takes brain waves and translates them into commands for a computer.
Lars and Jens Rasmussen were broke and jobless -- with only $16 between them -- when they made it big in the Web world by selling their idea for Google Maps.
OK, so after eight years and a lot of grumbling -- Vista, anyone? -- Microsoft has finally released a new operating system that people seem excited about.
If consumers like the new Windows 7 operating system, they'll have the much-maligned Windows Vista to thank.
Microsoft is banking on Windows 7 to breathe new life into a PC world where most computer users are running XP -- an operating system that was released in the early days of the Bush administration.
In my rusted jalopy, a 1991 Volvo 240 sedan, I have installed the future.
International Business Machines posted third-quarter results on Thursday that met analysts' forecasts, then raised its expectations for the rest of the year, citing improving sales trends during the quarter.
When Apple launched its App Store last summer, few imagined it would reach today's numbers so quickly, if ever.
After months of talking about Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft is announcing on Tuesday that the first crop of phones to carry the Windows Phone brand are ready to hit the market.
In the time it takes your computer to boot up, you can probably make some toast or a cup of tea before the thing is ready to use. In the near future, you might only have enough time to take a sip of that tea or check your watch.
It's a good time to have an iPhone, be moderately geeky and live in New York.
Two things happened yesterday of interest to Adobe Systems investors.
Since it went public in Nov. 2007, shares of SuccessFactors, an employee-performance software company, have traded all over the map.
"Don't copy, don't copy that floppy!"
Microsoft is hoping that a new crop of phones this fall will help the company in its quest to stay relevant in the cell phone market.
When BlackBerry users in the United Arab Emirates received a text message from their service provider on July 8 instructing them to install an upgrade on their handsets, they had no idea the application also contained software that, according to BlackBerry's maker, would enable third parties to peek at private information on their phones.
Whenever I look at shiny new smartphones, I experience a "boys and their toys" moment and have to keep myself from drooling. But as the author of The Recession-Proof Business and founder of VictorCheng.com, a Website that provides business training to entrepreneurs, I feel obligated to take a more serious approach. Sleek handsets come and go, but what matters most is the operating system, the software that will run mobile devices now and in the future. Apple, Palm and Google have all recently launched new mobile operating systems: OS 3.0 for the iPhone, WebOS on the Palm Pre and Google's Android system, which comes preinstalled on the HTC G1 from T-Mobile.
Remember about five or six years ago when the open source software movement was going to beat the stuffing out of software giants like Microsoft, Oracle and Sun? That hasn't exactly happened.
One of the largest Internet search engines is being accused of violating both federal and state laws by accepting advertising from online pharmacies it should have known were selling drugs without valid prescriptions.
Individual computer users in China may choose whether to install a controversial content filtering system, but the system will be installed on computers in any public place, China's minister of Industry and Information Technology said Thursday.
Apple is the exclusive gatekeeper to its iPhone App Store, able to reject apps at will -- as it did July 28 with Google Voice.
Microsoft has agreed to hire at least 400 Yahoo employees as part of the companies' new plan to share revenue on Internet search advertising, a regulatory filing showed Wednesday.
In May 2008 I nearly had a nervous breakdown -- and for good reason.
Microsoft and Yahoo reached a long-awaited partnership Wednesday in a bid to challenge Google's dominance in online search.
"Microhoo" is finally a done deal, but will it really be able to make a dent in Google's enormous search market lead?
Microsoft Corp. blamed weakness in the global PC and server markets for a sharp drop in quarterly revenue that badly missed Wall Street's forecasts.
Microsoft on Wednesday said it has finalized the code for Windows 7, paving the way for the new operating system to make its way onto retail shelves and new PCs in time for its October 22 launch.
As a small business in a small town, we rely heavily on phone-book advertising for our law firm. We have recently expanded to create a Web site. We have tried to keep it informative to draw in potential clients. We currently use Google AdWords and are listed as a member of the AARP Legal Services Network. Can you make any suggestions as to how we can improve our Web site to attract people who are using the Internet to search for an appropriate attorney in this area?
In less than a week, Google announced an operating system to compete with Windows, while Microsoft announced that Office 10 will include free, online versions of its four most popular software programs -- a shot at Google's suite of web-based office applications.
Large Internet companies spend millions on consultants and technology trying to get their sites to rank among the highest results on Google. Everyone else has to rely on the poor man's search-engine optimization: the link exchange.
Google's netbook-friendly Chrome OS takes direct aim at Microsoft, whose eight-year-old Windows XP leads the netbook market. But the odds are stacked against Google.
Google is jumping into Microsoft Windows territory -- and threatening to change the way personal computers work -- with its own version of a computer operating system.
It's highly unlikely that the operating system Google announced yesterday -- dubbed Google Chrome OS -- will rocket to the heights of its chief competitor, Microsoft, right away. But it doesn't really matter. In a world obsessed with all things Google, the new OS will certainly get its fair share of attention, and the frontal assault on Microsoft that it represents will serve at least as a great distraction to the tech behemoth.
Google Inc. is planning to hit Microsoft Corp. where it hurts by challenging the software giant's dominance in the world of computer operating systems.
Nude photos and other potentially objectionable materials have been showing up in the iPhone application store in recent weeks, raising questions about Apple's ability to control iPhone content.
China has announced it would indefinitely postpone a mandate requiring all personal computers sold in the country to be accompanied by a controversial content-filtering application, state media reported.
Had the government not delayed its controversial order that all computers be equipped with Green Dam by July 1, the result would have been the same -- Chinese computer retailers were far from ready.
When Iran cracked down on journalists following its recent election, international focus turned to Twitter as citizen journalists posted 140-character reports and links to photos and videos to the site. Trouble was, it was hard to sift the useful and reliable nuggets of information from scores of tweets that included plenty of spam, useless remarks, and stray sentiments.
Last week, Apple released a free update for iPhone users, pushing them to the third iteration of their mobile operating system. (Yes, iPod Touch users are welcome to upgrade, too, at a very reasonable cost of $10.)
Apple's iPhone 3GS and Palm's Pre has captured a lot of hype but don't count out Research in Motion's BlackBerry just yet, say experts.
Google was going to help democratize data in China. Instead, about three years after entering the Middle Kingdom, the search company still finds itself in an uncomfortable working relationship with government censors.
By almost all measures the new Palm Pre handset, released June 6, is a hit: The device is getting raves from technology reviewers, and officials at Sprint Nextel, the only phone network now offering the Pre, have said opening weekend sales outpaced their expectations.
Windows 7 is coming soon. But having a PC sales rebound come with it seems unlikely.
Apple on Monday unveiled a new, faster iPhone, lowered the price on its existing model to $99, and released details of its revamped operating system.
Apple is rumored to be working on something bigger than an iPod Touch, but smaller than a MacBook. Past patent applications filed by the company and whispers from contract manufacturers point to a midsize gadget with a screen of 7 to 8 inches in the works, perhaps scheduled to debut early next year.
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday offered Internet users a first glimpse at Bing, its fresh attempt to gain ground in the online search market.
Search engine wars are heating up.
No longer is the promised land of Apple's App Store reserved for technical wizards.
We may be coming upon a new era for the Internet search.
On May 19 Leo Apotheker will become SAP's lone CEO after sharing the title with Henning Kagermann for a year or so. He assumes the mantle at a troubling time.
At a table in Las Vegas, a town fueled by big bets, IBM software chief Steve Mills outlined one he doesn't want to make: Buying application provider SAP.
Digital cameras are now as common and affordable to the average family as the Polaroid of the '60s.
Palm's comeback attempt rests squarely on the notion that it has found a better way to manage your complicated digital life.
Thinking of floating your small business on the software-as-a-service cloud? Maybe it's time to step back down to Earth.
In the battle for corporate customers, BlackBerry reigns supreme. But will the iPhone become the mobile device of choice for small businesses?
Is the world finally ready for the mobile minitablet? It's become quite clear over the last several months that Apple is ready to bridge the mobile computing gap, with plans to develop a device that fits somewhere in between the iPhone and the MacBook.
Apple issued a statement Thursday apologizing for allowing the Baby Shaker application onto the App Store.
If mention of The Pirate Bay conjures up images of parrots, peg legs and planks, or geeky jargon like BitTorrent and jailbreak leaves you all at sea, this handy A-Z will help you navigate the choppy waters of the online piracy debate.
Mac computers are known for their near-immunity to malicious computer programs that plague PCs.
When it comes to downloading software from the Internet, I'm always getting conflicting advice from my geeky friends. Knowing my technological ignorance, some tell me that I should never download anything from the Web (recommending only boxed software from the store). Others say some software's okay to download -- but I should be aware of the dangers. How am I supposed to know where to begin identifying the difference? I'm lost!
Question: I have a small veterinary practice with 10 employees. What is a good program to use to make a database about my employees, with photos, contact info, salaries, information on their last raise, etc.?
The online world has gone totally multimedia: Web video and images have proliferated in recent years. Yet the go-to method for finding stuff on the Internet remains text-based. Looking for a site? Type words into a search bar, and the text results offer a hint of the relevant pages. Even if you're looking for images or video, the results are notated with words.
If the term "serial acquirer" were actually in the dictionary, it would probably be accompanied by a picture of Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison.
The acquisition of Sun Microsystems by International Business Machines' rival Oracle on Monday came just weeks after Sun's negotiations with IBM failed.
Business software maker Oracle Corp. said Monday it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy server builder Sun Microsystems in a deal worth $7.4 billion.
With the Conficker worm still hot and Microsoft patching multiple more software vulnerabilities last week, it might be reasonable to assume the bad guys are winning the battle to get control over Internet-connected computers.
One evening last winter, Mike Harris was watching his local TV news when he saw a segment that caught his attention: Parents were using software to monitor their kids' cell phones.
Ack! I was modifying data in a very complex Excel spreadsheet for a good part of the day and now...I can't find it! I'm always very careful to press the "save" button every five minutes or so, but where did it go? It can't have just disappeared, right? Help!
It used to be that only a few CEOs were known for their obsessive love of cost-cutting -- guys like Mark Hurd at Hewlett-Packard and Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase. But these days, with revenues everywhere grinding to a halt, everyone's getting into the act. Not surprisingly, a new breed of enterprise software has emerged to help the bean counters.
If my computer says it has a software update, should I install it?
Telizent Communications landed a $65,000 contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2007, which both thrilled and unnerved the owner of the Denver-based telecommunications firm.
By now most personal-computer users know not to post their Social Security numbers on the Internet or respond to Nigerian e-mails seeking help with suspicious bank-account transfers.
It's the last day of a first quarter that most investors would like to forget. Stocks may have bounced back a bit in March, but the Dow and S&P 500 are still down more than 10%.
To paraphrase a complaint from the late James Doohan, my computer's giving me all she's got, but Vista's more than she can handle! My system should be able to deal with this version of Windows just fine, but it's just not happening. I'd add more RAM if it were possible, but my slots are all maxed out. I've tried various freeware that promises to keep my RAM working at maximum efficiency, but it's just not enough. Is there anything out there for enhancing the memory I do have until I can get a newer, faster machine?
Software giant Oracle reported fiscal third quarter profits and sales that beat Wall Street's expectations, and also announced that it would be issuing a dividend to its shareholders. The company also reported "record operating margins."
Alan Minton, vice president of Cornerstone Information Systems, was hardly opposed to taking business trips. After all, travel is part of his core business. Cornerstone, a 70-employee firm based in Bloomington, Ind., makes automation software for the travel industry.
OK, it's California. So we are quite used to the rest of the country rolling their eyes in knowing exasperation at our fads. But often, they turn out to be harbingers of national trends. And so the question: Will AB-255 (a bill that would "censor" some aspects of Google Earth) number among them as well?
A decade ago Marc Benioff declared that software was dead. In 1999, while on leave from his job at Oracle, he convened a group of developers in his downtown San Francisco apartment building to build Salesforce.com. Soon thereafter he paid the quirky rockers the B-52's $250,000 to perform at a bash where he distributed buttons with the word "software" crossed out, Ghostbusters-style. And that was all before he had signed up a single customer.
Move over, Microsoft Money and Quicken. As tax season approaches, and the new realities of life in recession set in, consumers increasingly are turning to free, Web-based personal finance tools to manage their money.
The Web can be a great place to market and sell your goods to consumers all over the world. It can also help you communicate with customers and foster a community around your company. The only catch: Site visitors need to be able to easily access those features in order to reap the benefits.
With all the buzz about software served up over the Internet, you'd think old-guard enterprise software makers like Oracle and SAP would be panicking over the future of their businesses. You'd be wrong.
My daughter is starting college, and I was wondering if we should spend money upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft Office for her notebook computer?
Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex, Russia's largest online-search company, is playing with a set of nesting dolls (for real!). Instead of the traditional folk decoration, though, these figurines are outfitted with the names of Internet companies doing business in Russia. The first and biggest doll has Yandex emblazoned on its belly in bold red and black letters. A smaller doll bears the Google logo, followed by one representing Rambler, Russia's other homegrown search engine. "We were charitable with these dolls," Volozh says. "If we had been honest, we would have left the second doll blank and made Google third. We're that much bigger than them."
Microsoft is gearing up to take on rival Apple in the smartphone market.
Just because the Internet has broken down geographic barriers, don't assume that Google doesn't care about geography.
Significantly increasing the utility and competitiveness of its Web-based e-mail service, Google is enabling an experimental ability to read, write, and search Gmail messages even while not connected to the network.
Microsoft has made some stumbles in the mobile world, but a strategy shift made more than a year ago will soon pay dividends, the company's top Windows Mobile executive said in an interview with CNET News.
VMware hopes virtualization becomes a reality for corporate America in 2009.
The incoming Obama administration's plan to appoint the first national chief technology officer unequivocally emphasizes the new team's belief that technology isn't ancillary or extraneous to governance, and instead that it's an integral part of the effective running of a democratic superpower.
Google recently released its annual rundown of popular searches for 2008 - what they call the "zeitgeist" list - and it's a reminder, once again, of how much we reveal about ourselves every time we type into a search bar.
It's happened to all of us: You print something from the Web, and all you get is a sheet of paper with nothing but a URL or something equally useless.
Microsoft has applied for a patent on metered, pay-as-you-go computing.
Say what you will about Larry Ellison's style, but the in-your-face founder of Oracle knows how to manage a company through a recession, at least so far.
Many business owners regularly talk to inanimate objects. Don't believe me? I'm guessing that in the last week alone you've begged your PC not to lose valuable data or implored your notebook to recover lost documents. While we all have one-sided conversations with our tech toys, we generally don't expect them to answer, much less complete tasks simply because we say so. But today's voice-activated software promises to do just that, claiming faster speeds and an impressive 99% accuracy level.
You can't really blame technology executives and pundits for not wanting to go too far out on a limb in making prognostications and predictions about 2009.
Paychecks and payroll taxes are hardly the most exciting parts of running a business, so it's not surprising that most owners tend to think about their payroll service only when it fails.
What happens when a business throws out its scheduling and collaboration tools and replaces them with Google's low-cost, online business software? To find out, we at Blumsday migrated our entire shop of roughly a dozen employees and contractors to test out Google Apps.
Microsoft has announced it will offer an online version of the Office suite, but you won't see it until 2010. In the meantime, try Zoho or Google Docs.
Savvy Internet users know that downloading unsolicited computer programs is one of the most dangerous things you can do online. It puts you at great risk for a virus or another time bomb from a hacker
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