Technical Support - Articles Archive
from March 28, 2004 to January 31, 2004

"Trusted Computing (TC) continues to be one of the most controversial technologies to come along in many years. Ross Anderson's (anti) TCPA FAQ, Lucky Green's apocalyptic DEFCON presentation, and sites such as notcpa.org and againsttcpa.com are full of predictions of online disaster if TC technology is ... read more

A two-page PDF showcasing key differences, features, pros and cons of Open Office (free) and Microsoft Office. Though the document has been written and prepared by Microsoft, leaving quite a patina of , in it you can still find lots of useful information about this steadily ... read more

Internet whiz Marc Andreessen took the 3rd annual "Open Source in Government" conference by storm last week, at George Washington University in Washington DC, when he came up with his personal top twelve reasons for why open source will boom over the next 5-10 years. ... read more

What's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS? It's that Microsoft reacts to marketing pressure to make design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage ... read more

From the author of the Support Alert newsletter here is the freeware greatest hits of all times. I must say there are indeed a lot of good picks in this selection, and quite a few are on my personal list of daily productivity tools. Many are ... read more

Buzznet is a photoblog community offering free hosting space for your digital photos and mobile phone shots. They offer image uploads via your web browser and cameraphones using email, making it easy to setup your own gallery of photos. Recently they became the first photoblogging service ... read more

Why can't it be as easy to buy, download, and run software as it is to do the same with music? Macromedia is trying to do just that with Macromedia Central, which strives to be a better way to distribute and run software. The first release ... read more

E-mail is the "killer app" of the Internet; an enormous amount of messages are exchanged every day, and while web-based mail has become very popular in recent years, many people still prefer the added speed and flexibility of a mail client application. All modern mail clients ... read more

ScanSoft PDF Converter is the world's #1 solution for instantly turning PDFs into fully formatted Microsoft Word documents -- complete with text, columns, tables, and graphics. Developed in a collaboration between ScanSoft and Microsoft, PDF Converter works within the applications that you use every day, including ... read more

I am very happily testing Mozilla FireFox (formerly FireBird), a new standards-based browser that in my opinion may soon give a serious dent into Microsoft Internet Explorer usage by those that are not in favour of being under a complete Microsoft monopoly (please note that the ... read more

With the release of the new StarOffice 7 for Sun Solaris last month, Sun Microsystems noticeably chipped away at Microsoft's Office juggernaut. Learn how the office suite's PDF capabilities are bolstering its appeal. ... read more

Bart's PE Builder helps you build a bootable Windows CD-ROM or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks. It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and ... read more

As the amount of information coming at us increases in quantity and variety, the tools that and the methods allow heavy information users to keep afloat are getting to be as critical as the ability write or read. This short post provides a wealth of pointers ... read more

Aaron's WebVacuum grabs all types of files from Web sites. It can be set up to download pictures, mp3s, videos, programs, or any other file type that the user specifies. It's what we call the "Hoover" of Web site content, and it can be used to ... read more

Rajesh Jain closely analyzes the opportunities and duties confronting small and medium sized organizations outside of the US and outlines the key levels at which these companies need to work to drastically improve their operational efficiency. ... read more

This fascinating project originating at the MIT Media Lab in Boston, uses the process of organic information design to visualize the changing structure of a Web site, juxtaposed with usage and traffic information. Very interesting indeed. ... read more

Online resource dedicated to list, organize and describe all instances of bots, such as automated search tools, search engine crawlers and other automated software agents which can be used for different purposes. Windows and Mac sections. Bots categories include: Search, Shopping, Tracking, Web monitoring, Chatterbots, Personal ... read more

Many times you find yourself unable to send a file to someone either since the file is too big and you cannot mail it, or your friend is behind a mean firewall. Now you can send heavy PowerPoint presentation to your colleagues or send that 700MB ... read more

Networks, including the Internet, company intranets, personal home networks, community nets, and more, are quickly becoming the lifeblood of society. But pressure is on to control our publicly accessible networks, and with it, to control our speech, preferences, and interactions with the networked world. Toward understanding ... read more

In this audio recorded IT-Conversation interview Dan Gillmor of San Jose Mercury News gives his views on a broad variety of topics facing us in 2004. On the "copyright cartel," he points out that if we had been in this state 30 years ago when photocopiers ... read more