Entries for February 2007

You've heard that making phone calls over the Internet is cheap and easy. Now, for those of you who haven't tried it, no more excuses: Try Jajah. This is one of the smoothest, simplest, and cheapest ways to make Internet calls. Unlike Skype, it doesn't require downloaded software. And unlike Vonage, it doesn't require a piece of extra hardware and a monthly charge to work with a standard telephone. You don't even need a broadband connection.

Writing a piece of software that makes Windows work better can be a dangerous career. Microsoft has been known in the past to "absorb" some of the better ideas out there, putting third-party developers out of business. The most notorious was linking the Web browser to Windows, which led to Netscape's demise. Other companies now sit in Microsoft's cross hairs. One is VMWare, which makes sophisticated software aimed at corporate users and says Microsoft is trying to steal its business.

Great pictures and sound apparently aren't enough to sell movies in this day of Internet hyper-interactivity: Folks hawking new high-definition disks are promising fancy features beyond the director interviews and film outtakes that come with standard DVDs.

In a bit of nostalgia, I recently read the short story Why I Live at the P.O., by southern writer Eudora Welty. The humorous and quirky story led to the naming of one of my favorite pieces of software, an esteemed E-mail program, by its original developer back in the late 1980s.

Many people don't even realize they have a home network, much less what they can do with it. But if your home has more than one computer using the same Internet connection, that means there's a router–which means you've got a network, and that means you can do a lot more than just share broadband.

It seemed like a bit of a time warp the last time I tried a high-definition DVD player. That first-generation player was like something from the former Soviet Union–big, slow, and prone to unexplained stoppages. A second-gen player from Toshiba is a vast improvement.

We've all been frustrated by long Web addresses, like the one that will get you a recent column of mine: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/davesdownload/archive/070124/atomic
age_clocks_that_set_them.htm

One of the "wow" factors of the iPhone was its touch-screen, which offers graphical buttons to replace almost all the hard buttons that typically sit atop a cellphone and inevitably confuse users. Touch-screen buttons can be bigger, better labeled, and generally easier to see and navigate. They also make it easier to bounce around menus and the Web, as you just point with your finger instead of using buttons or wheels to move some mechanical pointing device.

Argue if you want over the value of Monster Cable cables, the premium-price versions that are a runaway success at local retailers, judging by their prominent display. Maybe there is some reason to spend $300 on a cable to connect a TV to a DVD player, which is what one Monster HDMI connector costs at Circuit City.

For the second time in recent years, I've canceled a paid account on AOL (formerly America Online)–and it was only a medium pain this time. AOL has been known for making it hard to stop its service, even rising to the level of harassment by customer service reps who field requests.