Archive: August 19, 2007 - August 25, 2007
Help File Help: Windows Insomnia
Periodically, I use this space to try out a recipe for my Help File column... or ask for your help in crafting one. Here's another issue that's stymied so far: You set a Windows computer to go into standby mode automatically--as I've outlined before, a good idea on both environmental...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 24, 2007; 11:02 AM ET | Comments (21)
Apple Reincarnates iLife
Today's column and podcast (listen/subscribe/iTunes) cover a familiar subject: Apple's iLife multimedia suite. Like other multiple-program bundles (for instance, Microsoft Office), iLife is always a pain to review, because my notes hold far more details than I cram into the paper. So here are some details that didn't make the...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 23, 2007; 12:32 PM ET | Comments (9)
High-Definition Disc Disarray (Cont'd.)
The Blu-Ray versus HD DVD format war -- one of the stupidest storylines to come out of Hollywood lately -- just keeps getting more convoluted, as each side finds a new way to declare that victory is inevitable. For those of you who have remained mercifully ignorant of this mess,...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 22, 2007; 10:59 AM ET | Comments (18)
Buzzword In Progress: "Bacn"?
Perhaps I'm behind the times, but apparently "bacn"--the misspelling is intentional--has become a popular term of art for the automatically generated notifications from legimate, non-spam sites. BuzzFeed offers this concise definition: Bacn describes the things you signed up for but that still feel like clutter in your inbox: Email lists,...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 21, 2007; 3:42 PM ET | Comments (20)
No Sneak Previews Of My Reviews
Most weeks, I typically get an e-mail along the following lines from the publicists for whatever product I'm looking at this week: "Would you mind giving a sense of how you liked the product, so we're not completely surprised when the review shows up?" It's an understandable request, but one...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 21, 2007; 11:05 AM ET | Comments (7)
Signing Off Made Simple
Last week, I had to make one last call to tech support at Presto, the "e-mail for people without computers" service that I recently wrote about. I needed to cancel my Presto account before the conclusion of the 90-day free trial provided by the company's PR department, after which my...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 20, 2007; 8:43 AM ET | Comments (12)
