Archive: The Web
Adobe Updates Reader, Hands Off PDF Standard
One of the most-used, least-appreciated programs on the average PC quietly got an upgrade over the weekend. Adobe Systems, Inc. shipped Adobe Reader 9, the first major new release of its free Portable Document Format file viewer since Adobe Reader 8 shipped in late 2006. A blog post at Adobe's...
By Rob Pegoraro | July 2, 2008; 12:09 PM ET | Comments (21)
OpenTable Offers Al Fresco Access
If any Web site ought to work on an Internet-enabled mobile phone, it should be one built specifically to get you out of your home and office and on your way to a nice restaurant. But until yesterday, OpenTable only offered a version for full-size browsing, meaning anybody without an...
By Rob Pegoraro | July 1, 2008; 09:45 AM ET | Comments (5)
Firefox Turns 3
It wasn't until I'd finished today's review of Mozilla Firefox 3 that I realized one of my favorite features could help me not just personally, but professionally. That would be its smart auto-complete function, which remembers not just pages' addresses but also their titles. As the author of a blog...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 19, 2008; 11:02 AM ET | Comments (49)
MySpace's New Look Seems the Same Old Mess
MySpace is sporting a new look today, as my colleague Mike Musgrove notes in his story. It's drawing some early, if limited praise; TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld writes that the redesign "shows that MySpace can clean up its act without giving up the ability for every member to customize their MySpace...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 18, 2008; 02:59 PM ET | Comments (13)
Firefox 3 Draws Near
The third major release of the browser that ended Microsoft Internet Explorer's monopoly is almost here. Mozilla Firefox 3 will ship on Tuesday the 17th. To mark the occasion, the non-profit behind this open-source browser hopes to set a new world record -- most downloads of a program in a...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 13, 2008; 10:28 AM ET | Comments (53)
When Tech News Breaks, Will Twitter Do the Same?
As I noted on Friday, today will be a big news day in the Apple universe. At the company's annual developers' conference, chief executive Steve Jobs will, almost everybody assumes, unveil an updated, wireless broadband-equipped iPhone, along with updates to Mac OS X and "one more thing" that nobody's guessed...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 9, 2008; 09:57 AM ET | Comments (3)
Amazon Takes a Long Lunch Hour
Amazon briefly debuted a new home page design earlier today. The Seattle-based Web retailer replaced its usual rich array of text and graphics with a white background and a single line of text that was almost profound in its elemental simplicity: Http/1.1 Service Unavailable I kid, of course. The renowned...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 6, 2008; 03:55 PM ET | Comments (9)
Web Finance Follow-Up: Bailing Out
About two weeks ago, I reviewed three Web-based personal finance programs -- Mint, Quicken Online and Wesabe -- and noted in an accompanying blog post that the story was not complete. I'd have to close my account at each service to see how difficult that might be. Would I be...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 3, 2008; 10:38 AM ET | Comments (11)
Web-ifying Personal-Finance Programs
I'm starting to worry that I've been stuck in an abusive relationship with personal-finance software. Programs like Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft's Money can provide a valuable service. At the most basic level, they satisfy everybody's urge to keep score (why didn't I think to throw that phrase into today's column?),...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 22, 2008; 01:45 PM ET | Comments (18)
Yahoo Terminates Tagline Ads
At the end of last week, Yahoo quietly took a step to improve the experience of untold millions of e-mail users: It stopped sticking one-line advertisements at the end of messages sent from its free Yahoo Mail Web e-mail service. The company announced the change in a cheerily sarcastic blog...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 19, 2008; 12:12 PM ET | Comments (11)
Microsoft to Yahoo: Fine, Be That Way!
Silicon Valley printers can go back to their usual summer plans: They won't need to gear up to crank out new business cards for thousands of Yahoo staffers who would have found themselves Microsoft employees later this year. Microsoft announced Saturday that it would abandon the merger attempt it launched...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 5, 2008; 11:40 AM ET | Comments (5)
Paring Your Plug-Ins
After recently writing a column that noted how many different third-party programs in your Web browser can pose security risks for you -- and then being prompted yet again by Major League Baseball's MLB.com site to install Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in to watch a video -- I thought I'd take a...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 30, 2008; 03:30 PM ET | Comments (10)
Facebook Adds Chat; Count Me Out (For Now)
At the start of this month, the social-networking site Facebook began adding an instant-messaging application. It's not a separate program, or even a separate Web page that you need to launch to start zipping notes back and forth in real time. Instead, this little Web widget pops in and out...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 28, 2008; 11:30 AM ET | Comments (8)
Won't You Be My Neighborhood?
When Yahoo Maps recently started displaying neighborhood boundaries in a few hundred North American cities, I had to check out the mapping site's take on D.C. neighborhood boundaries. And I wasn't surprised to see that it got many of them wrong. Some of these errors are the sort of exaggerations...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 14, 2008; 11:52 AM ET | Comments (8)
Feedback, And Pushback, On eBay's Feedback Changes
This morning's column started in early February when I wrote a quick blog post about some policy changes afoot at eBay. Given the inside-baseball nature of the topic, I figured the post would get at most 20 comments. After the first 300 showed up, I began to rethink the story's...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 10, 2008; 10:55 AM ET | Comments (134)
Microsoft and Yahoo's Courtship Continues
Another Monday, another round of stories about how this deal is still up in the air somewhere. The latest developments: On Saturday, Microsoft sent a letter to Yahoo's board of directors, telling them to take the offer on the table in the next three weeks or be prepared to get...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 7, 2008; 12:02 PM ET | Comments (4)
Adobe Eases Photoshop Express Terms of Use
A few minutes ago, a publicist for Adobe, Anne Yeh, e-mailed me to say that the company has revised the terms of service for Photoshop Express, the subject of this week's column. Instead of the open-ended claims on users' content that the old agreement made, the new legalese is much...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 4, 2008; 04:21 PM ET | Comments (11)
Photoshop Expressionism
I first used Adobe Photoshop more than 15 years ago, as an editor at my college newspaper. It was too powerful for all but one computer in the office, and only a small minority of the people in the office even tried to learn how to wield this fiendishly difficult...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 3, 2008; 09:35 AM ET | Comments (7)
IM? I'm Not. And You?
I realized the other day that it had been several months since I'd exchanged an instant message with anybody. I have never been the most enthusiastic IMer, but for a while no day was complete without a round of quick notes back and forth over one instant-messaging network or another...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 2, 2008; 12:42 PM ET | Comments (29)
News You Can Reuse
In the interest of full disclosure, as I was writing today's column I could not help thinking that: a) it would get picked up by the news-aggregator sites that I describe in the piece, b) the users of those sites would then discover other things I've written, and c) that,...
By Rob Pegoraro | March 6, 2008; 08:55 AM ET | Comments (7)
Today's E-Commerce Adventure: Buying Nats Home-Opener Tickets
It took little more than half an hour for the Washington Nationals' home opener to sell out this morning, according to the team's online ticket store. But if you were trying in vain to batter your way through a series of error messages and please-wait prompts to make a purchase,...
By Rob Pegoraro | March 4, 2008; 11:55 AM ET | Comments (16)
Netscape Logs Off
Today is the last day of the rest of Netscape's life. AOL, which bought the browser when it purchased Netscape Communications Corp. in 1998, is ending all support for it tomorrow. It will stop issuing updates and bug fixes and instead is pointing Netscape users to two newer browsers, Firefox...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 29, 2008; 11:19 AM ET | Comments (36)
Fee, Feedback Changes at eBay Still Vex Users
Users are still grumbling a month after eBay announced major changes to the way it works. Some just finished a week-long boycott of the service. But for all the squawking from eBayers, the company shows no signs of relenting on these new policies. To recap, the company announced at the...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 27, 2008; 02:23 PM ET | Comments (783)
Two Ways to the Web: Bookmarks or RSS?
The Web dominates my screen time and has done so since (ulp) the mid 1990s, but how I keep track of my favorite sites has changed over the last few years. I used to rely on a well-tended set of bookmarks, but now I often find myself "bookmarking" a site...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 25, 2008; 02:20 PM ET | Comments (20)
Microsoft And Yahoo: What's In It For You?
In this morning's column, I try to see what individual Web users--not advertisers, not other Internet companies, not the stock market--might get out of a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo. After taking some time to survey each company's Web sites and services, I found some individual things to like--for instance, Microsoft's...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 7, 2008; 10:20 AM ET | Comments (10)
Microsoft + Yahoo = ?
Ten years ago, the news that Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo would have been grounds for completely freaking out. Such a combination would have been an outrageous and offensive attempt to monopolize the Web; I don't know that even the "to heck with Janet Reno" Microsoft of 1998 would have...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 1, 2008; 10:09 AM ET | Comments (22)
Plugged Into Political News Yet?
The Web is one of the greatest time-sucks ever invented, mostly because it lets anybody investigate a topic to death. Whether you're intrigued by baseball, baking, space exploration, knitting or by-the-slice pizza, you can find a Web site, blog, mailing list or online forum dedicated to that interest. For me,...
By Rob Pegoraro | January 28, 2008; 12:04 PM ET | Comments (7)
An E-Commerce Paradox
Here's a little puzzler for everybody to mull over as we ease into the weekend: 1) TicketMaster charges extra if you buy a ticket online or on the phone. But if you show up in person at a facility to get your ticket, no service charge applies. 2) Airlines charge...
By Rob Pegoraro | January 25, 2008; 10:17 AM ET | Comments (20)
Gawking at Google
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.--A tour of Google's corporate campus has become an obligatory part of a Silicon Valley visit for reporters, technologists, politicians and celebrities, but somehow, I'd never had the experience until this week. Yesterday, I spent most of the the day at Google's headquarters here before wrapping up...
By Rob Pegoraro | January 15, 2008; 11:40 AM ET | Comments (7)
Google Gets Chatty With AOL
Yet another reason to evict AOL's software from your computer: You can now use your AOL instant-messaging account in Gmail. Google and AOL first revealed plans to link their instant-messaging networks at the end of 2004, and once promised to have the job done by the end of last year....
By Rob Pegoraro | December 5, 2007; 11:37 AM ET | Comments (18)
Choosing Cookie Clips
Earlier today, I served as a judge in the "Cookie Crumbles" contest. This wasn't about food, but the Internet kind of cookie -- the little text files that Web sites and Web advertisers save to your computer so the site can remember you upon your return. In this contest, the...
By Rob Pegoraro | November 2, 2007; 03:30 PM ET | Comments (8)
Waiting For Google
If you believe all the news you read, you just have to wait a little longer for Google to fix everything that's wrong with cellphones and social networking. First, the search engine/software provider/source of all things good online is supposedly on the verge of announcing its own cell-phone operating system....
By Rob Pegoraro | October 31, 2007; 11:35 AM ET | Comments (5)
Gmail's Latest Trick: IMAP, Therefore I Am
Google's Gmail Web-based e-mail service is rolling out a terrific, free and overdue feature: The ability to synchronize your Gmail account to the desktop mail program of your choice. This includes more than just your inbox, such as all of your messages and all their labels, complete with records of...
By Rob Pegoraro | October 24, 2007; 12:03 PM ET | Comments (59)
Google Unwraps Presentations
Not even a week after I reviewed Google's word processor and spreadsheet, the company launched a presentation program that gives it a full set of Web-based productivity tools. The news came out in a blog posting Monday night, followed soon after by an e-mail from Google's public-relations department. (Note to...
By Rob Pegoraro | September 19, 2007; 10:29 AM ET | Comments (10)
Shedding Some Light on Silverlight
Does the world need yet another way to embed animations and videos in Web pages? Yes, says Microsoft, which released the 1.0 version of a browser plug-in called Silverlight earlier this month. You could have easily missed out on the news, since Microsoft refrained from making much of a fuss...
By Rob Pegoraro | September 17, 2007; 08:33 AM ET | Comments (7)
Reprogram Your Run (or Ride)
If you're a runner or a cyclist in the D.C. area, your workouts are about to get a lot easier provided the weather forecast isn't lying: Tomorrow should bring an end to 90-degree heat, at least for this week. But while it's still the usual hazzymuggyscorching mess, you can benefit...
By Rob Pegoraro | September 10, 2007; 11:41 AM ET | Comments (11)
Yahoo Mail Exits Beta
As of yesterday, Yahoo's free Web-mail service no longer had a "beta" tag adorning its logo. The announcement came a bit over 23 (!) months after the start of Yahoo's public testing of the new mail interface. I like two late changes to the service. Searching for old messages is...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 28, 2007; 10:01 AM ET | Comments (34)
Looking For What's Missing In Web Search
I've been a satisfied Google user for years--starting not too long after I became the second writer at the Post to write about the site in January of 1999. (Pretend I just said that in a Grandpa Simpson voice.) But for today's column, I thought I'd make the site earn...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 9, 2007; 09:33 AM ET | Comments (23)
Narrowing Your Social Networking
Today's column may get me in hot water with my colleagues: Social-networking sites have been a huge help to reporters looking for sources, so advice on keeping your info private from strangers isn't doing my coworkers any favors. (Read after the jump for an anecdote about how we conduct this...
By Rob Pegoraro | July 19, 2007; 10:01 AM ET | Comments (7)
Who's Tops In Photo Sharing?
I was floored to read this blog post yesterday about photo-sharing sites from Web analyst LeeAnn Prescott, a research director at the market-study firm Hitwise. The post leads off with the growing popularity of Yahoo's Flickr site, fueled by users of the soon-to-be-closed Yahoo Photos site moving their pictures over...
By Rob Pegoraro | July 11, 2007; 10:58 AM ET | Comments (25)
Reconnecting
My wife and I got back from our vacation last night, and one of the first things I did after getting home was to plug the DSL modem, wireless router and computer back in, turn them on and see what I'd missed on the Internet. I'd barely logged on during...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 12, 2007; 10:05 AM ET | Comments (11)
Web Mapping Options Multiply
Today's column reviews a couple of nifty new tweaks to Web mapping services from Google and Microsoft. Here's a little more background on the subject: * Microsoft says it now offers those 3D views in 73 cities total. The District is not yet among them--but Cincinnati, Tampa, East L.A. and...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 31, 2007; 09:28 AM ET | Comments (5)
How Many E-Mail Addresses Do You Need?
Since Web-mail seems to be such a hot topic, I thought I'd broaden the discussion a little bit. I'll start with the question one reader asked in a comment on yesterday's post: Why don't you use a web-based mail service for personal mail? What do you use, your ISP's mail?...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 8, 2007; 01:58 PM ET | Comments (39)
Hotmail Web-Mail Beta Test Ending
That's a headline I thought I'd never see--up there with "NASA Deems Pig Test Flight Successful" or "Nationals Take NL Pennant" (sigh). But it's true: One of the three Web-mail services is about to dump "beta" from its name. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that its replacement for Hotmail--first named Live Mail,...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 7, 2007; 11:45 AM ET | Comments (53)
Google Maps Marches On
As (ahem) much of the rest of the blogosphere already noted, Google Maps just rolled out a couple of neat new features. The site now displays train stations -- light rail, subways, commuter rail and Amtrak -- and the outlines of buildings in some cities (you'll need to zoom in...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 13, 2007; 11:12 AM ET | Comments (38)
