Mike Elgan

Remind me again why Steve Ballmer is CEO of Microsoft? He’s got no vision, no charisma, no engineering cred and no outside experience running a company. Ballmer himself admits to not being good at negotiating. And now his deal-making and decision-making skills are being questioned. (Plus, he looks like an 80s-era “Spider Woman” comic book […]

Saturday is International Shutdown Day, a worldwide event put together by a Canadian organization of the same name (Shutdown Day) to get as many people as possible to ignore their computers for 24 hours. According to the organizer’s Web site: “The idea of Shutdown Day project is simple – just shutdown your computer for one […]

Twenty-five years ago, everyone who used a PC mastered a long list of keyboard shortcuts. But as the Mac, and later Windows 3.x and other GUI-based operating systems proliferated, only “power users” still clung to the use of keyboard shortcuts in situations where a point and a click of the mouse would do. The reason […]

Comment on Google’s Spam-Fighting Skills Google’s Gmail spam filter is legendary, and considered one of the best in the business. And it’s true, for the most part. I currently use Gmail’s spam filtering both for Gmail, and also for POP3 mail, which I “launder” through Gmail in order to take advantage of the great spam […]

Comment on Cell Phone Spam Advertisers are all atwitter over the prospect of bombarding your cell phone with advertising. If you’re already annoyed by mobile spam, as I am, you’ll be disappointed to learn that the industry has barely even begun to exploit this amazing source of eyeballs. One estimate suggests that your average consumer […]

Comment on Microsoft stopping XP On June 30, Microsoft will do something quite ordinary — the company will stop selling a 7-year-old old product. Microsoft has killed off many versions of Windows in the past. But there’s a difference with the retirement of Windows XP: Most users hate its replacement, Windows Vista. Microsoft has always […]

The City of Houston plans to spend $3.5 million to build 10 “bubbles” of free wireless in poor neighborhoods. The goal is to bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor. Unfortunately, the result of free Wi-Fi will be to widen that divide. Years ago, we imagined the construction of citywide Wi-Fi in major cities […]

It’s a longstanding tradition in American politics: Newspapers officially endorse local and national politicians running for office and for each major parties’ nominations. For example, the New York Times has endorsed Senators John McCain for the Republican nomination and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. The purpose of endorsements isn’t to predict the outcome, but […]

Did you know that pilots use a different system of time than the rest of us? The entire aviation community — from professional airline pilots who fly the biggest passenger jets to weekend amateur pilots who fly tiny, two-seater, single engine clunkers around their local airports — uses a system called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), […]

The online catalogs have names like Spy World, Spy Source and even Spy Zilla. The wonderful and disturbing new world of spy gadgets offers obscure, often expensive devices — available in most cases to anyone with a credit card. Most spy gadgets should be and could be used for legal and ethical purposes — but […]

Personal computers are getting faker. The percentage of counterfeit components is growing steadily, if unevenly. Fake components make PCs cheaper. The downside is declining reliability, safety and performance. Is it even possible to keep it real? A massive crackdown at U.S. and European airports during two weeks in December yielded some 360,000 fake electronic components […]

You may have heard of, but probably don’t use, an online suite of office and productivity applications called Zoho. I know, I know – another Web 2.0 wonder application. I mean, what’s the point? You’ve already taken out a loan and purchased Microsoft Office. Or your company bought a license. Plus, you’ve invested your entire […]