I think most Americans are eschewing some "de facto" definition and simply looking at their paychecks and comparing them against their buying power.
If Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Warren Buffet...

I Know, I know, big screen TV's are all the rage and just about everybody wants one. I want one myself, but I'll be a fat man if I let a store, like one of these huge chains is doing, buy me one....

HappyGeek:

It amazes me sometimes how people trained to do sales (there IS a difference between "people trained to do sales" and actual salespeople) are always tripping over themselves. It's...

An elderly woman in Ohio has been pretty much beaten to a pulp by AT&T (not physically, of course, but it almost might well have been). Here's the story:
Mandatory phone rentals went out in the 80's...

Well, it seems Microsoft has finally weighed in with some "official" pricing. It really doesn't look as bad as I would have thought. Not that it will make it any more likely that I'll be buying any...

I'm kind of leaning against buying it too. I just don't see the advantage (yet). I'm pretty excited about the Aero interface, but that's not worth two hundred bucks to me. The biggest thing I was...

It was just a rumor. I said it was just a rumor. I reported it as a rumor. I had heard a few months ago that a rumor had surfaced about the pricing for Windows Vista. I had heard that the Home...

Well, well, well. Just as I got done ratting out the mobile phone companies for various beat-downs, guess what I found out? Well, actually, I found out two things: one, I found out that I should be...

Dark Omen;
Yep, I'm agreeing that the numbers do have a purpose. Point is it would be nice if there was a standard method of determining versions. I download tons of software (no kidding) and a lot...

Omen;
I agree, but developers can have the version numbers internal to the program, no need to confuse the users. The version numbers do matter to the consumer; for example you may be asked, if you...

What is up with software version numbering systems? Why no standard? How is it that some fly-by-night app, obviously obscure until the author managed to scrape together enough savvy to get it listed...

I agree too; when I see something from a business, and the email address is given as an AOL address, or worse yet, Hotmail or Yahoo (both of which are fine for personal use), I take a step back.

It scares me that, even if I do the duty to protect my personal information, some IT "professional" might be asleep at the switch and be the leak that sinks my ship. So, just when I thought I was...

Well, Symantec (one of my favorite whipping-boy software companies) is at it again. I mean they have taken hold of the crank with a death grip and are trying their best to give that bad boy one heck...

Microsoft's patch-the-patch policy and practice has just rubbed a hole in their own breeches that they need to patch! First, the snafu over WGA (which supposedly just wants to make sure you have a...

I'm going to let up on the beat-down for today, and instead give you a heads up. There is a company (and a service) that's been quietly kicking Google's butt (if you can believe that). The butt being...

I don't know a good word to use for the advantage Microsoft has with IE. I guess you can call it a "mindset" advantage A lot of people seem to have the idea that IE is better by default because of...

I think that what Kazaa stood for was against some law somewhere, and of course that aspect of it needs to be addressed, but as one who has actually touched into the music business, I can assure you...

Yep, I agree, this kind of thing makes it harder for the legitimate reviews/reviewers to be taken seriously. It also makes it harder for legitimate, but new, software to get taken seriously. I almost...

Awesome! I'm going to check this out; thanks for the tip.

I am sure many of them got free phones, sure. What they should do is inform those 4.7 million that as of a certain date, if they are using a non-GSM phone, it will no longer work. It's not as if they...

Here we go with the mobile phone beat-down again: Cingular Wireless, in a move boiling over with distasteful corporate hubris, has had the unmitigated effrontery to announce that they are going to...

I'm not going to mention any real names in this article (to protect the innocent as well as to protect the innocent (me) against the guilty), but if you've been keeping up, you know that right now,...

Yeah, I have to agree. I mean, consider if the same number of people download now as already have (3 million). At $1.50 a pop, that's $4.5 million! There isn't a mathematician or self-proclaimed IT...

I'm going to proceed from the assumption that those of you who are reading this article are at least somewhat technically savvy. I was going to further assume that none of you (or at least very few)...

Want proof that competition is healthy? In what is probably a one-horse town in eastern New Mexico called Clovis, one could buy gas at 49 cents a gallon! That's right, 49 cents. It seems that the...

No thanks, guys. I think I'll pass on it, OK? Yeah, I was surfing around the Internet today, reading a few news articles here and there, when I stumbled (nearly stubbed my toe) upon an ad for a large...

I found a neat little program that had some pretty handy functionality. I downloaded it, tried it out and found it to be stable, quite useful and since it was free, I decided to keep it. I don't use...

Well, well, well. Something I said wouldn't happen is actually trying to happen. I don't know how long it will last or how far it will go, but there is certainly something here. While I have always...

I have gotten into software development, and I love it. In fact I want to be good at it so badly that it's almost as if it has a taste and I want to experience it. There is a good and a bad to that....

Don't you love it? PPM, Mb/sec, dot pitch, gray-to-gray, interpolated, L2, rpm, ham and eggs, and the list is endless. Specs, specs and more specs, and hardly a real-world number in the bunch. I'm a...

It can almost be said that beat-downs from AOL are like noses; everybody's got one. Thing is, many people have more than one. I don't know too many other things in the cyber-world that have so...

LOL! Sounds like they'd have done better just selling you a crimper and some cable stuff! The thing is, many stores do such a large volume of business that they just don't care when things like this...

Is it just me, or is there a rather severe dearth of knowledgeable help at technology stores? I don't think I've ever seen a larger number of know-nothing, computer tech wannabes working at stores...

If you really want to get beat down and have it made to feel like a triumphant, enjoyable experience, just go buy a car. There is a saying in the car business: "A good deal is when the customer...

OK, generally, eveyone needs a bank, unless you want to make the unwise decision of walking around with scads of money in your pocket. While it's good to have some cash on hand, mainly, you need a...

Most people today would likely say that whenever they need to call any kind of customer/technical support, they have a horrid experience, or at least something far less than what is implied by...

OfficeMax recently announced that they are doing away with rebates! Here's an actual headline subheading:

Citing overwhelming customer dissatisfaction with its mail-in rebate system, OfficeMax...

Ah, forget what I've been saying. I have a new focus now; consumer beat-downs. What's that? I'm glad you asked. This blog's entries will be heretofore devoted to bringing to light some of the nasty...

Ahhh, the blissful joys of a new computer. I can hardly wait until I can know that joy again. Still, those are some rosy glasses indeed, cscgal. Just the 8 CPU's alone is enough to drool over, but 64...