April 2012
17 posts
5 tags
Yes, you can put up that antenna →
This week’s USAToday.com revisits an old myth that doesn’t seem to go away—the idea that your condo board or homeowners’ association can forbid you from putting up a TV antenna or satellite dish—and shares a tip that may cut down on the number of remote controls you have to use.
2 tags
The Virus That Really Will Kill Your PC July 9 →
An explainer for Discovery News about the DNSChanger malware—and how the computers still infected by it will lose their ability to navigate online July 9. You have checked your computer for this issue, right?
4 tags
CISPA: What’s the worst that could happen? →
It’s tempting but wrong to call the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 a successor to the Stop Online Piracy Act. But behind both bills, I do see the same foolish unwillingness to write legislation that won’t fail catastrophically when it inevitably gets abused or misused by government and private industry.
4 tags
Google Drive: Late To The Game And It Shows →
The headline’s a little harsher than the one I first wrote for this post, but I can’t say it’s an unfair description. Between the continued lack of offline editing in Google Docs and the disappointing OCR performance with uploaded images, Google Drive… say, where’s the usual “beta” label?
7 tags
What's eating your phone's data allowance? →
This week’s USAToday.com column discusses what apps and services could take the biggest bite out of your data plan’s monthly allowance, then suggests one non-obvious way to extend the battery life of smartphones with OLED screens.
4 tags
A Tablet That Talks To Your TV -- Or Tries To →
Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is smaller, lighter and cheaper than the iPad. So at least it’s not automatically doomed. But it has enough other issues (like a universal-remote app that isn’t so universal) to keep it from being much more than a decent, low-cost alternative to the iPad.
5 tags
Get Higher Def From (Some Of) Your DVDs →
A review of a new feature on Walmart’s Vudu streaming service: Disc to Digital, sort of an iTunes Match for video that provides high-def copies of movies you own on DVD for $5 a pop. (You can also pay $2 each for same-quality copies of DVDs and Blu-rays, which should not appeal to anybody who knows how to run DVD-ripping apps like Handbrake.)
5 tags
Overlooked E-Book Chapter: DRM Makes Monopolies →
This week’s post on the Consumer Electronics Association’s blog unpacks an angle missing from much traditional-media coverage of the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple and major publishers: how publishers’ short-sighted insistence on DRM helped create this Amazon near-monopoly that they decry.
4 tags
Do you need a box for digital cable? →
Two cable topics in this week’s USAToday.com column: Using the QAM tuner in a digital TV to get local, public, educational and government channels, and ways to avoid watching the SD versions of channels you pay to get in HD.
2 tags
The Widening Wireless World →
My monthly Web chat for the Consumer Electronics Association—from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern today, April 13—covers a few recent developments in mobile and wireless. But, as ever, no reasonable tech query will be refused, and if I have time I’ll try to get to some unreasonable questions too.
5 tags
We're All Macs And PCs (Unless We're iPhones) →
An essay I wrote about how many of the day-to-day differences between using a PC and using a Mac have faded in recent years. Some represent the market at work, some are Apple and Microsoft making similar mistakes.
4 tags
Passpoint: A Recipe for Wider Wi-Fi →
Switching your phone from overcrowded 3G and 4G to WiFi could get a lot easier with a new standard for wireless roaming.
4 tags
Secure your Mac from Flashback infection →
If you’re worried about drive-by downloads like Flashback—which seems to be the first widely “successful” Mac virus since the days of System 6—the answer isn’t that hard: Stop using the Java software that does next to nothing on a home computer but keeps getting targeted by malware authors.
2 tags
Nokia's Lumia 900: A New Deal For Smartphones →
I thought this review would be more positive, but a bizarre charging issue, unexceptional battery life and the iffy state of Windows Phone 7 apps held it back a bit.
3 tags
Software-Update Policies Could Use An Upgrade →
A plea for some sort of clarity and consistency about how long a manufacturer will provide software updates for the gadgets it sells (especially phones).
8 tags
Rob's March Podcast: Sourcing, RIM Shot, Windows... →
In my monthly podcast for CEA, I go over a round of tech topics - from Research In Motion’s travails to NetZero’s new, sort-of free 4G data service - with ABC News tech correspondent Andrea Smith and follow up on my recent posts for CEA.
4 tags
Glitch mixes up Facebook profile pictures →
My USAToday.com column covers an issue with Facebook’s iOS app first reported to me by… my wife. (But then many other people on Twitter confirmed that they, too, were seeing the wrong profile pics in the News Feed in this app—and, weirdly enough, in the Chrome browser.) The balance of it reminds readers to back up the recovery partition of their hard drive, just in case...
