Friday, March 12

Compaq has issued a white paper, An Overview of Analog Dialup Modem Performance, Environments, and Impairments, to answer customer questions about modem performance and connect speeds. Available in Word or PDF format (but not HTML), the paper discusses issues in the public telephone network that prevent high speed connections.

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Lucent Technologies and AT&T because of equipment that is alleged to suffer from the Y2K bug.

AOL and SBC Communications inked a deal to offer ADSL access to AOL customers in California, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas. The rollout is expected this fall, with Nevada coming online at a later date.

3Com and Microsoft have announced their intent to co-develop home networking products. No fighting, you two.

AcerOpen moved their web site to http://www.aopenusa.com/.

Lucasfilm has released the newest trailer for Star Wars: Episode 1, The Phantom Menace. The 11, 13 and 25 MB trailers require QuickTime.

Microsoft privacy issues

Microsoft has been bein' bad. Last week it was discovered that Microsoft Office documents contain an ID number that identifies the person who created it, or at least the computer that created it. Windows 98 transmits that ID number to Microsoft during the registration process.

MacInTouch, which has had the best coverage of these issues, had previously uncovered a problem with Microsoft Word incorporating extraneous data from the hard drive into Word files:

We opened with BBEdit several Word 98 documents we'd created and documents we'd received. They contained confidential email, URLs, disk directory paths and other information that is invisible within Word 98 and that never should have been in these files. The problem occurs even if Fast Save is disabled (which we recommend), and readers report the problem also involves Windows' Office 97 and earlier versions of Word on the Mac, (including Word 6).

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Tuesday, March 9

The first DOCSIS-standard cable modems are going on sale this week. The Toshiba modems are certified by industry group CableLabs. Cable modem users can now buy their cable modems rather than renting them, because the DOCSIS standard will make the modems usable on a range of cable systems.

MindSpring has opened their first cable modem POP in Montgomery, Alabama. The service will cost $39.95 per month, with a $149.95 installation fee.

Netscape Communicator 4.51 shipped today, with new Instant Messenger functions and natural-language stock quotes.

Need it got it want it need it

I got to try a Diamond Multimedia Rio MP3 player recently. The sound quality and size are terrific. The Rio holds an hour's worth of MP3 music and runs for twelve hours on a single AA battery. If you like Walkmans or MP3s, the Rio is a must have. Use Price Search to find the lowest price.

I'm more of a talk radio person myself, which is why I was excited to read about the Audible player, which holds up to two hours of compressed broadcasts. A one hour radio broadcast can be downloaded in about ten minutes with a 56K modem. Fred Barbash of the Washington Post Service talks about his quest to listen to Internet radio broadcasts without a computer.

Following up on last week's cell phone spiel, country music singer George "No Show" Jones proved the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving without a seat belt, in case there was any doubt. Despite an injury to his liver, the Possum is reported to be recovering very quickly. 

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