Hardware

Previous postings on this blog, like any blog, have been narrowly focused. Sometimes it helps to look at the forest rather than the individual trees. To that end, I take a step back here for an overall cheat sheet to Defensive Computing.

Skepticism

Perhaps the most important aspect of Defensive Computing is something money can't buy, skepticism.

Obviously this applies to email messages, many of which are scams. A relatively new approach appeals to your patriotism - emails from people claiming to be soldiers stationed in Iraq who need help bringing money home. Yeah, sure. Skepticism is not only … Read more

Does anybody buying an iPod in 2008 expect to get more than a few years of use out of the thing? My five year old iPod still plays, but I can't get it to work in newer iPod docks or iPod speakers. My iPod is too old.

A good friend of mine plays his 30-year-old Linn LP-12 turntable almost every day. It was an expensive turntable in 1978 when it sold for around $1,200. But he's gotten 30 years of use out of the thing, and even now listens to a lot more vinyl than CD. So … Read more

IBM researchers have reportedly demonstrated technology that will increase hard drive capacity 100-fold, as well as offer major improvements in energy consumption (leading to much longer battery life) and better reliability. Production is estimated in seven to ten years.

The reports summarizing the researchers' findings, which were published in Science (subscription required), use the shorthand "500,000 songs on a portable MP3 player" to describe the advance.

Today's iPod lineup contains no product advertised to hold 5,000 songs, so I'm not sure where the 500,000 figure came from. In fact, the current highest-capacity iPod is 160GB, … Read more

The BBC's iPlayer TV catch-up service is making its way to the Nintendo Wii today. British residents who navigate to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer using Opera's Internet Channel browser will be greeted by the same selection of streaming programs made available for PC users.

The BBC promises to bring a slightly updated version in the coming months that will add additional functionality, the same way Opera did with the specially designed version of its browser made just for the Wii. Best of all, it will be a standalone channel app. The BBC's Anthony Rose hopes this will fit … Read more

If you are considering buying an HP desktop computer, especially a low end business model, be sure to read this story, HP aggravates its failure rate, by Ed Foster, longtime author of the Gripe Line column/blog in InfoWorld.

The story involves a business that ordered 24 HP DX2200 desktop machines (since discontinued) and suffered four motherboard failures, two dead hard drives, and another hard drive "on the brink of failure". Beyond these hardware problems, I found the account of dealing with HP most interesting. No doubt, many of us can relate.

See a summary of all my … Read more

In the '90s, when the MP3 was new, it was difficult to predict the medium's effect on the music industry and our culture. Today, the results of the MP3 revolution are starting to show, and I sometimes wonder what we won.… Read more

Yesterday, Computerworld brought us 5 reasons to ditch the Mac and return to PCs (tip o' the antlers to John Gruber via e-mail). And, sadly, they weren't April foolin' us.

Listen, then, Mac user to the tale of one "Mac fan" who switched... back! (Please shoot the Macalope now.)

So while Apple's sales continue to grow, Keanini decided to buck the trend, and gave up on his most recent Apple machine, an Intel dual-core based MacBook Pro.

That seems like kind of a waste since he could have just used Boot Camp to run Windows on … Read more

Why didn't anybody think of this before? Grand Theft Auto franchise developer Rockstar Games has teamed up with Amazon.com in an interesting joint promotion.

When GTA IV comes out on April 29 and you are cruising around inside doing whatever evil deeds come to mind, you might like a particular song playing on one of the radio stations in the game. Well, you will be able dial a number on your in-game virtual cellphone and receive a text message with artist and title information. And if you've signed up to be part of Rockstar's upcoming social … Read more

In an announcement that will surely test the patience of Zunefans, European newspaper GNT has quoted Microsoft France's Francois Ruault as saying the third generation of the Zune MP3 player will likely have a worldwide release during the holiday season of 2009. While folks in the European Union are probably happy to hear they'll be getting the Zune at all, the rest of us have just glimpsed a long wait for a Zune 3 hardware refresh.

The article goes on to hint that Microsoft's Zune Marketplace digital music download service will eventually be rolled into the Windows … Read more