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My wife has a Dilbert cartoon on her office door in which one of the characters says: "If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how." She's a Mac user and they were worse even before they all became Unix users too Or maybe not. But finding out whether the average Mac user really is smarter than the rest of us isn...

The Senate Commerce Committee will soon vote on a bill to bar states from meddling with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which allows the Internet to be used like a telephone The bill by Sen. John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) is one of many reactions to a growing movement from states and other pro-regulatory types to control VoIP....

With online sales surpassing US$100 billion last year and continuing to grow at double-digit rates, retailers are seeing greater profitability with their online operations. With this good fortune comes the added burden of protecting the personal data of customers As the list of regulations coming from federal and state agencies grows, companies are...

Spyware, an intrusive malicious software -- or malware -- application that slips into computers via free downloads and visits to some Web sites, is quickly becoming the second most troublesome computer malady after virus infections. Spyware can track Web surfing habits and send the results to purveyors of junk mail. It can scan hard drives for sensitive files and send them to a central location run by hackers. Spyware can slow down a computer so much that it renders the machine next to useless...

Terrorism fears rattled some markets around the world today as word that terrorists were reportedly eyeing the energy infrastructure of the U.S. drove oil prices back toward record levels again and helped drive stocks lower on the session. The markets managed to bounce off sessions lows, but finished in the red across the board. The Dow finished d...

Intel, the world's largest maker of computer chips, announced yesterday that its profit nearly doubled in the second quarter as the company reported strong sales for a type of memory chip commonly used in consumer gadgets such as cell phones The company reported earnings of $1.8 billion (27 cents a share), up from $896 million (14 cents) in the sam...

IBM has signed an agreement to acquire Alphablox Corporation, a privately held company based in Mountain View, California. The acquisition is expected to close later this month, but financial details were not disclosed According to the companies, Alphablox's operations will be integrated into IBM's information management software business and Alpha...

Microsoft has released its monthly round of patches, including two patches for critical vulnerabilities and one that patches a hole that could become the basis of a widespread computer worm attack. At the same time as the patch release, a Danish company announced additional security holes in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, which has been beaten by a string of vulnerabilities and attacks in recent weeks...

This week, IBM introduced the new eServer p5 systems, a line of Unix and Linux servers that use Power 5 microprocessors and Micro-Partitioning, an IBM Virtualization Engine technology According to IBM, the new eServer p5 systems are the result of a large-scale, three-year research and development effort at IBM that extends beyond traditional Unix s...

Intel posted healthy second-quarter profits on Tuesday, but concerns about the company's revenue growth, growing and shrinking profit margins quickly overshadowed the strong performance Intel said profit nearly doubled in the quarter that ended in June, rising 96 percent to US$1.76 billion compared to $896 million a year ago. Sales for the quarter ...

A massive new multi-million-dollar anti-DVD piracy campaign riding on the back of the UK premier of "Spider-Man 2" seeks to make a questionable link between illegal file sharing and organized crime, triads and terrorists The aim of the campaign by Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is to "make consumers aware that pirated copies of movies so...

The French Ministry of Equipment will be migrating to Linux, replacing 1,500 office and infrastructure Microsoft Windows NT servers with Mandrakelinux Corporate servers. Mandrakesoft, a top European Linux player, also was chosen for deployment, training and support for the Linux strategy Mandrakesoft noted that the Linux distributions based on its ...

Wireless carriers are finding online gaming via use of cell phones to be the latest cash cow to boost revenues. "Carriers have been surprised that wireless gaming is even more lucrative than ringtones," Ken Hyers, a senior analyst with market research firm In-Stat/MDR, told TechNewsWorld Online gaming, where users download video games onto their ce...

Many businesspeople have thought about the thrill of going public: the challenge, the excitement, the bragging rights and the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow But what should you know about the downside and cost of such a venture? Are there important things you absolutely must be aware of before you take the plunge? This column will address ...

Microsoft immediately rejected Japanese antitrust regulators' call Tuesday to retroactively nullify its contract provisions that limit the legal recourse of PC manufacturers in Japan to which it licenses its Windows operating system Microsoft, noting it had already removed the provisions from new contracts as of last February, took issue, as expect...

Internet search firm Google said Monday it would list its hotly anticipated $2.7 billion initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market, dealing a blow to the New York Stock Exchange, which had campaigned hard to win the coveted listing Both organizations had a lot at stake in the Google listing, which the Mountain View, Calif.-based company di...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the third and final day of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2004 -- the company's main event for business partners -- with a message of increased company investments to fuel innovation in the industry. "For businesses dedicated to innovating with technology and related services that solve real-world...

Google's choice to take a spot alongside other tech heavyweights by staging its hotly anticipated initial public offering on the Nasdaq market has left analysts speculating about the thinking behind the decision. Being listed on the Nasdaq will put Google in the company of rivals such as Yahoo and Microsoft and a host of other Internet companies a...

After more than 70 months without a significant drop in its share of the U.S. Web browser market, Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) saw its hold on the mouse clicks of Web surfers slip by one percent over the last month On the basis of a daily survey of some 30 million browsers, WebSideStory, a San Diego-based Web metrics company, reported that IE's...

When J.S.G. Boggs needs money, he draws it. He draws one side of a banknote on high-quality paper, actual size, and presents it to the merchant The merchant, knowing that the banknote is not official, can accept it or ask for real cash. If the merchant accepts it, Boggs writes the details of the transaction on the back, asks for proper change, and ...