Critiques

The new MacBook Air laptop has one killer feature, the non-removable battery. Killer as in deal-killer. As in why would anybody use a laptop that has to be shipped back to the vendor to replace the battery? It boggles the mind. Here's why.

Have any sensitive files on your computer? Files you'd rather other people not see. Many of us do. Do you like the idea of your sensitive files sitting in a package on a UPS truck? Or being in the hands of a company Apple sub-contracted repairs to? Of course not.

Remembering to remove all the … Read more

I could write a whole blog about correcting computer articles in newspapers, pointing out mistakes and omissions. Many times I have corrected and expanded on articles in the Wall Street Journal by Walter Mossberg, but I've also griped about mistakes in the other newspaper I read regularly, my hometown New York Times. Back in May, on my previous blog, my comments on an article that David Pogue wrote in the Times about data cartridges for backing up computer files prompted a surprising rebuttal from Mr. Pogue.

Beats me why major newspapers don't hire computer techies to write about … Read more

Once again, Walter Mossberg has offered incomplete and potentially dangerous computer advice in The Wall Street Journal. The December 6, 2007 edition of Mossberg's Mailbox had a question from someone whose lone hard disk was divided into two partitions; a small C disk that was almost full and a large D disk with lots of available space. The questioner asked about merging the two partitions together. Mr. Mossberg said that Partition Magic can be used for this purpose and that it "works well."

It is malpractice to suggest changing partitions in any way shape or form without … Read more

On October 18th in The Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg wrote his annual PC Buyers Guide. Using his article as a springboard, I weigh in on some of the issues faced when buying a new computer.

The first choice anyone makes in purchasing a new computer is the operating system. In judging the relative merits of Vista over XP, Mossberg calls Vista "better than prior versions of Windows, because it has a stronger security system under the hood."

But, according to CNET's Security Watch columnist Robert Vamosi, "most of the security enhancements touted in … Read more

Many people love iTunes, but installing the software on a Windows computer that you depend on is a mistake, from a Defensive Computing standpoint. I say this for two reasons. For one, iTunes is a large complex program and installing any such program is risky, Windows being what it is. In addition, iTunes includes QuickTime, which has been fraught with security bugs. And personally speaking, the fact that I must use iTunes to play music purchased from Apple, rules the whole system out for me.

So, when I heard about Amazon's new MP3 Download store selling normal, ordinary, plain … Read more

On Thursday August 30th Walter Mossberg repeated his prior recommendation of the Mozy online backup service. While Mozy can fit the needs of some people, there are two sides to every coin and there is a downside to Mozy too. For the rest of the story, see my recent postings:

This is a continuation of Tuesday's posting (Everybody likes Mozy--except me. Part 1), which introduced the Mozy online backup service and software and where I started offering my opinions. Since Tuesday, I came across two more positive Mozy reviews.

In April, Serdar Yegulalp, writing for InformationWeek, reviewed Online Vault, Carbonite, eSureIT, iBackup and Mozy (Five Online Backup Services Keep Your Data Safe, April 9, 2007). He concluded that "The all-around winner for regular users and small business from this bunch was definitely Mozy, both for its plan structure and its unobtrusive client."

Also in April, BusinessWeek had … Read more

For a company in the boring business of online file storage, Mozy gets more than its share of press coverage, and from what I've seen, it's all been positive. Mozy attracted attention back in December 2006 when they started offering unlimited file storage for $5 per month or $55 per year (rounded off).

The first Mozy review I ran across was by Walter Mossberg in The Wall Street Journal ("These Services Make Backing Up Your Files Safe and Inexpensive", December 14, 2006). He liked Mozy, so I spent some time reviewing them for a class I … Read more

Today, July 10th, the web site of The Wall Street Journal is free, sponsored by Dell. Normally the vast majority of the site is available only to paying customers - of either the web site or the hard copy paper.

I mention this to draw attention to an editorial that appeared in the paper on July 3, 2007 entitled Google v. Microsoft.

Windows Vista includes desktop search functionality out of the box and Google offers a free desktop search application that anyone can download from their web site and install. Google complained to Microsoft's antitrust regulators at the … Read more