Category: Technology

I’m starting to think an e-mail etiquette booklet should be required reading before anyone receives access to a mail server. There’s no dearth of annoying customs in cyberspace, but this latest one really takes the cake. It’s almost worse than spam. There, I said it. Worse. Than. Spam. At least I understand spam. Like it? No. But I understand the… Read more →

Palm Pilot, that is. For years, I’ve had a Palm Vx [see it], a PDA renown for its ruggedness and reliability. I literally would toss the Vx around the house, stuff it in my back pocket, etc. I even sat on it a few times, but it soldiered on with nary a complaint. The battery life in the Vx has… Read more →

As if the world needed another “make a shorter link” tool. https://www.rapp.org/url/ I prefer not to use 3rd party services for this kind of stuff because you never know when makeashorterlink.com or tinyurl.com will go down for the count. Or when the service will go to hell. Or, more realistically, when they’ll start charging for their services. I suppose URL… Read more →

Reason #1845 Not To Own A Macintosh I’ve never been a huge Macintosh fan. It’s not that the computers themselves suck, though I must admit I’ve used the Mac a lot over the years and in my experience it crashes more often than the Windows boxes I’ve owned. My dislike of the Macintosh has more to do with the irritating… Read more →

In 48 hours I’ll be somewhere over the Atlantic on my way to London. Three weeks without web or e-mail access is going to be strange. I haven’t been without e-mail that long since…. well, since I got my first internet e-mail address in 1989 (ronrapp@f940.n103.z1.fidonet.org). Man, that brings back some memories! My first online experience was when I started… Read more →

I sometimes get a bit overeager when it comes to high-tech toys, even if they are justifiable ones. A recent example is the At Home cable modem service. I’m finally getting it installed on Friday. I’ve wanted cable modem or DSL service since the first time I surfed via a T-1 line. There is just no going back once you’ve… Read more →

I got a call from the network administrator at Pacific Blue Micro today. PBM is a client of mine, and apparently somebody with too much time on their hands decided to hack into one of their Silicon Graphics machines using my account. They took advantage of a weakness in IRIX and gained access via a brute force type of attack.… Read more →