How can you make the dreaded Office 2007/2010 ribbon worse?
When Windows gets a file association with .exe files, get a hammer. This one.
I spent a maddening couple of days with a Windows computer that somehow had gotten a bogus file association with .exe files, which roughly translates to, “Windows quit running any programs.” Microsoft has a fix for that. Except neither solution worked. Nor did connecting via remote registry, or even renaming their automated fixer-upper to have a .com extension (presumably because it turned around and tried to download and run a .exe). It’s too bad that didn’t work, as I was pretty proud of myself for remembering that little trick.
So where’s my hammer?
So why are Apple and Google (and Microsoft) tracking us?
So what are Google and Apple doing with this location data? And Microsoft, now that it’s clear they’re gathering it too (but they claim they aren’t storing it anywhere on the phone).
They aren’t saying a lot, but they’ve said enough to take a pretty good guess. And no, I don’t think the intent is to be evil.
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Disabling Android location tracking
It appears that you don’t have to defeat Android location traffic; disabling Android location tracking is entirely possible. Go to Settings, then Location and Security, and uncheck the options Use wireless networks and Use GPS satellites.
There are upsides and downsides.
Ye Olde Nintendo 64
I fixed up a Nintendo 64 this past weekend. People of a certain age affectionately refer to it just as “the 64,” though to me, “the 64” refers to a computer with 64K of memory introduced in 1982. I have an inherent bias against almost anything that reminds me of 1997, but in spite of my biases, I found a number of things to like about the system after spending a few hours with it.
Android isn’t completely clean either
In the wake of yesterday’s iPhone mess, Android isn’t coming up completely clean either.
While Google’s intentions aren’t completely clear, the approach is safer.
iDo track your every move
The scandal of the day is the iPhone and the discovery that it tracks your every move. Will that be featured in the next Android commercial? iDo track you. DROID DOESN’T. Update: Probably not.
Of course, the pundits are all over the map on this one. Nobody thinks it’s a particularly good idea. Some think it’s bad but are willing to live with it since they trust Apple not to misuse it. Some think it’s no big deal as long as Apple stops with the next patch. Others have gotten paranoid.
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An easy change to improve your city gas mileage by six percent
Would you like to improve your gas mileage in stop-and-go traffic by five or six percent without spending any money and without changing what you drive?
Samsung, Samsung, and more Samsung
Well, that certainly didn’t take long. Yesterday Samsung announced its hard disk business was for sale. Today it announced Seagate was buying it for $1.375 billion in cash and stock, a slight discount from the asking price.
So after the deals finish shaking down, Seagate and Western Digital will each have somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the market, and Toshiba around 10 percent.
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And then there were three
I see reports today that Samsung is looking to sell its hard drive business. Samsung is one of four companies left that manufacture computer hard drives, the others being Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba.
Hard drives aren’t a growth market any more, so the most likely suitors are one of the remaining three. Since Western Digital just bought Hitachi’s drive business, it probably won’t be them. They may not have the cashflow, and they probably don’t want the regulatory scrutiny that would go along with two acquisitions in rapid succession that make them suddenly nearly twice the size of Seagate. It’s more likely to be Seagate or Toshiba. I’d expect Seagate.
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