john c dvorak Archives - The Silicon Underground

Exploiting Twitter

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:31:59 +0000

It’s interesting that I read two things about buying Twitter publicity today: John C Dvorak’s experiment for PC Magazine and an interview with my classmate and friend Ken. The idea is that people buy Twitter followers to make themselves look

The post Exploiting Twitter appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

No, it doesn’t take a “serious hacker” to crack wi-fi through WPS

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:15:49 +0000

John C Dvorak is raving in PC Magazine about Netgear wireless routers and range extenders and how easy WPS makes it to set them up–and providing some very seriously flawed security advice along the way. “Note that WPS is crackable

The post No, it doesn’t take a “serious hacker” to crack wi-fi through WPS appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Dvorak: The future of retail is search

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:27:42 +0000

This week in PC Magazine, John C Dvorak said the future of retail is search. He’s right. Here’s the problem with retail: Last week I went to a big-box store with a long shopping list. I had a coupon that

The post Dvorak: The future of retail is search appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Windows 8 won’t fail just because nobody likes Windows upgrades

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 23:12:22 +0000

John C Dvorak wrote today about the great upgrade upheaval, and argued that Windows 8 is doomed to fail because it’s just going to be too hard to upgrade, and nobody likes Windows upgrades anyway. I agree on the first

The post Windows 8 won’t fail just because nobody likes Windows upgrades appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

The CP/M-DOS forensics don’t prove much

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 23:50:35 +0000

I saw the headline on Slashdot: Forensic evidence trying to prove whether MS-DOS contained code lifted from CP/M. That got my attention, as the connection between MS-DOS and its predecessor, CP/M, is one of the great unsolved mysteries of computing.

The post The CP/M-DOS forensics don’t prove much appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Don’t call the war on hackers unwinnable

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:24:21 +0000

John C Dvorak asks what war we’re waging on hackers. While war may not be the best choice of words, because it’s not exactly a conventional war, there’s no question there’s something going on, and we’re not winning it right

The post Don’t call the war on hackers unwinnable appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Securing wi-fi isn’t about price gouging

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:22:31 +0000

The so-called wi-fi golden era is over, and apparently being glad about it makes me an absolutist. But John C. Dvorak is wrong. This isn’t about making people pay for Internet access. It’s pure security. Toilets and drinking fountains are

The post Securing wi-fi isn’t about price gouging appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

An ode to Word macros

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:56:37 +0000

Last week, John C Dvorak wrote about technical duds. And it’s unfortunate about what happened to Word macros, because at times they can be extremely useful, and not terribly difficult to use, either. Here’s my favorite macro–a method to join

The post An ode to Word macros appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

I may have a cure for the slow web browser

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:41:45 +0000

John C Dvorak lamented last week about slow web browsers. I’m working on a cure. It’s not perfect yet. But I’m messing with ramdisks again. Dataram, if you’re interested. I have Firefox and my user profile running out of a

The post I may have a cure for the slow web browser appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Balancing safety and versatility

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:02:07 +0000

John C Dvorak has a very simple solution to the HP printing problem. Lock down the firmware so it’s not upgradeable. And while we’re at it, do the same thing to routers and other equipment. This solves the problem of

The post Balancing safety and versatility appeared first on The Silicon Underground.