This week, Google was found out to have been bypassing privacy settings in both Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari web browsers, as Martin reported here.  In a statement on their blog, the Corporate Vice-President of IE blogged “IE blocks third-party cookies unless the site presents a P3P Compact Policy Statement indicating how the site [...]

It’s been delayed and delayed further, but despite no official confirmation from RIM the long-anticipated version 2 of the company’s QNX operating system for the Blackberry Playbook is due to be released today.  AMong the features on offer are native email and calendar apps, something that’s taken for granted with any other tablet operating system.  [...]

Like it or not, it would appear that the tablet-ification of our desktop operating systems is inevitable.  Setting aside the new Metro interface that will take the main focus of Windows 8, Apple are slowly creeping more tablet features into OS X and even Canonical are getting in on the act with their Unity interface for [...]

With the Windows 8 beta out next week and getting all the attention especially with it’s integration of the company’s Kinect technology, the rest of Microsoft’s product line-up has taken a back seat in the eyes of the public and businesses.  It is a very extensive line-up though including Hotmail, SkyDrive, Office Web Apps, Office [...]

Unless you hadn’t noticed, Microsoft are gearing up for the release of the Windows 8 (beta) Consumer Preview publicly in just over a week, but others, such as official beta testers and MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) subscribers will no doubt get it a week before as happened with Windows 7.  We’re now in the last [...]

Next week, when I finally download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview I’ll start writing not just one, but two new Windows 8 books, with a third being written later this year, so I’m going to be stupidly busy until the summer  :}  and I want to make sure that the books I write are what [...]

Recently Netgear sent me their new DGND3700 router for review, which was very lucky as mine was playing up at the time.  Now on the face of it you might not think the arrival of a router for review would be anything exciting, in this case you could very well be wrong.  This model is [...]

I’ve written a lot about Windows 8 over the last few days as we approach the release of the Consumer Preview at the end of this month.  One subject that’s not been touched on so far is how effective new Metro apps can or could be in businesses and enterprises, and if a move to [...]

Windows 8 is unique in that it is the first version of Microsoft’s mighty operating system that faces serious and stiff competition from its rivals.  For the first time there are not just one but a great many serious contenders for the role of your desktop OS.  So with so many people wary about the [...]

While we wait for the Windows 8 beta to be released at the end of the month questions are looming over what will happen with legacy software support and how we’ll run our older, but still useful and trustworthy, software in the future.  Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate can run the free XP Mode, a fully-licenced [...]

It’s not that long ago, really not a distant memory, when Microsoft were hauled before regulators in the US and Europe for several years over the anti-competitive practices of bundling Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player with Windows.  Competitors such as Opera and Real Networks (remember them?) said such practices were damaging their own success [...]

Yesterday Microsoft finally announced their plans for Windows 8 running on ARM-designed processors.  The news came with two very interesting pieces of information… “WOA (Windows on ARM) includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These new Office applications, codenamed ‘Office 15,’ have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized [...]

The beta “Consumer Preview” version of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system could be released on Wednesday 29th February.  Microsoft have announced a “Windows 8 Consumer Preview event” in the city, that is also home to the Mobile World Congress expo that week. This looks like a reasonable time to launch the beta given that [...]

In case you missed it, we’ve had a great Windows 8 discussion going on here at gHacks in the last couple of days, one that is no doubt set to continue for a while yet in various forms as we look forward to the release of the Consumer Preview (beta) at the end of this [...]

Yesterday Martin wrote up his thoughts and concerns about the forthcoming Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft.  I’ve spent much more time with Windows 8 so far, have given talks about and I’m current writing two books about how to get the best out of it, one for complete novices and another for IT Pros [...]

Last year I picked up an HP Touchpad in the fire sale that resulted in the model, and all of HP’s tablet plans, being discontinued.  Now RIM appear to be doing similiar with their Playbook tablet, with prices being slashed around the world.  You might think then that now would be the right time to pick [...]

In the last year I’ve reviewed and owned a fair number of tablets covering just about every aspect of the market.  These have included the monster 12 inch ASUS EP121 complete with a Core-i5 processor and 4Gb of RAM down to my latest arrival, a 7 inch Blackberry Playbook.  But what is the best size [...]

I received a new Blackberry Playbook 16Gb tablet today, actually it’s not completely new as it’s two weeks old and was owned by a family member who bought it because prices had been discounted recently here in the UK.  She liked it so much that she decided she’d rather have the 64Gb one and bought [...]

News reached the world-wide-web last week that Microsoft Office 15 had reached the Technical Preview stage, and that a beta would be available this summer.  That’s all we know about the company’s next generation integrated Office suite at the moment except that the company in a recent blog post said that “Office 15 is the [...]

As a tech author, blogger and reviewer I get technology sent to me periodically or I pick up bits and pieces myself.  This does mean that I can occasionally find something being replaced when its not too old.  This is about to happen with two tablets, an HP TouchPad 32Gb and a RIM Playbook 16Gb.  [...]

Last week Google announced changes to its privacy policy that, on the face of it seem perfectly reasonable.  In essence they want to treat all the different Google services you use as a single big account and share the data.  What this ultimately means though is that the company will know absolutely huge volumes of [...]

As we all use computers over more and more years we become comfortable with software that “just works” and we want to continue using it for as long as possible.  This causes problems though as Microsoft develop new versions of Windows as, no matter how well each version of Windows is supposed to be compatible [...]

Smartphones and tablets have a lot to answer for, at least when it comes to making technology affordable for the public.  Since the launch of the first iPhone it’s become not only accepted that sensors and other devices such as GPS, multi-touch capacitive screens, NFC, accelerometers, digital compasses and more should be included but we’ve come [...]

It is widely expected that when Microsoft launch the Windows 8 beta in a few weeks that it will be labelled the “Windows 8 Consumer Preview”.  This has alarmed and concerned many IT Pros who feel that Windows 8 is cutting them out with Microsoft putting all the focus on consumers and tablets with its [...]

It seems like just a short while ago that I was writing about how Windows XP had just 1,000 days of support left but now that number is down to under 800!  Microsoft reminded us of this on the weekend with a blog post encouraging companies to migrate to Windows 7 as soon as possible [...]

For many years now the famous Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) has been the ultimate indication that something disastrous has happened to make your computer die, but how useful is the information in the BSoD and the respective crash dump file that Windows produces? The best article I ever found explaining the BSoD in depth [...]

The FBI is looking to develop an emergencies early warning system that works by “scraping” information in real time from social networks.  The US policing and intelligence bureau has asked contractors to suggest possible solutions and to come up with ways in which this might work.  In a post on the Federal Business Opportunities website [...]

The QWERTY keyboard layout has been used in most western countries now since the late 1800′s.  Though there are differences in some countries, such as AZERTY in France, this keyboard layout remains with modern computers even though it’s not always the quickest way for people to type. It was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes who [...]

The Windows Event Viewer in one of the most useful, yet most under used features of the operating system.  Accessed by typing event into the Start Menu search box, or through the Computer Management Console it logs everything that happens in the OS, including warnings, errors and critical failures (sudden power losses or immediate restarts [...]

Last week I threw down the gauntlet to any readers who might want to write your own Windows 8 book with a couple of posts here and here offering a quick guide to getting started.  One of the biggest problems though is your competition and I thought I’d follow these up with a little information [...]