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Google expands print advertising program to anyone with an AdWords account.
Google today announced the expansion of the size and the scope of its Google Print Ads advertising initiative. It is now available to hundreds of thousands of United States-based advertisers who currently have a Google AdWords account.
"Over the past months, we have worked closely with our newspaper partners to design our Print Ads program to meet their needs and the needs of mark...
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In what could only be a coordinated effort (or not), two news stories emerged today highlighting Europe's shrewd use of technology.
First there was this story on how a European court set September 17th as the date when it will rule whether Microsoft broke European Union antitrust regulations. This is a hold over from the 2004 ruling that found Microsoft had broken competition rules by using it's OS monopoly to elbow out rival's software (by not allowing manufacturer's ship machines with competing software and making it di...
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Google makes a minor tweak to their cookies. You still control how cookies are stored on your machine, if you're one of the 14% of web-surfers who actually pays attention to that stuff.
Oh man, Google and their privacy concerns. Well at least they're doing something, but I'm sure privacy groups will say it's not enough. Whatever.
You may remember Google now anonymizes their search server logs after 18 months. Now they've announced that they've changed default setting for the cookie they drop on your machine. Before the cookie was valid until 2038 (target year f...
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There are a lot of cool new website that offer incredible services. Many of them use your registration process to spam out to your friends.
Mike Elgan's The Raw Feed give a nice description of a rising trend on the Internet. Some of these allegedly "cool" social-networking and Web 2.0 sites aren't any better than the plain old Web 1.0 scams. During the site's registration process, you'll be prompted to "let your friends know you've joined" and ask you to log into your email or chat service. The site will then se...
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Logitech introduced the Logitech MX AirTM Rechargeable Cordless Air Mouse, a versatile laser mouse that works on the desk and in the air.
Similar to the way people use a remote to control a television, when holding the MX Air mouse, people can now lean back and relax while navigating the computer and enjoying media content.
“The MX Air mouse offers a radically new way for people to control their PC entertainment,” said Rory Dooley, Logitech senior vice president and general manager of the Control Devices business ...
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Another entry in the Zolved series that keeps you up-to-date with all that Internet and technology stuff.
So Facebook is like MySpace but not as annoying. For anyone who has looked at a MySpace profile, that's huge. Facebook has been making a lot of news recently, so we thought we'd bring you up to speed.
Talking Points:
Originally, you could only get a Facebook account if you had an ".edu" email address. So that kept it restricted to only college kids.
In September 2...
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Microsoft expands Xbox 360 warranty coverage to a more than respectable level. And there was much rejoicing (yeah!).
Back in February, we covered the Red Ring of Death story, briefly summarized in this snippet:
A minor buzz was created around a BBC Watchdog report that they have received over 250 complaints about Xbox 360s crapping out within 2 months of the warranty expiring.
Microsoft must have hired some actually intelligent people in the public relations department since they are no longer waiting for b...
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Everyone loves to complain about phone tech support, but who's doing something about it? You can and you should and here's how to do it.
1. Download Skype
Maybe this is the last step, when you get to the point where you don't want to use your landline/cellphone anymore. But you can also use Skype for chat and then people can send you money for helping them out. I guess GTalk and some other services would work too (post your recommendations below).
2. Download Remote Control
Shameless plug I know, but you'll need someway to di...
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In a move seemingly outside their corporate mission, Google continues to focus on making your information more accessible to you.
For right now, this doesn't affect you at all since GrandCentral is in "private beta" (they send invites out to test it). Since Google bought it we can assume (yeah, I know) that the technology is pretty strong and when it's made public, it'll be free. If those two things are true, we'll be looking at a very powerful tool for organizing one of life's hassles: listening to voicemai...
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Wii out sold the PS3 by 6 to 1 in Sony's backyard, Japan. Or would that be the frontyard?
The Wii sold 270,974 units in June, compared to the PS3's 41,628 and the Xbox's 17,616 units for the same period. These are huge numbers considering they cover the habits of Japanese gamers, a market previously dominated by Sony. To people who have been watching what's been going on, this comes as no surprise. The Wii is literally a game-changer.
With the innovative, motion-sen...
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Looks like Dell Inc. is going to beef up their online support.
Dell announced they'll be rolling out a new tool called the Dell Support Center, a web-based solution (Gee, I wonder if there are any other web-based, technical support sites out there?). Using customer feedback as the starting point for the design, Dell hopes to improve their customers' support experience.
One feature that stood out is that when the program is launched and you arrive at the...
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With the glut of media coverage leading up to the iPhone release, some media outlets are just publishing "anything about the iPhone."
I just came across this iPhone analyst story and it got so many things wrong, I just had to pick it apart. Granted I'm looking at it from the long view and these people are probably just spouting off at the mouth. But that won't make this any less fun.
Apple Inc. [portion snipped] faces a crowded and competitive market in taking on established cell phone makers. Global phone makers such as Nok...
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Tom Roland, longtime music writer, launched the website that gives fans a comprehensive resource of country music history.
RolandNotes.com catalogs more than 36,000 events from country music history with detailed background credits for more than 8,500 hits and significant tracks. Users can search by artists, songs, place or time and retrieve a plethora of information and details about country music's history.
Originally the idea was to publish a book that would be a date-by-date account of country music, but as ...
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Does Steve Jobs want to control your digital lifestyle? Maybe. Does he want Apple products to manage your digital life? Yes.
The iPhone hype that is annoying everyone seems to have picked up more steam since all the hands-on reviews are now coming out and some dorks are already standing in line. I thought it would be a good time to think about the big picture.
Some ten months ago, when rumors started to kick up that Apple was working on a cellphone, most critics warned that Apple was out of their area of expertis...
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Joining a slew of other Internet radio broadcasters, Yahoo! turn of the music to protest the new royalty rates.
In response to a impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of Internet radio in the U.S., thousands of webcasters plan to go silent Tuesday, June 26, to draw attention to their industry's plight.
This "Day of Silence" is an encore of a successful media event that small webcasters organized on May 1, 2002 in response to a similarly roy...
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Let's see what's going on with Apple and/or the iPhone.
iTunes is the 3rd largest US music retailer behind Walmart and Best Buy, pushing Amazon.com into 4th.
Get a good look at the iPhone dock and the headphones(set?).
And just like the iPod, people don't mind showing off their iPhone (especially if only Apple employees can get one).
And of course all the stupid stori...
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There are a many different features and services offered from Comcast. If you're not using them all, well all the better for Comcast.
The Zolved Solutions database doesn't just cover tech problems. There's a wealth of information on how to get the most out of technology. We've seen a lot of questions from ISP subscribers and decided we could help by listing out all the features and services that are available to them. Check out our explanation of Comcast Webmail Features in our Solutions database.
While technical pro...
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More than 10,000 sites hit by 'Italian Job 3' web attack. Home computers with non-updated browsers at serious risk of being infected.
We haven't got around to doing a proper article on home computer security practices yet (been a little busy building the most useful database of tech solutions on the planet), but we'll get to it soon. We have stressed the importance of keeping you browser current with the most recent updates. This advice was brought into sharp relief when news came in that a massive amount of websites we...
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It's extremely hard to find on their website, but the FCC forced them to offer reasonably priced, broadband access to the Internet.
You basically have to start the application process through the AT&T website in order to see the $10 a month offer. That's what any reasonable person describe as "hidden." That's also what any reasonable person would call "slimy ISP behaviour." As part of the AT&T (nee SBC) merger with BellSouth, the FCC forced AT&T to offer this low cost access.
A...
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Apple Inc. enters the browser wars? Sort of.
Will the average user use it? Damn straight they will.
Okay, so the release of Safari for Windows obviously isn't some play to seriously get into the browser market, for right now. It works so poorly that there's already been a patch and its special features are barely interesting. As we pointed out, if a company wants to write a program to run on the iPhone, it will need to run in Safari, on the iPhone. So software companies need a Windows Safari....
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Our "What's up with that?" series covers botnets and botherders.
The FBI released a report that "identified over 1 million victim computer IP addresses" of botnets. In January, Vint Cerf (he's like an old-school computer guy) told the World Economic Form that there are 600 million computers on the Internet and 150 million of them might be participants in a botnet.
What's up with that?
Well, "botnet" is short for Robot Network. A bad...
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After conversations with E.U.'s national data protection authorities, the search behemoth will anonymize (make it untraceable to you) it's server logs earlier.
I never understood peoples' deal with online privacy. The whole point of building a massive network of computers was so people could share and collaborate, not hide behind screen names and IP spoofing. I guess since people surf from home they feel it's a private activity, like most of what you do at home. What everyone should keep in mind is that everything you do on a computer is traceable. At...
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The elite of the Apple geeks are at their week-long conference. We'll highlight the stuff that matters to you.
We're not expecting any big news to come out of the "Deploying Large-scale Storage Solutions using Xsan and Xserve RAID" session today, so will take this lull to review what's happened so far and if anything actually important has happened.
Safari for Windows
Background: Safari is the web browser that comes with a Mac. It's like the IE for ...
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The Nokia N77 is described as a multimedia computer. I'm sure you can call your mom on it.
While the design is nothing earth-shattering, the Nokia N77 it's definitely crammed full of features. I used to think "why would you want to watch TV on a phone" like so many other ney-sayers. Then I switched jobs I ended up with a 45 minute commute each way. Now I wouldn't mind The Charlie Rose Show on my way home from work. But that's all in the future anyway. The N77 is...
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The Zolved crew recommends switching to 2.0 if you haven't yet. We also recommend actually checking which version you are running.
This is just a reminder. In your Firefox browser, click Help > Check for Updates. Although we went over this over a month ago, we wanted to just remind you that the Mozilla crew is now longer supporting 1.5. "Hey, I don't like change!" Well dear surfer, if you reflect on how humongous the Internet now is, and it continues to grow, the number of nasty things a website ca...
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People argue it should be a lower case "i", but their logic is faulty.
Most arguments I've seen for lower case "i" when using "the Internet" point out that we don't capitalize newspapers, television, radio and blah blah blah. There are many radios, but when we say "I saw it on the Internet" we are not referring to one of many computer internets we could possibly get on. Just the one.
And to bolster our case, we present you wi...
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How many programs does it take to get to the bottom of a Toostie Roll Toostie Pop (or to send a picture to a friend)? The world may never know. One man's journey through useless software.
So I went to email my buddy Chris a picture of a guitar. No biggie, right? Happens every second all round the word. Well, I took the picture with my Razr 3Vi. So what, right? Yeah, well that's what I thought. Let the journey begin.
One great feature about this Razr is that it has a mini-USB port. So while it came with a charger, it also comes with a miniUSB-to-USB cord and I can charge...
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The number one website (in our assessment) for information about digital cameras has been part of Amazon product reviews for some time now.
If you ever bought a digital camera without researching it on Digital Photography Review first, you made an uninformed purchase. But fear not dear reader. Go to dpreview.com and look up your camera. You will find the equivalent of 25 pages of information including well organized breakdown of the specs (including hyperlinks to technical terms you may not know), a detailed hands...
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Websites that make using public transportation more dynamic.
You can get good directions from Mapquest and Google Maps, but that's really only good for people in cars. Those of us who are public transportation junkies have to learn over time which buses goes where, until how late, and which trains and buses you can connect to. That's quite a bit to learn.
But there are websites that can shorten this learning curve. One such website i...
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Part of the Zolved series to demystify technology and make every human tech-savvy.
We've been happy to watch the steady proliferation of Mozilla's Firefox web browser on the internet. It shows that more and more average surfers are learning about different software options, and they're not afraid to break new ground for themselves. So for our first installment of clear/unclear series we'll focus on some basics for using Firefox.
For today and through the next month ...
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When downloading a large file, your screen saver or sleep mode may kick in and screw up the download. I know I never remember to switch my power-saving setting when I walk away from my computer. The Mouse Jiggler from WiebeTech is a nice, simple solution. It looks like a USB memory stick, but when plugged into a computer port it's recognized as a Human Interface Device (uh, th...
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An all vinyl and CD music lover details his attempt at legal downloads. After being DRMed into the ground, he turns his back on the dark side.
The Consumerist printed a reader, let's call him Jarrett the New Pirate, submitted tale "How I Became A Music Pirate" and everyone everywhere is pointing to it. It's a great read and a great lesson in how technology tends to look like one thing, but end up being something all together different (he thought he was buying the songs, but he was buying a license to listen to the songs).
...
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With the "confirmed rumor" of the Xbox 360 Elite and the difficulty getting a Wii, it may still be best just to hold off a couple of more months.
With the "confirmed rumor" of the upcoming Xbox 360 Elite and the difficulty getting a Wii, it may still be best just to hold off a couple of more months.
While the oldtimers and more hardcore gamers may lean to the PS3, it is loosing ground to the Wii which may mean game developers will aim for the bigger audience. Plus the promised backwards compatibility is hit or miss. Anyway,...
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How many programs does it take to get to the bottom of a Toostie Roll Toostie Pop (or to send a picture to a friend)? The world may never know.
So I went to email Chris a picture of a guitar. No biggie, right? Happens every second all round the word. Well, I took the picture with my new cellphone, Razr 3Vi. So what, right? Yeah, well that's what I thought. Let the journey begin.
One great feature about this Razr is that it has a mini-USB port. So while it came with a charger, it also comes with a miniUSB-to-USB cord and I can ...
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In the land of tech support, consumer activism hasn't really helped anyone solve a problem. A new approach (in the new landscape) is needed.
Here’s a topic I’ve been trying to create a meaningful blog entry around. It’s an idea that has been emerging since we started talking about building Zolved. It started as an amorphous spirit hanging in the background and is turning into the cement that we can build the new structure of technical support.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a name yet.
We are all famili...
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An excellent breakdown for the average consumer of what thing to hold off on buying for now. This is what we've been saying for a while.
When flipping through ye ole RSS feeder, I saw Gizmodo linked to this AOL list of things consumers should hold off on buying for now (it is actually from SmartMoney.com's Stacey L. Bradford). It's a great list with great reasoning behind it, I just wanted to add my take on the list.
High Definition DVD Players
Oh yeah, no point in picking up one of these...
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BBC Watchdog report reveals excellent turnaround time on repairs.
A minor buzz was created around a BBC Watchdog report that they have received over 250 complaints about Xbox 360s crapping out within 2 months of the warranty expiring. Now there's no question that it's a bummer to have something break that close to the warranty end. You get the feeling that there must me a timer chip in there that counts down the days before shorting out the whole thing....
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With most software, there is always a disconnect between “what we think it should do” and “what people use it for.” So when we ask friends to try Zolved Remote Control, we weren’t too surprised when one person responded with this: “Hey, if you run Remote Control and Skype at the same time, two people can surf the web together remotely!” While Zolved Remote Control was meant to connect the tech-savvy with the tech-needy, using it for fun works for us.
Zovled Remote Control allows a person on one computer to view or control what's happening on another person's computer, from anywhere on the planet.Here’s what we see as the fun times to be had when two people see the same screen and talk:
1. Make fun of MySpace profiles together.
Poking fun at people on MySpace is like shooting fish in a...
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Zolved Remote Control empowers online communities to take on technical support.
I kid you not when I tell you that here at Zolved we're all very excited to launch Zolved Remote Control. Well, officially it's in "alpha" but we're not keeping it to ourselves. Check it out and let us know what you think. It'll takes only 30 seconds from start to “use” (go ahead, time it with a stop watch). If you come up with some cool way to use it, let us know th...
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Gotta give props where props are due: Deb Shinder over at TechRepublic lists out 10 popular, yet misleading assertions about Windows Vista (found via Gizmodo). The props are for Deb alone, whose list includes both the good and the bad of the new OS. Her first point relates to our earlier posts:
Myth #1: You'll have to buy a new, high-end PC to run Vista
This is contrary to my own ...
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In order to prove I'm totally ensconced into the blogosphere, I'd like to point out how right I am (insert wink here).
In my previous post, I mentioned that upgrading to Vista is a bad idea. The only way one should upgrade is when you go to buy your next machine. Although I like to think I have a knack to turn a phrase, this Cnet.com review did a much nicer job at summing it up:
How...
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We had some choice words in the office yesterday after I read my blogmate's post about Vista upgrading. I think he was getting a little giddy about the new features and told him so. He made some comment about my parentage. I pointed to the lack of space between his knuckles and the floor. The conversation went downhill from there.
Yes, I'm joking. There was group of us and ...
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Okay, I'm not going to be posting over and over again about the iPhone. Well, maybe I will. For Zolved, it's a big deal because we get a lot of searches, hits and questions about iPod problems (the iPod zChannel covers them well and we're going to develop other zChannels based on that format). So we know that the iPhone will eventually be giving...
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Greetings.
After getting the traditional January nasty flu, I'm back and have enough energy to tell you about me.
I'm Patrick Dempsey. I'm not the cute TV actor. That notwithstanding, I'm still cute (well, my wife thinks so).
My Zolved moniker is RJ45, which is a not-so-hip reference to an ethernet cable.
Here at Zolved I'm in charge of Knowledge Management, but like eve...
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For me, nothing's official until I read it on TechCrunch (insert winking smiley here). Of course I'm blown away by the iPhone, classic Apple design that makes everything else look like a 19th century train wreck. My fellow Zolved blogger Raveen threw together a post Comparing iPhone, Moto Q, Blackjack & Treo. His bottomline is pretty much right on: the iPhone is cool and may hav...
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I found this good rundown of what to look for when selecting a smartphone. We had many discussions about smartphones when Zolved was getting off the ground. We knew that people who had employer-issued PDAs or smartphones would be looking to get one that was for only personal use. Then they'd need help configuring, using, and troubleshooting them (that's where Zolved comes in!).
P...
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A buddy at work sent this link from digg. It's your typical TV investigation reporting. Reporter tries to trick businesses into being selfish and greedy, then "catches" them at it. In this one, they disable a computer by disconnecting one wire, bring it to several repair shops/tech support places and see who catches the problem and how much they charge for the very simple ...
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Those of you that follow the blogosphere (yes, both of you) may have caught the recent Miscrosoft "scandal" (actually, a non-scandal). Apparently MS sent out around 90 free laptops, with Vista installed, to high-profile bloggers (there are 90 of them?). While Dwight Sliverman and Dave Taylor aren't seeing eye to eye on what the controversy is actually about, there is one c...
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