Internet

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an entity that oversees the online address system, recently approved a motion that would allow the standard eighteen suffixes to be joined with any other ending from .a to .z. For ... example, those wanting to research the history of Mickey Mouse might visit a website ending in '.disney.' The possibilities are seemingly endless, which is concerning a number of people. If you are anything like me, you sometimes find it difficult to remember if a particular website ends with a '.com,' '.net,' or '.org.' Now the trouble with accurate ... (view more)

Well, you made it through another April Fool's without being convinced your mother-in-law was moving in, your wife left with the mailman, or the Pittsburgh Pirates were Vegas' pick for the 2009 World Series. However, there were some pretty nifty ... jokes played this year, and we'll go over a few of them here. Some are simply ridiculous. For instance, it's unlikely Toshiba will fool anyone with its Petbook K9, which it calls the world's very first notebook for canines (and I don't doubt it). The tech giant's tag line for its goofy new device? "Playing fetch is so last year." It sure sounds like a ... (view more)

Disney has taken one step closer to posting many of its popular ABC and ESPN shows on YouTube. For now the deal includes only "short-form video content," but hopes are that the media giant will eventually begin shifting popular TV series to Google's ... iconic video site. It also appears that YouTube mainstream media concerns over copyright conflicts are beginning to dissipate. Despite a recent expedition by Warner to censor any videos using its music, previous deals with studios like MGM demonstrate that YouTube is now being taken very seriously by Hollywood and silver screen heavyweights. ... (view more)

If you asked people what the most time-saving mode of communication is, many would choose email. But when you consider all of the wasted hours spent ridding your inbox of spam , the choice is not so clear. Sure hundreds of spam filters exist, but ... these programs leave many people wondering if an important message has been flagged and removed from their inbox unbeknownst to them. While spam does complicate the entire emailing process, a number of products also exist to help manage junk mail without losing a single piece of important information. Spam-Free Emails Spam Arrest does a great job ... (view more)

You'd think Facebook redesigns were tantamount to government-administered colonoscopies. The popular social networking site recently faced a virtual revolt after adapting its interface to one that, intentionally or not, closely reflects rival ... Twitter. Sometimes people like change. A new home arrangement can change one's mood, and perhaps even a new TV can improve it dramatically. However, just about no one seems to enjoy it when Facebook makes alterations to its iconic web page, particularly when changes can make basic functions, like finding the 'events' tab, more difficult than it was the ... (view more)

Like whiling away those boring days at work listening to free streaming music? Many cubicle kings and queens enjoy no-charge service Last.fm, one of the most popular of these sites -- unfortunately, if you don't live and work in the United States, ... Germany, or Britain, it will soon cost you. It's becoming increasingly difficult to access free music online. Hot on the heels of Warner's decision to rip its music off popular video site YouTube, Last.fm fans living outside the aforementioned three countries will soon have to pay a fee to access the site's mountain of music. It's not yet known what ... (view more)

A recent report by the BBC News claims that makers of rogue anti-virus software are making as much as $10,800 a day from selling their dubious fake security software to unknowing computer users. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) A typical scenario: a user ... misspells a web address in a browser and is instantly redirected to a forged web page. From there, the visitor is bombarded with bogus popup warnings claiming that the visitor's PC is infected with malicious programs. The warnings say you'll need to download and pay for anti-virus software costing about $50 to clean up the (non-existent) infection. This ... (view more)

If you are thinking of complaining on Twitter about a company's service, your grumble might be more effective than you think. A customer relations management firm is now offering a service that lets companies monitor and deal with comments about ... them on the site. Salesforce calls its product the 'Service Cloud' and already covers posts on Facebook. The Twitter functionality will be added free of charge to existing customer accounts. Complaints In Context While Salesforce uses some serious jargon in its publicity, their product is remarkably simple. It takes advantage of the fact that a ... (view more)

With the growing popularity of social networking comes a growing list of social search engines that can turn up all kinds of embarrassing and potentially invasive information about you. The issue raises questions about what other revealing ... information is out there and what can be done to protect oneself. Besides making online stalking easy , specialized search engines are making it increasingly easier to combine socially shared information together into a highly detailed profile of our virtual lives. These specialized search engines go by a variety of terms such as "social search" ... (view more)

Microsoft has won another skirmish in the war for market share , as Queensland University of Technology agreed to transfer about 40,000 student email accounts to the Live@edu suite of applications. Queensland University of Technology has been ... internally testing email products from both Microsoft and Google for the past year, and made the choice to use Live@edu based on student feedback and the school's overall familiarity with the Microsoft environment. Professor Tom Cochrane, deputy vice chancellor for the Division of Technology, Information, and Learning Support, also noted that the ... (view more)