Jim Andrews

Probably, I should preface my remarks by saying I don't work for Microsoft. As an editor for infopackets.com, as well as a contributor, it was hard reading all the articles without inserting my own opinion. Watching people jump on the bash Microsoft ... bandwagon, however, can be amusing. The furor over WGA is unfortunate. If it motivates folks to turn off Automatic Updates entirely, that would be tragic. Clearly, there were problems with WGA, both in its initial implementation and in the PR treatment. Leo Notenbloom, in a Lockergnome article, gave a fair and balanced view. http://ask-leo.com/ ... (view more)

The Windows Live initiative is a fascinating adventure which I've written about previously and includes many different products: mostly online tools. See: Windows Lives beyond Your Computer in 'Web 2.0' Windows Live: Is it Worth It? Windows Live: Is ... it Worth It?, Part 2 In coming months, we will be seeing familiar things taking on this new name and offer additional features. Spaces at MSN (an entity in the blogging industry) is due to morph into "Live Spaces", and the beloved MSN Messenger will be transforming to "Live Messenger." In this article, I want to overview ... (view more)

If you are confused about articles foretelling The End of Support for Windows 98 and Millenium Edition, join the experts. It is especially confusing, and I delight in envisioning the meetings between the lawyers, accountants and programmers who've ... tried to sort it out and clarify it. To make matters worse, the official page explaining The End has been rewritten a number of times. In short, you can find several dates for different things which can be interpreted in many different ways: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=LifeAn16 ... (view more)

My recent article about Windows Live OneCare drew a response from Infopackets Reader James R. In an excerpt of his email, James writes: " Jim does not mention that Windows Live One Care also includes a two way firewall. This is a major feature in ... any security suite and it's presence should not have been omitted. Jim goes on to say that his computer purrs just by using a cleanup script, Ashampoo's Magic Defrag , Acronis True Image and a few other programs. He goes on to state that everything Live One Care does can be done 'totally free'. Implying that Magic Defrag and True Image are free is ... (view more)

Because I previously wrote about the Windows Live trend of software as services, Dennis asked me to answer the following question submitted by "Jeanie": " Can you tell me any thing about this 'Windows Live One Care'? I downloaded it to try it. Of ... course, it had disable my antivirus completely. Can you tell me, does Windows Live work and is it any good? "When I replied, "Jeanie, this is probably not meant for you," watching Dennis' double-take via email made my day. ;-) I'm known to defend most things Microsoft and generally I'm pretty enthusiastic over their innovatio ns. ... (view more)

The world of 'the Internet' versus 'computer users' (realized as separate entities) is amazing, but I've found that attitudes on both sides tend to polarize folks. For example, you have The Browser Wars: Internet Explorer vs Netscape with Firefox as ... the latest Mozilla contender and Opera watching from the wings with an aloof cultured shrug; or The Operating System Wars: Apple vs PCs (IBM and clones), Windows vs Linux (pick your distro); add to this, GTalk, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Trillian ... and your head starts to get dizzy. From my seat over here in the Old Newbie corner, I ... (view more)

The past week I've been BOINCing around with a new (to me) program that does a wonderful thing. Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing: an open-source software platform for computing using volunteered resources. Stay with me now, this is ... really very exciting. Remember I've told you before that computers are not very smart, just incredibly fast and able to do the same thing over and over and over without getting bored with the repetitiveness? In fact, most of the time your computer is waiting to do something and it would be quite happy to have something, anything to break the ... (view more)