KSFO's Web Wanderer

The Links for June 3, 2006

Microsoft Says No USB Drive for You! - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve found a page summarizing the recent Microsoft USB "giveaway".

The bloggers are upset. They've either received the "brush off" email from Microsoft, or heard nothing at all. I've yet to find anyone who got one of the 16MB drives. I did a Bloglines search, and people are really upset.

As if that were not bad enough, the latest word is that Microsoft is calling up people who gave their phone numbers, offering a CD with the information instead. Here's a quote from another Blog: "I received a call from them yesterday at work after the email was sent. They wanted to offer to send the materials out on CD. I told them I already have spindles full of CDs and that I wanted teh USB drive so I could wipe their crappy materials off of it. The rep just laughed. I told them to never call me again. He followed up with calling 5 of my coworkers that had also signed up for the USB drives."

I was sucked in as well, and am not a happy camper.

Books Price - Lucy

Lucy says: "I would like to inform you regarding a new web site that I hope you will find interesting for you and for the readers of the 'KSFO's Web Wanderer'.

Books Priceis a free price comparison service with a twist. Unlike the standard services which perform one comparison at a time, BooksPrice enables finding the best price on a purchase of several books, dvds and cds together. This service is more useful, and can save more money when buying several items together. BooksPrice.com allows searching for books, DVDs and CDs, adding them to a virtual cart and finally finding the best overall price for the total contents of the cart searching the best prices in over 40 online stores."

I like this site. I think you can find better deals if you seek out each item, but that takes a lot more time, and shipping costs may add up.

Ths is nice for busy folks - give it a look.

Thanks, Lucy - nice site.

PC World - 100 Best Products of the Year - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve found the PCWorld.com page on "WORLD CLASS - BEST PRODUCTS OF THE YEAR: Powerful computers, handy services, tiny utilities, mammoth HDTVs--our editors' top picks include all these and a whole lot more."

The list is a real mix of hardware, software, and websites. Some that strike me:

I'm not familiar with everything on the list, but based on the ones I know, this will be a good source for finding cool stuff.

Thanks, Steve!

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve says: "THE 25 WORST TECH PRODUCTS OF ALL TIME These products are so bad, they belong in the high-tech hall of shame.

"At PC World, we spend most of our time talking about products that make your life easier or your work more productive. But it's the lousy ones that linger in our memory long after their shrinkwrap has shriveled, and that make tech editors cry out, "What have I done to deserve this?" "

For some of the entries, I strongly agree:

The original CueCat was awful as well, but actually has been useful for me with it's second (of nine) lives. It's now just a barcode reader, which works very well, that you can pick up on eBay for about 10 bucks. I have database software for books, cds, and DVDs, and entering data is a SNAP - scan the barcode, and the software looks everything up.

In any case - the site is a fun read. Check it out.

Thanks, Steve!

Daily Rotation: Daily Tech Update - Taxi Mike

Taxi Mike says: "Well worth a serious look...."

Daily Rotation is a configurable news page - you slect your sources, and how many headlines you want displayed. It's a GREAT way to browse multiple sites in a short amount of time.

Click on a headline to get the story.

Another nice feature: Search All Headlines.

I'll use this daily. Thanks, Mike!

Free For All!

"Free For All" picks are hot, FREE items or services. It can be software, online services, you name it - but it's got to be free, with no strings attached.

bxNewFolder - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve says: "I became accustomed to having bxNewFolder on my Windows 98 system. bxNewFolder installs nothing in the Start menu, and I'd forgotten that I'd installed it. I often wondered why the handy button was omitted from XP. Yesterday I discovered the error of my ways. I installed bxNewFolder--I'm happy now. Download and try bxNewFolder-you may be happy too."

bxNewFolder adds a "New Folder" button to the toolbar of Windows Explorer. It also provides a hotkey (F12) to create a new folder within the Explorer quickly.

Floppy Office - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve says: "FLOPPY OFFICE - TINY USB-COMPATIBLE PORTABLE OFFICE SOLUTION! Floppy Office is a collection of small, self contained no-install office software applications which enable the end use access to every tool, utility and program imaginable for home, business, and student users alike. All of the self-contained, standalone applications require no installation, whatsoever, and for this reason make the perfect companion software package for your USB stick. All one needs to do is to extract all the zip files containing each application to their USB, configure them to their liking, and they are all set."

The applications included in this bundle are:

Previous Archive Next

This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 2006 by Michael A. Solinas.