By Greg Johnston, computer guy

Earlier this week, the Calgary Beacon had the misfortune of becoming the subject of news rather than a conduit for news, when a malware infection of the WordPress web publishing servers used to post Beacon stories caused readers clicking on Beacon article links to be redirected to a site hawking phony anti-virus software, issues I’ve written about previously for the Beacon. Continue Reading

By Greg Johnston, tech guy 

Down in the U.S., the iPhone 4 has been available just over a week now, where it has broken Apple and industry sales records already. Here in Canada, we as usual wait for cool tech to eventually make it to our market – sometime in late July, supposedly, but given that Apple has had trouble meeting existing demand, it is not hard to imagine that date slipping further, possibly well into September. Continue Reading

By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

Following up on last autumn’s release of Windows 7, a major revision and improvement of the much-reviled Vista operating system, Microsoft is following up with a new version of it’s other flagship product, Office, version 2010 taking the place of 2007.  While a full review of MS Office 2010 would be beyond the scope of today’s article, a look at Office Starter Edition is a good place to start, since it will be coming pre-installed on most new Windows PCs. Continue Reading

By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

On Tuesday evening, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, spoke at D8: All Things Digital conference in Rancho Palo Verdes, CA for an hour and a half in a Question and Answer session to kick off the conference.  Big news is expected next week at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, and Jobs was not letting the cat out of the bag early on either the anticipated new iPhone, or other expected news such as whether Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) will continue to be supported.  But he was surprisingly frank on a range of topics relating to both Apple and technology generally, such as the role of the iPad, newspapers, television, the spat with Adobe over Flash, and the infamous lost iPhone prototype. Continue Reading

By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

Wireless networking has been around long enough, most of us take for granted, much like cell phones – yet wireless networking has really only been readily available to consumers for under 10 years, and popular for perhaps eight years.  In today’s column, I focus on wireless network security, looking at a bit of background that explains how we got to where we are, and a checklist of basic wireless security. Continue Reading

By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

New customer satisfaction numbers from the University of Michigan’s annual American Customer Satisfaction Index indicate that with the successful Windows 7 operating system release last fall, Microsoft has gotten itself out of the customer satisfaction doghouse that the much-mocked and disparaged Windows Vista banished the software giant to for three long years. Not only have the customer satisfaction numbers recovered from their pre-Vista dip, they are in fact at a new high for the five years the study has looked at software. Continue Reading

By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

I’ve written fairly regularly here in the Beacon about the importance to home and small business computer users of good security practices – anti-virus, firewalls, up-to-date OS and applications, strong passwords, and just being aware of threats.  Hopefully, readers do so, and have a healthy measure of paranoia/caution about online transactions and personal information generally. Continue Reading

 By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

Late last week, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs posted a rare open letter on Apple’s website, laying out Jobs’/Apple’s reasoning (is there really any distinction between the two?) for barring Adobe’s Flash from the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch.  It was an unusual move, but possibly comes as a pre-emptive strike against both media criticisms, and Adobe Systems, developer of Flash software, who are in turn reported to be behind US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission anti-trust investigations into Apple’s move to bar Flash. Continue Reading

 By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

This past Wednesday, HP and Palm announced a deal approved by the directors of both companies, which will see computer giant HP buy out ailing smartphone manufacturer Palm, in a US$1.2 billion deal. HP seems to be placing their bets that business and consumers will continue to flock to smartphones and mobile web access – an area where HP has had virtually no presence, notwithstanding its also-ran iPaq line of Windows-mobile based phones and PDAs. Continue Reading

By Greg Johnston, computer guy 

This past week has seen a bumper crop of security exploits publicly exposed in a variety of popular software, including various versions of Windows, Adobe Reader (the PDF file viewer), and Sun’s Java, a cross-platform software environment popular for creating web-based applications, games, and many specialized programs, which don’t rely on a particular operating system or computer hardware.  The latest issues illustrate again that computer security is an ongoing task that requires attention and maintenance. Continue Reading