Brian Livingston

Theres a love-in coming to California next week, but it wont be grooving along in San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury district. Instead, itll be headquartered in a boxy convention center in downtown Los Angeles. The event will be Microsofts Professional Developers Conference, where thousands of programmers who create Windows applications and drivers will schmooze, share tips and […]

While my computer is busy pulling down the latest Microsoft patches, Id like to share new information about the amount of bandwidth these downloads consume. In my Sept. 22 column, I said Microsoft has marked its Windows Update files “noncacheable.” As a result, one small ISP in Wyoming found that more than 90 percent of […]

With all the viruses and worms wriggling around lately, theres more interest than usual in running Windows Update. Of course, enterprises dont have to rely on this inefficient end-user service. Businesses can instead use Microsofts official Software Update Service and several third-party patch-management services. That leaves half a billion home PCs that are running unpatched, […]

Imagine that youve just bought a bag of fresh, tasty walnuts from a local farmer and that youre looking forward to sitting in the cool shade of a leafy tree, cracking open the walnuts and chowing down their crunchy contents. To your dismay, you find that you cant open the shells. A farmhand passing by […]

Ive been so busy patching all my Windows machines lately that I dont have any time to enjoy how Microsoft has made my computing experience easier and more fun. Like you, my days and nights have been eaten up by a worm named Blaster, MSBlast, LovSan or whatever the little wriggler is calling itself now. […]

Theres a giant shopping spree going on, and you can be part of it! Thousands of people are buying millions of dollars worth of stuff, using credit cards with your name on them. What? You havent been a victim of identity theft yet? Dont worry, you will be soon, if the card issuers dont clean […]

After years of reading thousands of spam e-mail messages and doing everything they suggest, my main regret is that I still dont have larger breasts. Its not just e-mail I find persuasive. I also do everything that Microsoft recommends, too. I use all the companys products and upgrade them whenever I get the word from […]