David Coursey

Want fewer security hassles? Demote yourself! Want to do something right now that can help protect you from malware? Then stop being an administrator. No, I am not suggesting a career change, though I suppose that would have much the same effect. Rather, I hope youll consider using your desktops administrator account only when absolutely […]

Two schools of thought exist in the world today as to how software developers should address security problems. There is the “trust me” school, with Microsoft as its leader, and the “trust us” school of the open-source movement. Either can work, provided there is a substantial effort to make it work. But which works better? […]

Matt Hicks story about the blossoming of “vertical” search engines got me thinking about what I want when I search and what Im not getting. Like most people, I am a big Google user, though my support for that service has, as a political pollster might say, “gone soft” in recent months. Put another way: […]

Its been said that if Microsoft is the operating system for your computer, then Google is the operating system for the Internet. That may be overstating things, but when Google starts changing other peoples Web sites for its own gain, I wonder if the two companies arent more alike than Google might care to admit. […]

How many update services does it take for Microsoft to keep its customers secure and happy? The answer: One. Or at least thats what the answer should be. Why Microsoft continues to resist this obvious conclusion is hard to understand. Microsofts current plan is to combine consumer and small business OS and applications updates into […]

For more than a week now Ive been playing with a Mac mini that Apple sent over. Today Id like to offer some first-look opinions on the new machine and its place in this Windows-dominated world. I know many readers have at least a passing interest in running a mini alongside their Windows machines, so […]

Isnt it great to see a CEO get fired? I mean, if it can happen to you and me, why should the highest-paid executives be immune to a stinging rebuke for nonperformance, as apparently happened to Hewlett Packards Carly Fiorina. /zimages/3/28571.gifClick here to read more about Fiorinas resignation. Most of the time, boards dont fire […]

Patents pose a simple question: Should an idea be protectable and, if so, how should it be protected and for what period of time? Youd think that as important as ideas have become and how long theyve been around—like forever—that by 2005 wed know how to protect them. Not so. And whats happening in Europe […]

I may be alone in this, but I have always thought the breakup of AT&T was stupid and probably did more to hinder the advance of new technology than to help it. As for pricing, AT&Ts prices were always what regulators said those prices were supposed to be. That AT&Ts long-distance service on the eve […]

You probably think youre pretty safe from phishing attacks, right? After all, how difficult is it to ignore a “security warning” from a bank you dont do business with? Or a non-grammatical message purportedly from PayPal that says your account is about to be turned off? Ive avoided those scams and even bogus messages “from” […]

For many years Ive been saying the only way to deal with antitrust in the technology business is to get out in front of it. By the time the legal system can deal with problems the damage has been done, and the industry has moved on. Its good to see regulators may have finally learned […]

Its funny to read how Microsoft is apparently going ahead with plans to let hackers help the company battle pirates. What else can you call a program that denies security fixes to users whose systems havent been certified “genuine” by Microsoft? The idea, I think, is for these machines to sit around unprotected until they […]