Russ McBee

Yahoo announced today that their on-demand Yahoo Music service is being taken over by RealNetwork's Rhapsody. From the sound of it, Yahoo may be using Rhapsody only as an interim solution, pending resolution of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo. I don't think I should be happy about this. Maybe ten years ago, I became a subscriber to the Musicmatch ...

I've had my new computer set up for about a week now, so I've had some time to play with Windows Vista (Home Premium, not that the version matters very much). So far, so good. I have an HP with an AMD 64 X2 dual core processor, 3 GB RAM, a 400 GB SATA hard drive, and an NVIDIA video board with 256 MB of video memory. With that hardware, Vista ...

After spending most of Thanksgiving weekend doing nothing but eating, I decided to take a break on Saturday by going to Best Buy. It didn't occur to me until I pulled into the parking lot that this was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and the store was likely to be sheer chaos. It didn't matter, though; it was too late for me to turn back. Once ...

I've been toying with the idea of buying a laptop. I don't need one for any specific or imminent purpose, but I think it might come in handy. My criteria are pretty simple: I want performance, portability, and quality for the least cost. I'd likely use it for Web surfing, email, blogging, maybe some light photo editing (but nothing heavy), and ...

A couple of random thoughts: Shortly after 7:00 PM tonight, it was still 101°F in Knoxville. A new computer model of climate change has been released which is able to model global warming over the next ten years. According to a story I just heard on the BBC World Service (no audio link yet), the model was verified by starting in a historic year ...

I've been playing around with Twitter for the last day or so. I'm not yet sure what it represents, or how I'll use it, but I can already see how it can become addictive. I've added a feed for my most recent Twitter updates in the right-hand sidebar, just for giggles. I don't really buy the argument that Twitter is a publication (via Jack Lail), ...