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Here's some news that might have been somewhat fresh in 1936: According to the Washington Post, researchers say that social security numbers can be guessed. And not just a few of the digits -- all of them. Here's how: The first three digits are regional, derived from the zip code that th...
If your desk was built within the last decade or so, it probably has at least one of those cable-management holes. Here's a clever way to make it even more useful: the In-Desk USB 4 Port Hub. Designed to fit 2-inch grommet holes, the hub connects to one of your PC's USB ports to provide four easi...
Big news last week! Amazon dropped the Kindle to $299. (Still overpriced, IMHO.) Google unveiled the Chrome OS. (A "cloud OS"? Thanks, but no thanks.) And I went to San Francisco! But you know what? I still took the time to crank out some hellzapoppin' hacks. So did Dave, who stalwartly held down th...
Have you ever gotten a cryptic message from Outlook that some add-in or feature is not working right? Or have you noticed that some feature doesn't do its thing anymore? It's probably easier to fix than you might think. As AppScout points out in a post on fixing disabled Outlook items, Outloo...
From the mailbag: Dear E-mail Etiquette Guy: Recently, one employee sent an e-mail to the whole corporate distribution list. Many employees Replied All to more than 100K employees. I decided to take the lead in informing everyone that the mail was a mistake and to stop responding to it. Unfo...
Last month, Virgin Mobile announced a pay-as-you-go alternative to contract-based mobile wireless. With Broadband2Go, you buy the USB modem, then pay for blocks of service as needed -- no contract required, no monthly minimums. During a recent trip to San Francisco, I put the hardware and service...
Need a quick and easy way to copy some documents to your iPhone before you hit the road? Discover turns your iPhone into a flash drive, and a wireless one at that [iTunes link]. You can see all about it (Get it? See all about it?) in the following video, which is Mac-centric but still informative...
A few days ago, as I started writing the third chapter of my forthcoming book on the Palm Pre, I noticed that I hadn't so much written anything for a few hours as played a computer game for three solid hours. That's when I had to remind myself that working from home was tricky -- a million distra...
I always forget something when I go on a trip -- sometimes it's just toothpaste, but occasionally it's a charging cable or pants. Yes, once I really forgot to bring pants (aside from the ones I was wearing). The Universal Packing List is an interesting Web app you can use to avoid forgetting importa...
You've heard of Google Voice, right? It's the one-phone-number-to-rule-them-all service formerly known as GrandCentral, rumored to be going public any time now. When that happens, you won't be able to swing a cat without seeing countless Google Voice stories. And you may well wonder: "Is this som...
We've seen them a million times: What's your mother's maiden name? First pet? Street you grew up on? It doesn't matter whether you're setting up e-mail, a bank account, or registering for some sort of Web app -- they all use secret questions to help you regain access to the site if you forget your p...
Need to share some files with co-workers but don't have a network share handy? Sure, there are all sorts of ways to make large files available, but few are as easy as Jake. Jake lets you share files from your own PC to others that you invite via a Google Talk or Jabber instant messaging account. ...
Interesting news from Google this week: After five long years, Gmail is no longer in beta. Does that simple fact change the way you, as a businessperson, feel about it? Google hopes so, because the only thing different about Gmail in its post-beta reality is that the Gmail logo no longer says "be...
This is what I like to call a win-win. First, a recent study found that workers who trade instant messages with their bosses are more productive than those who don't. Second, it's proof positive that Dave lost yet another debate. In case you missed that one, Dave argued that instant messaging was...
Annoying e-mail is one of my personal pet peeves. And I get plenty of them -- enough, probably, to write a regular Dear Duke of E-mail Etiquette column. For now, though, here are five of my biggest gripes with people who click send without thinking. Always use descriptive subject lines. Blank...
