Ads by TechWords
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletters
For more info on a specific newsletter, click the title. Details will be displayed in a new window.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
More E-Mail Newsletters 
All Ken Gagne's Posts
Ken Gagne's picture
Ken Gagne

Techbits

The day the 2D died

Music group 8 Bit Weapon performs chiptune music — original tunes produced using classic hardware, from an Apple II to a Game Boy processor. A free download of their soundtrack to the game Reset Generation comes with a bonus track that, like the game, is a love letter to gamers of ages yore.

...Read more

Rosetta-free makes life merry

I've been ignoring Safari updates for years, sticking with an older version of the web browser that had proven to be stable. But eventually its limitations caught up to me, and I had to consider if the cost of running older, slower software was really worth it.

...Read more

Five reasons why GS/OS beats Vista and OS X

The conventional wisdom that newfangled operating systems are superior to tried-and-true ones is flat-out wrong. Obviously the Apple IIGS perfected the OS decades before Leopard and Vista. Here are five reasons why.

...Read more

Old school tax refund

The government is sending some money your way. Before you blow it on the latest toy to catch your eye, what about that toy you never got twenty years ago? It's not too late!

...Read more

Anatomy of an Apple IIc

PC World recently dissected a 25-year-old Apple IIc in a fun and insightful photo gallery. Only a few technical errors keep it from being a flawless romp down memory lane.

...Read more

Getting started with the Apple II

Dan Budiac paid $2,600 last month for a brand-new Apple IIc. That's a story in and of itself — but it doesn't end there. Now that he has a vintage computer, what does he do with it?

...Read more

A very geeky Valentine's Day

"Everyone knows that people who play video games don't celebrate Valentine's Day, because they are sad, lonely shut-ins with no social lives, and no hope of dating, or even meeting, another human being." So goes the stereotype on this happy holiday ...

...Read more

Hollywood meets MIT

Tomorrow sees the release of the film Jumper, in which Hayden Christensen can instantly teleport himself to anywhere on the planet with ease. Are we ourselves only a jump away from real-world teleportation? When Christensen and film director Doug Liman recently spoke at MIT, we found out teleportation is already real -- but it's not as easy as Star Trek makes it look.

...Read more

The case of the crashing iPhoto

Apple's iLife applications are tightly integrated not only into Mac OS X, but also into each other. When iPhoto starts crashing, the hunt begins to determine what's gone awry in an otherwise stable environment. Is it a corrupt library file? A byproduct of a recent QuickTime upgrade? Or something far less obvious?

...Read more

The cure for a hungry, sleepy laptop

Both Mac OS X and the MacBook Pro have some great safety features — but if they don't apply to your daily use, you're more likely to benefit from reclaiming the resources these features consume. Here's a look at two problems that were resolved with one patch.

...Read more

Do androids dream of electric Apples?

When David Szetela delivered his keynote at KansasFest 2007, he revealed a fact that is little-known to all but diehard geeks (which was, of course, exactly who he was addressing). It connected two of my favorite things: the Apple II computer and the Terminator movie series.

...Read more

Video: Apple's 2007 Year in Review

It's been a busy year for Apple. Though every year's Macworld and Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) give us updates to existing Apple products and announcements of new ones, 2007 delivered a surprising number of new and exciting ventures from Apple Inc.

...Read more

iPod Classic: One step forward, two steps back

When I "upgraded" from an iPod Photo to an iPod Classic, I got far less than I bargained for. Simplicity and configurability had been forsaken for novelty, leaving me yearning for my tried-and-true fourth-gen model.

...Read more

Gamers bring cheer to hospitals worldwide

Santa Claus has a decidedly digital look to him this year, thanks to video gamers who know there's more to life than shooting up space invaders.

...Read more

Keeping Leopard caged

A stalwart Tiger user, I was hesitant to upgrade to Leopard. Let everyone else hammer out the bugs, I figured; I can wait. But when an upgrade became unavoidable, first-hand experience with those bugs made me regret ever moving "forward".

...Read more