As an enthusiastic Google user, I was immediately interested when I saw the headlines that proclaimed that Google was boosting its users' privacy with its new Dashboard. Well, as often happens, the reality wasn't quite up to the hype.

Most of us enjoy playing with new gadgets, trying out new Web services, downloading interesting software. However, hopefully, you're not doing it while you're supposed to be paying attention to something else. Like your job. As a pilot. In charge of a passenger jet that's supposed to be making a landing.

Okay, count how many times you've gotten a complaint from a less-than-knowledgeable user whose document couldn't be read on a friend's computer. "But they're both Word files!," the poor newbie cries. Uh, no. Almost invariably, one of them was created with Microsoft Works.

Microsoft has had distinct problems in branding itself, especially to a consumer audience. (For the most recent example, see the company's weird HostingYourParty video on how to hold a Windows 7 launch party, which has all the believability of a 1950s instructional film.)

Sometimes, a product upgrade isn't altogether a good thing. Take, for example, TweetDeck.

On the same day that Google won a partial victory in the EU legal battle over trademarks, it may be headed back to the drawing board in its fight to hold the rights to millions of out-of-print and orphaned books.

Intuit, whose Quicken package has pretty much cornered the market for financial software, has now picked up one of the few applications that could challenge its dominance: Mint.com.

Years ago, before the Web became a normal part of our culture, the idea that the Internet would become commercialized was anathema to many of the users. Today's Twitter users, faced with new Terms of Service that include the possibility of advertising, are more realistic.

While the last-minute legal objections to Google's Book Settlement have mostly centered on copyright and other financial concerns, a group of authors, publishers and writers groups have filed an objection that centers on something that may concern a large segment of the population: privacy rights.

Back in March, I reviewed two e-readers: Amazon's Kindle 2 and the Sony Reader PRS-700. While I preferred the Reader's interface, the Kindle was obviously ahead of the game. Now -- maybe not so much.

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An entry in Lifehacker entitled Digsby Joins the Dark Side, Uses Your PC to Make Money has ignited a small storm among Digsby users -- and probably within the dotSyntax offices as well.

Recently, there has been a minor price war among the vendors of e-book readers. Why? Because Amazon may not have quite the lock on the market it thought it did.

One of the topics of discussion among tweeters this morning (along with the Yahoo-Microsoft search deal) was a case in which a woman with less than 20 Twitter followers is being sued for defamation.

You think you own those e-books that you've paid for? Think again. Amazon has apparently decided it has the right to pull e-books from its Kindle if it wants to. Sure, it will refund your money -- but only after it's reached out a virtual hand and taken away that book you were reading.

The idea of working with online apps rather with locally-installed software is no longer revolutionary. In fact, it's slowly becoming a fact of life -- so much so, that it may not be long before you won't have much of a choice as to whether you work online or not.