DOOM AND GLOOM HUMOR - Satire is good for the soul, though sometimes it hits a little too close to home.
SatireWire | Briefs: Business-To-Unemployment (B2U) Dubbed Next Big Thing
posted by Mike Wendland 12:33 PM

Saturday, December 30, 2000

Y2K1 PREDICTIONS - So much information, so little time.
How are we to manage it all? Better search engines, better broadband deployment, more interactive television and greater Internet portability are some of my suggestions... and predictions for 2001.
Mike Wendland: The real Y2K world offers life in big bytes
posted by Mike Wendland 10:34 AM

Friday, December 29, 2000

Y2K1 HACK ATTACK WARNINGS - Is a massive attack ready to be launched over the New Year's holiday weekend? The FBI seems to think so and has issued a warning to IT people.
NIPC issues computer attack warning
posted by Mike Wendland 9:56 PM

Saturday, December 23, 2000

PLAY STATIONS TURN INTO WAR TOOLS? - Can you believe this? Saddam is buying up PlayStation 2's in Detroit and using them for military parts.
War games
posted by Mike Wendland 4:02 PM

WOW! COURTESY AND SERVICE, WHAT A NOVEL CONCEPT - I do my share of criticism about the lack of service and support in the high tech field.
So it is only fair that I praise the people at AT&T's broadband for the professional and efficient way they got to the bottom of a brief cable Internet outage I experienced the other day.
Not only did they solve the problem but, later that afternoon, a service rep actually called me to make sure everything was working properly.
And it wasn't because they knew I was in the media.
I called their Texas service center's toll-free number just like anyone else. I was just another customer to them. And they cared!
I'm impressed and glad that I send them $50 a month for my broadband cable access.
posted by Mike Wendland 9:50 AM

Friday, December 22, 2000

CREDIT CARD NET THIEVES STRIKE AGAIN - This latest escapade may affect 3.7 million people who have used credit cards to buy from Egghead.com
This comes after another 3 million credit card numbers were ripped off from a California-based company a couple of months ago.
ZDNet: News: Egghead cracked by credit-card hack
posted by Mike Wendland 3:14 PM

BAD IS GETTING WORSE - The news just keeps getting grimmer for the high tech industry. And if the high tech industry in this information age is as sick as the latest figures indicate, the whole nation's economy is going to get even sicker.
Is anybody going to admit it?
We are now in a fullblown recession.
Wait until people see what has happened to their 401K's this year.
Bill Clinton has to be sighing in relief. He's bailing out before the bottom really collapses. The incoming George W. Bush administration must be starting to sweat.
2001 is not going to be a good year.
PC Industry's Holiday Fears Confirmed
posted by Mike Wendland 11:29 AM

Thursday, December 21, 2000

IT'S A BUYER'S MARKET - Told you! Here come those price cuts I've been predicting. (See my FYI's from my Web page)
But here's the first announcement from Dell of price cuts. Watch other computer makers quickly follow suit.
Dell Cuts Notebook Computer Prices (12/20/2000)
posted by Mike Wendland 8:29 AM

Thursday, November 30, 2000

WIRELESS IS EVERYWHERE - AOL is betting that millions would pay $350 or so, plus nearly $20 a month, to have wirless e-mail and Instant Messaging services available on a handheld device.
I think they're close to right.
But with Palm, Handspring, Pocket PC and all wireless phones and paging devices of every possible variety all offering some of the same services, it seems to me that what's really needed is one single, small, reliable device that does EVERYTHING.
AOL Unveils Two-Way Paging Device to Access E-Mail
posted by Mike Wendland 4:45 PM

Monday, November 27, 2000

DANCE WITH THE CANDIDATES - The dancing craze on the World Wide Web shows no signs of letting up. We may not yet know who the next President will be, but this Web site gives both candidates rythm.
. Bush - Gore Dance @ TVdance.com
posted by Mike Wendland 1:44 PM

THIS SITE IS HOT - Here's a perfect example of how the Web can take a silly idea and make it massively popular. This site, the "Am I Hot or Not" site, takes pictures of ordinary people and lets the World Wide Web world vote on how "hot" they are. It started as a joke and now is getting 3 million hits a day.
Am I HOT or NOT?
posted by Mike Wendland 7:52 AM

Friday, November 24, 2000

DOWLOADING DILEMMA - Like a lot of people, I like to use holidays like Thanksgiving to update my computer with new software. So I went online yesterday and downloaded a couple of programs I had been meaning to get for some time.
My experience may give you pause when downloading commercial software over the Internet.
The first new program is called MP3 CD Maker from a company called Qwerks. The software is shareware. You can get a limited-feature demo version free. After downloading and looking it over, I gave them a credit card number and upgraded to the full version. The site promised that they'd quickly e-mail along the code I needed to officially register the demo application and have complete use of all its features.
They didn't.
The whole day went by and... they had my $29.95... but I got no code or use of the program.
I know Thanksgiving is a holiday and I don't begrudge the Qwerks people a day off.
I do, however, begrudge the fact that they can stay open and take my money but not deliver the service I need to use the product they just sold me.
Then, there's a company called Sierra Imaging. They have a product called Image Maker that helps you work with digital photos. I downloaded the free trial version, liked it, and upgraded to the full version, this time charging $49 on my credit card. But the Trial Updater program that supposedly would take my demo to full features didn't work. When I tried to upgrade it I kept getting a message saying the trial version I downloaded is not the proper version. No problem, I figured, I'd just call their tech support people.
Problem.
The whole company is shut down till Monday.
Again, they have my money.... I get no service.
With all the dot-coms failing these days, you'd think those in business would realize that customer satisfaction is critical.
I know two companies that sure left this customer unsatisfied.

posted by Mike Wendland 8:07 AM

Thursday, November 23, 2000

NEW SLOGANS FOR FLORIDA
FLORIDA: If you think we can't vote, wait till you see us drive.
FLORIDA: Home of electile dysfunction.
FLORIDA: We count more than you do.
FLORIDA: If you don't like the way we count then take I-95 and visit one of the other 56 states.
FLORIDA: We've been Gored by the bull of politics and we're Bushed.
FLORIDA: Relax, Retire, ReVote.
FLORIDA: Viagra voters do it again!
FLORIDA: What comes after 17,311?
FLORIDA: Where your vote counts and counts and counts.
FLORIDA: This is what you get for taking Elian away from us.
FLORIDA: We don't just cheat in football.
FLORIDA: We're number one! Wait! Recount!
Or
Palm Beach County: So nice, we let you vote twice.
Palm Beach County: We put the "duh" in Florida.
Sign on I-95 : Florida this way, no that way, 5 miles, wait 10 miles
posted by Mike Wendland 7:50 AM

Wednesday, November 22, 2000

THE NEWS WILL GET OUT - More proof that with the Internet, you can't keep the news from getting out.
Striking Reporters Publish on Net
posted by Mike Wendland 7:55 AM

Friday, November 17, 2000

MEDIA BACKLASH BEGINNING - No matter how this election turns out, a big loser will be the media. Check out this link below from NewsMax.com. Mark my words, this is just the start. Conservative and right wing groups and web sites like NewsMax are going to make this a major rallying cry though chain e-mail campaigns and Internet coverage. Whether it's fair or not, the stink from this election is going to tar the major networks in particular and rub off on all media in general.
I just flew back from Florida (pronounced FloriDUH, home of "FlorIdiots"). My airplane seatmate, a 38-year-old business consultant who travels 100,000 miles a year, spent the entire trip badmouthing the media. People in seats all around me heard him and chimed in their agreement. I was glad my seatmate didn't ask what I did for a living.
But, my point is this: That conversation, and the chat room eavesdropping I've been doing this week on the Net, makes it very clear to me that a lot real people are really upset by this Presidential debacle and are somehow holding the media responsible for much of the mess. Maybe the media is an undeserved whipping boy. But being whipped it is.
Urgent Letter to Readers of NewsMax.com
posted by Mike Wendland 10:14 PM

Saturday, November 11, 2000

This story sort of says it all....
9-Year-Olds Ace Florida Ballot
posted by Mike Wendland 10:03 PM

Friday, November 10, 2000

BUSH,GORE SUPPORTERS LAUNCH E-MAIL CAMPAIGNS
Won't this ever end? I'm starting to get lots of e-mail from respective supporters of the Presidential candidates whining about the vote count and legal challenges and trying to mobilize e-mail pressure on anyone and everyone who could conceivably have something to say in resolving this national embarrassment.
Here are a couple of examples.
A guy named Scott Statson, who I do not believe I know, e-mailed me about 50 others (as seen in the CC line on his message), urging me to "bombard the news media and our public officials AT EVERY LEVEL with phone calls of outrage that demand Gore's concession."
Then I got an e-mail from Maria Kalligaros, an exec from a New York ad agency who I do know, asking me to "send an e-mail to the Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, asking for a re-vote of the Presidential race in Palm Beach County." Maria then asked me to "please send this to everyone you know who you feel might at all be interested."
No, Maria, I won't. No, Scott, whoever you are, I won't.
I am not going to forward e-mail to people pushing your political agenda. I am not going to bombard people with demands.
But I will tell you what I am going to do: I am going to trash your e-mails.
Spam is not the way to scratch your political itch.
Stop it. Right now.
Maria, quit trying to blame the stupidity of a bunch of people who probably shouldn't be voting anyway because of their obviously limited capacities to punch the right ballot, on a "flawed system."
And, Scott, whoever you are, quit screaming about Al Gore's lack of a concesssion. Come on, would you concede at this point? Let all the votes... all of them, including the overseas ballots, come in.
It's a close election. A really, really close election.
Why don't you guys go play around on e-bay until we know what's what?
posted by Mike Wendland 6:10 PM

Thursday, November 09, 2000

NEXT CONTROVERY: MISSING MILITARY VOTES? - With Matt Drudge's site still so swamped that it's all but impossible to access, World Net Daily is making waves with the latest scandals over the Presidential election and the Florida foul up.
Mark my words, just as wild Kennedy assassination theories still abound, so will all sorts of conspiracy theories crop up over this year's election mess.
Here's one that will be a hot topic on radio talk shows for many a moon.
Could it be? Read it yourself.
Bacon denies WND military-ballot report
posted by Mike Wendland 9:33 PM

ELECTION UNCERTAINTY IS CERTAINLY GOOD FOR WEB NEWS SITES - I remember as a young reporter assigned to the police beat having mixed feelings about disasters and tragedies. While I couldn't help but empathize for the victims, I sure enjoyed getting paid overtime for covering them.
When times got tough and we were strapped for cash, my wife and I had to fight the inclination to pray for overtime, because it invariably meant someone, somewhere, would be hurting.
In a way, that's just what's happening to Internet news sites as the nation agonizes over this incredible election mess. While the candidates and the country may be squirmming, the people who run the big Web sites couldn't be happier.
They've never had it so good.
The vote count debacle is bringing record traffic to the web sites of newspapers and broadcast outlets, especially during the daytime when most people at work don't have acess to TV and radio.
So they're heading to the Internet.

Election Cliffhanger Is a Winner for Some Internet Sites (washingtonpost.com)
posted by Mike Wendland 8:58 AM

Wednesday, November 08, 2000

COUNT YOUR OWN ELECTORAL VOTES - Why should the TV Network commentators get to have all the fun? Bill Dedman, a veteran journalist who runs a site called powerreporting.com, has put together an Electoral College Calculator spreadsheet in Excel. Bill has even entered all the numbers in for you. You can download the spreadheet and then play all sorts of "what if" scenarios, like examining the Nader and Buchanan factor.
To get it, go to: http://www.powerreporting.com/files/
posted by Mike Wendland 5:13 PM

I told you the Net was busy.
Here's some indications of just how how much stress the election has placed on it.
CNN.com had 105.2 million page views for all of Tuesday, which eclipses the previous record of 40.2 million set on October 12 of this year. The average number of daily page views on CNN.com is 22 million.
ABCNews.com also set an all-time traffic record. The site registered 27.1 million page views yesterday, which bested by 170 percent the previous single-day site record of 10 million set on on Sept. 11, 1998 when the Starr report detailing President Clinton's sexual activities with Monica Lewinsky was released.
MSNBC.com’s tally of unique users for Election Day was expected to exceed 5 million. The site's previous record was 3.1 million, set on the day the Concorde crashed in July.
Keynote, a California-based company that measures online performance, said the seven top Internet news sites showed at evidence of access problems because of the heavy traffic.
posted by Mike Wendland 3:18 PM

Here's the best idea offered yet on how to have avoided the long waits and delays... e-voting.
CNN.com - Technology - Experts: E-voting could have prevented U.S. election confusion - November 8, 2000
posted by Mike Wendland 3:06 PM

Really, the Net was a mess last night. The big sites were way too slow... Internet speeds were noticeably down and even today, with people desperate for fresh information on what has to be the nation's most gripping political drama in modern times, if not ever, many of the sites are still stumbling. MSNBC admits to techniical problems today that sees some users receiving outdated content about the presidential election. In other cases, users are seeing data and stories that conflict with other information on the site. This is not helping the Internet's reputation as a reliable source of news.
Technical problems at MSNBC.com
posted by Mike Wendland 11:25 AM

AMERITECH PROBLEMS? - What's your experience with Ameritech? Send your experience to mike@pcmike.com and we'll post the reports on the special Ameritech Horror Stories page linked below.

Ameritech Horror Stories
posted by Mike Wendland 8:05 AM

Wanna see a PC Mike reader's humorous idea for a hands free phone? Click below..
handsfree
posted by Mike Wendland 8:04 AM

Tuesday, November 07, 2000

Whew!!! What a night. Below is my favorite Web site headline from Slate. In case they change it but the time you click on the link, it's "Dewey Defeats Truman."
What a night it has been. The Web is slow. The pundits have been puzzled. CNN.com has consistently beaten the major network news portals from my surfing so far.
Slate Magazine - Table of Contents
posted by Mike Wendland 10:57 PM

6:45PM
POLITICAL SPAM CAUSES PROBLEMS - I KNEW the Net was slower today. Not it's confirmed. Bernie Johnson, a Vice president with Michigan Connect, a Pontiac Internet Service Provider, tells me the entire Internet has been reduced to "barely a crawl" at times today. Johnson said traffic measurement tools show bottlenecks all across the country. He blames all the "political Spam," the last-minute get-out-the-vote e-mail from the candidates. Johnson says he's been fielding calls all day from customers complaining of slow access. "What concerns us about this is that our customers should not have to suffer slow connections due to what we think is very unethical campaigning tactics," says Johnson of the Spam attack. . “By 9:30 am I had 23 identical messages asking me to vote from Bush, all from the same person. When I tried to be removed, my e-mail to the person sending the message bounced back as undeliverable.” For the record, the Bush campaign e-mailed about 700,000 people to be sure and vote. The Gore campaign sent out 500,000 e-mails but asked people to in turn pass them on to others, with a goal of reaching 30 million people by e-mail.
posted by Mike Wendland 7:33 PM

DRUDGE IS UNREACHABLE - Internet bad boy Matt Drudge is a victim of his own bravado. After defiantly vowing to post exit polling data as soon as it becomes available, his drudgereport.com Web site has apparently crashed. It's unclear whether it's because of too much Internet traffic or the result of a hacker-styled denial-of-service type attack. While the site was sporadically available through early afternoon, shortly after Drudge posted the initial results around 2:15PM ET, it became all but unreachable. Calls to Virtualis Systems, the Studio City, CA-based company that is listed as the Technical Contact for his site, went unanswered. Calls to the Hollywood number listed to Drudge were greeted by a recorded announcement saying "your call cannot be completed as dialed."
posted by Mike Wendland 4:51 PM

NAG, NAG, NAG - Tipper Gore just sent me an e-mail saying she's counting on me. About an hour earlier, the Gore/Lieberman campaign sent me an e-mail asking me to send an e-mail to the campaign headquarters after I've voted.
An hour before that, the Bush campaign asked me to call and e-mail all my friends and ask them to vote for the Texas governor.
When I logged on this morning, I had four e-mails waiting (three from the Gore people and one from Bush backers) to remind me that today was election day.
posted by Mike Wendland 3:44 PM

FIRST EXIT POLL RESULTS --- At 2:15PM Matt Drudge's drudgereport.com site is going with some of the first exit poll reports. Right now, he reports, citing "campaign sources," Pennsylvania and Florida are dead heats. In Michigan Gore is up by three. In Tennesee and Arkansas, Bush is leading. Bush is up n Wisconsin, Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia and Missouri. In New York Hillary is up by eight points, says Drudge.
Rush Limbaugh just visited the Drudge site and reported the results on his radio show. "For all intents and purposes it is a Bush squeaker now."
posted by Mike Wendland 2:56 PM

If Matt Drudge REALLY has the election poll results, you can't tell from his site. That's because you can't GET to his Web site. It's either so overwhelmed with traffic OR it's crashed. Come to think of it, the whole Net seems to be very slow this afternoon.
Rush Limbaugh's Web site is saying that the media thinks Bush will win, based on the number of hotel rooms booked in Austin, compared with media rooms in Nashville.
Meanwhile, I just got a call from a journalist in Amman, Jordan, who works for an online magazine. He told me he had heard that Bush had won. When I told him that wasn't true, he wanted to know how I could be so sure. I explained that the polls would be open for many hours yet and the race was too close to call. I don't think he believed me. I told him to call me back after midnight.
posted by Mike Wendland 2:38 PM

Matt Drudge's site has been down several times this morning. Probably because it's being overwhelmed by people seeing if he has the leaked exit poll data and is making good on his promise to post it even before ythe polls are closed.
posted by Mike Wendland 12:01 PM

Exit polling data from Florida, Michigan and other key Eastern states... highly accurate in previous years... will start trickling in to major media outlets about 2PM. Here's a story that explains how it works and why the Web could scoop all the networks.
[I N S I D E]
posted by Mike Wendland 11:57 AM

Media bias? Though they deny it, it's hard not to think that the strong liberal and pro-Gore feelings by the writers and editors of Slate aren't creeping into their political coverage. At least they're honest about how they feel. But when the Republicans talk about a "media elite," look no further than the folks at this online publication. I give them credit, though, for doing a piece on how they voted and trying to pursue their media colleagues for a story about how they voted. I also really like Slate. It's well-written, fresh and usually way ahead of the traditional media.
How Slatesters Voted
posted by Mike Wendland 10:00 AM

Here's a excellent piece on how to spot the winner before it's official, a look at how exit poll data really gives the big news organizations a clear picture on trends and winners... but information thay sit on until the polls close. The piece helps you "translate" the anchor babble on TV so you can read behind the lines.
OpinionJournal - Extra
posted by Mike Wendland 8:46 AM

Here's a good review of how the key Web sites plan to handle Election Night 2000.
Will Net Keep Election Promises?
posted by Mike Wendland 8:28 AM

Mike Wendland: Internet helps spread message on final day
posted by Mike Wendland 7:40 AM

It used to be that a favorite campaign dirty trick was to take down the other guy's signs. Now, it's apparently to take down the other guy's Web site.
GOP.org Web site hacked
posted by Mike Wendland 7:28 AM

Monday, November 06, 2000

Will Internet bad boy Matt Drudge make good on his promise? The fact of the matter is most major news agencies have a very good idea on who will win by mid-afternoon Election Day as the first exit poll results come in. Exit polls are very accurate. Drudge promises to go with the results as soon as he gets them, defying a self-imposed ban that most respectable media keep not to release exit polling until after the polls close so as not to adversely influence voter turnout.. But then, Matt Drudge has never claimed to be respectable.
[I N S I D E]
posted by Mike Wendland 10:30 PM

The Net just keeps playing a bigger role.
Techweb > News > elections and the Internet > Websites Could Help Undecideds Off The Fence > November 6, 2000
posted by Mike Wendland 10:04 PM

Watch my "Election in Cyberspace" reports all day (and night) Tuesday, November 7...
posted by Mike Wendland 5:11 PM

Wednesday, October 11, 2000

Chicago acts to end online sale of votes

Whoa! Is this for real? Selling votes...online????
posted by Mike Wendland 8:24 AM

Tuesday, October 10, 2000

This is a great story that shows how pervasive all these stupid Internet hoaxes and e-mails have become and how easily people can be fooled.
ClickZ : Ignorance Isn’t Bliss
posted by Mike Wendland 8:07 AM

Thursday, October 05, 2000

I'm in Tallahassee Florida this week, conducting an Internet workship for the Florida Bar Association and the media. Last night, I asked six journalists if they watched the debates. Only one admitted to watching the whole thing. Two didn't catch any of it. One watched it online. The rest only caught snippets. I bet the public rate of viewership was better than these journalists. Check out http://www.poynter.org/centerpiece/debate/main.htm for a debate on how well journalists covered the debate. You'll find my review of MSNBC there, along with other reviews from seven of my colleagues from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies .
posted by Mike Wendland 11:45 AM

http://www.poynter.org/offthenews/100400.htm

CueCat sucks. Really. Does anyone use it?
posted by Mike Wendland 11:41 AM

Thursday, September 28, 2000

I have never had good handwriting. But it was really embarassing yesterday, using a chartpad in front of a group of colleagues in a meeting. No one could read the words I scrawled down as I was trying to chart out my points during a presentation. I am convinced it's because of computers. I don't write or print anymore. I "input" using a mouse or a keyboard. The lack of practice has made my bad handwriting even worse.
posted by Mike Wendland 12:08 PM

Wednesday, September 27, 2000

I'm in St. Petersburg, FL for a couple of days of meetings.
Used my Palm VIIx several times...at the airport in Detroit, at the airport in Tampa, in my hotel room... to connect wirelessly to the Net and check e-mail. Service, I've been noticing, seems to be slowing. Even with a strong battery and a good connection to the nearest cell tower, it takes a couple of minutes to download my mail. If Palm expects these devices to really take off, they really have to do something about those connect times.
How quickly we get spoiled.
Just a couple of years ago, accessing the Net on a handheld device like that would have seemed near-miraculous.
Now it's so routine I'm carping about having to wait a couple of minutes.
posted by Mike Wendland 6:58 AM

Tuesday, September 26, 2000

Cellphone driving bans gain force
As much as I hate regulation, I am now really convinced that we do need such a law. People who drive while using cellphones drive like they're on weed. R-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w.
I'm embarassed to say that a year or so ago I took on a freelance writing project from a PR outfit to ghostwrite an editorial for an exec from a mobile phone company. The editorial protested the ban a small Ohio town has enacted, saying that using a phone while driving was no more distracting than driving while eating. But you know what? It IS more distracting. I know it because I do it (both eat and talk on a phone). I'm not so sure "hands free" cell phones are the answer, either. I think when you're talking on a phone your attention is elsewhere. It is not on the road. I also feel guilty over writing an editorial about something I don't really believe. Wonder if that's how lawyers feel when they defend guilty people?
posted by Mike Wendland 8:40 AM

Monday, September 25, 2000

This new media stuff is creating all sorts of new jobs and new job descriptions. At the recent RTNDA (www.rtnda.org) convention in Minneapolis, I met the head of news for a new dot.com called Feedroom (www.feedroom.com) Know what they call news producers/editors.
Ready?
They call them "preditors."
posted by Mike Wendland 7:53 AM

Sunday, September 24, 2000

Welcome to the PC Mike Blog. What's a Blog, you ask? Well, it's sort of a Web log.... say it fast... really fast...
Blog.
It's a place where I'll post some random thoughts, musings, reactions and opinions on high tech issues.
Check this spot regularly. Some of my friends and cohorts will have comments and things to say, too.
posted by Mike Wendland 8:51 PM