Yes, Mr. Dvorak, Windows can't count, but Mac can't either

John Dvorak recently wrote about how poor Windows is at multitasking. For instance, you're writing a Word document while in the background copying a huge file, but your keystrokes don't get priority.

He also complained that Windows is goofy about calculating how long it wil take for that file copy to complete. Windows seems unable to make a reasonable calculation. Its first guess as to time is often way off, and Windows fails to adjust to reality during the copying process.

It's a valid complaint, one that I shared with folks at work. But it's not just a problem with Windows. My colleague Davin Granroth sent me this jewel -- Stuffit on MacOS thinks it'll be centuries before it'll finish decompressing a file.

Extremely targeted marketing by Orbitz

Last week I purchased tickets for a trip to Barcelona. I researched fares using Northwest.com, Orbitz, and other providers. Today, days later, I was looking up information about, of all things, the Superman comic saga, and the banner ad at About.com remembers my recent searches:










Hmm, they used to say "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." I have not done any searches related to Barcelona in days. So About.com picks up an Orbitz tracking cookie days later and offers me great fares.

For weeks I was quoted fares of $1000 or more. Then suddenly a fare of about $750 was offered. I do wonder if the NWA and Orbitz computers take note of how many times you've looked up fares, and, like a mule trader of old, from time to time offer a special deal.