November 07, 2005, 5:25 PM PST
Nextel's Direct Send
Posted by: Kent German

Today, Sprint Nextel announced the rollout of Direct Send, a new service that combines Nextel's Direct Connect push-to-talk service with multimedia messaging. With Direct Send, Nextel customers--using two Nextel phones, of course--can send and preview a picture while on a Direct Connect call. The picture will simultaneously appear on both phones, allowing the callers to view and discuss it without switching to a regular call. The Motorola Nextel i870 is the first phone to support the new feature, but Nextel said it will introduce Direct Send to other handsets in its lineup during the next few weeks. The fee will be 25 cents per picture sent and received.

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November 07, 2005, 4:30 PM PST
Microsoft Word's invisible treasure trail
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

If you use Microsoft Word, you may be leaving bread crumbs of your edits all over those reports and memos without realizing it. That's no big deal when helping your fifth-grader type a book report, but it could cause blushing and worse at work. Little known to casual users, buried "metadata" within Microsoft Word tracks your work and the changes you make. A file's metadata displays its author and editors, company of origin, comments, and when it was opened and edited.

Horror stories about the hidden coding surface every so often. Last year a member of the American Bar Association found that a Microsoft document touting the superiority of Office was purportedly written with QuarkExpress on a Mac. As the New York Times reports, the latest flap over "the DNA of documents" has politicians and pundits seeing vivid shades of red and blue over who crafted a critique of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Therefore, if you're dealing with sensitive content, don't hastily send an outside party your original Word file--unless you want that client to peek within the invoice and see how you raised the rates. And think twice before letting an angry colleague borrow your computer; their critique of company policy could make you look like the author. Check your metadata settings in Word 2003 by going to Tools—Options and clicking the Security tab. See Microsoft's support Web site for detailed protection against revealing more than you intended.

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November 07, 2005, 3:18 PM PST
Wired opens NYC gadget store for holidays
Posted by: Dan Ackerman

In a brand extension we didn't see coming but perhaps should have, tech magazine Wired is opening a retail shop in New York for the upcoming holiday season. Located (just like yours truly) in the high-rent climes of Soho, the store, located at the corner of Wooster and Houston, will exist for only six weeks--from November 18 through December 24.

The official press release says the temporary store will have "more than 65 products ranging from the hot new Motorola PEBL phone to the Ultimate Gaming chair" and promises that "during the weekend, Wired Store shoppers who make purchases will also receive door-to-door shuttle services to their next destination courtesy of a fleet of VW vehicles waiting outside the store."

We're not sure where those cars will be waiting, since there's not exactly a lot of parking around there. Coincidentally, the flagship Apple store is mere blocks away from where Wired will be opening its doors.

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November 07, 2005, 2:58 PM PST
Nvidia's 6800 GS 3D cards in time for the holidays
Posted by: Rich Brown

If it's only now hitting you that it's too late to preorder an Xbox 360, you might consider Nvidia's new GeForce 6800 GS as an alternative. A lower-end version of Nvidia's outstanding GeForce 6800 GT, the GeForce 6800 GS offers fewer pixel-processing pipelines but also a more-friendly $250 price tag. You still get support for SLI, Shader Model 3, and high dynamic range lighting, so while it might not run F.E.A.R. at the highest frame rates at the highest resolutions, it should, according to Nvidia, give you at least respectable performance and image quality. Also, keep in mind that Nvidia is not done with product announcements this year, so stay tuned. It's about to get interesting/confusing.

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November 07, 2005, 2:28 PM PST
Say good-bye to Grokster, Hollywood
Posted by: Molly Wood

In a settlement with Hollywood studios and record labels, Grokster is saying good-bye--and coughing up $50 million in damages. The settlement comes after the Supreme Court decided Grokster could be liable for encouraging its users' illegal file-sharing habits. Look for a new pusher man on your street corner soon.

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November 07, 2005, 2:25 PM PST
S3 brings discrete graphics to the masses
Posted by: Rich Brown

If you want to run Windows Vista and its fancy Aero glass effects, all reports are that your PC will need a dedicated 3D graphics card to make the new operating system look its best. While ATI and Nvidia of course have their own low-end cards, S3 Graphics also enters the low-end fray with its new ChromeS20 series of PCI Express graphics cards.

They are available in two models, the bottom-of-the-barrel ChromeS25 and the slightly better ChromeS27 (each with various memory configurations), so expect prices to range from $50 to $150, making it easy for people to upgrade a desktop with an unoccupied PCI Express slot. You won't find the latest 3D bells and whistles (no Shader Model 3 support, for example), but each card should offer at least enough oomph to run Vista in all of its alpha-blended glory. Expect to see ChromeS20-series cards on store shelves by the end of this month.

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November 07, 2005, 1:52 PM PST
Sony's root kit, the DMCA, and lawyers: some circle of hell
Posted by: Molly Wood

Lawyers in Italy have filed a lawsuit against Sony over its root-kit-installation shenanigans, and some San Francisco lawyers are working on their own versions, citing California antispyware laws. Meanwhile, if you try to uninstall Sony's sneaky DRM software, you may need a lawyer--for violating the DMCA. Awesome.

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November 07, 2005, 1:47 PM PST
TiVo + Yahoo = almost awesome
Posted by: Molly Wood

So, TiVo and Yahoo have gotten together, and you can now schedule your Series2 to record shows via the Yahoo TV guide interface. And in the future, you may be able to view, say, photos stored in Yahoo Photos on your TiVo. But forget about watching your TiVo shows via Yahoo--that's strictly Slingbox territory, for now.

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November 07, 2005, 1:09 PM PST
Increase conversions on your Web site
Posted by: Dorian Benkoil

Getting people to your company's Web site is only half the battle of converting those visits into sales or useful leads. Because of search engines and links and the general randomness of the Web, they may come into your site at any point.

Using Web analytics tools, you can see whether you're moving people through your site to the right pages and how many are leaving before they get where you want them to be. It's pretty simple math and easy to test, and a few adjustments can mean big conversions over time.

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November 07, 2005, 12:55 PM PST
Office software that's not Microsoft
Posted by: Dorian Benkoil

We're all beholden to Microsoft in one way or another. But recently it seems we're getting a few more options from other companies for, say, word processing, presentations, or spreadsheets (just like the good/bad old days). Here at CNET, we recently reviewed a couple of less expensive products: Sun StarOffice 8 and Corel WordPerfect Office 12, which despite its name does more than word processing.

For good measure, here's eWeek's write-up of OpenOffice.org 2, an update to the free OpenOffice.org, which CNET's Download.com thought was very nice for the price.

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