Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

Business users whose lives revolve around their mobile phones won't be disappointed with Samsung's Intrepid smartphone. The handset, which uses Sprint's 3G network (EV-DO Rev.A) domestically and also connects to 3G networks abroad, is packed with features aimed at the pinstripe crowd ...

With high-definition video popping up everywhere, it's a wonder it has taken this long for the first 720p HD webcam to hit the market. It's Microsoft's LifeCam Cinema webcam, and not only is it a honey of a webcam, but at US$79.95, it's nicely priced to boot. ...

Even in the best of times, job hunting is a taxing task, but in these economic conditions, it can be a crushing experience. Fruitless replies to job notices, dead-end interviews and inhuman human resource departments can grind a job seekers' resolve to dust. One way to beat the no-job blues is to purge the word "unemployed" from your vocabulary. Y...

There's a lot to like about Amazon's new super-sized e-book reader, the Kindle DX. It has more than a few nettles, too. Since the original Kindle was introduced at the end of 2007, its fans have been clamoring for more screen real estate. With the DX, Amazon has met those demands in a big way. The reader's screen measures 8 by 5.5 inches, or 9.7 i...

With all the buzz surrounding netbooks, it seems as if they've been around forever. In reality, though, they're youngsters in the great scheme of things. As such, their characteristics are still in flux, their makers still casting about for the best mix of form and power. Acer, with the introduction of its Aspire One AO751h model, is advancing the netbook closer to that best mix.

Marking up Web pages is nothing new. Offerings like Sharedcopy, MyStickies and Stickis allow you to annotate any Web page and, in some cases, share those annotations with others. However, a new entry into this genre, Blerp, adds a new twist to the practice. Blerp, currently in its alpha phase, is the brainchild of the folks at RocketOn.

Though it's struggled when it comes to kicking in doors in the consumer market, Linux has clearly found a welcome home in the enterprise, and it appears to be making itself more comfortable with each passing day "It's the fastest-growing server-side operating system of any of them that are out there -- Unix, Windows, you name it," Jim Zemlin, execu...

One would think that the cost of doing business on the Web is so small that it would be almost negligible, but that's not the case with many e-tailers, which is why many of them fail. It's also why Prashant Nedungadi decided to found IMshopping, an online company that's trying to emulate offline customer service. With Nedungadi at the helm as CEO, IMshopping recently launched its site in beta.

In our age of instant gratification, no one likes waiting for anything. That's why the sluggish launch time of a typical personal computer can make a consumer irritable. It's also why instant-on computing has become a sort of Holy Grail for hardware and software makers in the industry. The pursuit of instant-on is a quest that's given Linux traction in an arena that for years it has found a tough nut to crack -- the PC...

There are an estimated 44 million Baby Boomers roaming the Net, and legions of marketers looking for ways to reach them. That's because, as a target market, Boomers have what it takes to make hucksters salivate: money "It's a generation with wealth -- (US)$2 trillion in disposable income -- and they have an incredible appetitive to keep connecting,...

We live in a Web 2.0 world, but when it comes to fighting Internet-borne security threats, many enterprises are armed with only Web 1.0 weapons, according to a study released this week by San Jose, Calif.-based Secure Computing Web 2.0 usage is prevalent in enterprises, the study found, and as a result "the traditional boundary of external versus i...

Video has been a perk packed with digital point-and-shoot still camerasfor some time, but judging by the quality present in many offerings, it's aperk that has been treated as an afterthought by many digicam makers.Not so by Kodak The chief of film stock -- now remaking itself as a dean of digital imaging --has steadily improved the video features ...

A report that an "electronic jihad" will be launched next week against 15 anti-Muslim Web sites by al Qaeda has stirred up the network security community While some have viewed the warning with skepticism, others are reluctant to put such an idea past the capabilities or desires of the terrorist organization....

Online retail sales in the United States jumped 23 percent, to US$28.4 billion, during the third quarter of this year compared with the same July-September period in 2006 The retail surge was led by sales of video games, consoles and accessories, which showed a year-to-year increase of 199 percent, according to the Internet analysis firm comScore o...

A Moscow-based software maker filed this week for a U.S. patent on a technology it claims will significantly reduce the time it takes to crack computer passwords The Russian company, Elcomsoft, said in a statement that it has discovered "a breakthrough technology that will decrease the time that it takes to perform password recovery by a factor of ...

Business users of mobile services create more revenue for the industry than personal users, according to a New York market research firm Based on a survey of more than 1,200 wireless subscribers, the average revenue per user (ARPU) for mobile business users is 24 percent higher than personal users, according to a report from ABI Research....

The music industry switched gears last week in its legal campaign to squash piracy of its intellectual property and filed a lawsuit against Usenet.com which it calls "a haven for those seeking pirated content." In recent months, the industry, through its trade organization -- the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) -- has attempted to ...

When it comes to slim and sleek in digital cameras, Casio is king. Oneof its latest offerings, the Casio Exilim EX-S880, illustrates why Not only does the new 8.1 megapixel bytecam sport the Twiggy proportionsthat Casio is known for -- it measures 3.72 by 2.38 by .68 inches andweighs a feathery 4.51 ounces -- but it's bristling with state-of-the-ar...

Linux and Apple OS X users are usually insulated from the security woes of their Microsoft Windows counterparts, but that doesn't seem to be the case with a recent vulnerability involving the handling of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) protocols Those protocols instruct a browser to perform certain tasks. The most common task would be "http" to r...

Many e-commerce sites are terrible, but they don't have to be that way, according to Jim Wehmann Wehmann is vice president for strategic marketing services for Minneapolis-based Digital River. The company, founded in 1994, is well-known around the world for building and managing online businesses for more than 40,000 software publishers, consumer t...