PC Mechanic, New Article

Posted: 08 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT

People-search engines are search sites where you punch in a name and the engine goes out and digs up all the known information available about the person you’re searching for. A few of the more popular examples are Spokeo, Pipl and 123people.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the information presented on a people-search engine is verified. What this means is that someone could easily fabricate an online persona using their real name, then fill in everything else as false (different state, job, etc.) and the people-search engines will still take that as ‘fact’.

Just for grins I tried a few searches using these engines. As I suspected, the information was really old and/or inaccurate.

Why aren’t people-search engines any good anymore?

The masses were made very aware of online privacy a few years back (read: Facebook), and many people started exerting much better control over what personal information goes out to the public internet. As such, the people-search engines simply don’t have as much to index as they used to; the end result is old out-of-date information.

These days if you want information on a specific individual, Facebook is your best bet – assuming the person has a public or semi-public profile.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

How Accurate Are People-Search Engines?

Retro Friday: The New Commodore 64

Posted: 08 Apr 2011 03:00 AM PDT

A few months back I wrote about the upcoming new Commodore 64. Well, it’s here and the damned thing is actually going to ship. Yes, really. In the back of my mind I had doubts that the new CBM 64 would ever become a reality, but lo and behold, here it is.

Now as far as specs go, many will instantly point out that this machine is simply not that fast compared to modern PCs or Macs, however it is dripping with nostalgia juice all over the place. It is the cool factor that sells this thing more than anything else. What’s more is that this is nostalgic functional cool factor – and that’s very hard to come by these days with modern electronics.

Oddly enough it is not just people in my age group (30s to 40s) who want this thing the most. Kids want it too because retro computing is an "in" thing at the moment. They see the C64 and how much different it looks compared to anything else on the market, and they want one in all its gray loaf-of-bread-chassis’d rainbow-logo’d brown-keyed glory.

Tablets may be a hot item right now, but aesthetically speaking they’re all boring slabs. All of them. The C64 on the other hand is a very-roundy box with some seriously awesome personality to it.

Sometimes the 1980s did get a few things right in the design department, and the C64 was definitely one of them.

One wonders if Commodore will release a 1541-chassis’d external hard drive enclosure. If so, I’d seriously consider buying one.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Retro Friday: The New Commodore 64