Stories by: Shane Schick

When I appeared on CBC Newsworld last week to talk about Bill Gates' departure from Microsoft, they asked me whether I thought the company can survive without him. I tried not to roll my eyes.

It took a 19th-century English poet to convince Robin Hunicke that her future lay in computer science.

Websense used the InfoSecurity Canada show to introduce a software-based gateway product aimed at protecting enterprise customers from the dangers of social networking sites and other advanced online services.

Drop-down menus. Tabbed browsing. A content management tool. Come on, people: it's not like Facebook is reinventing the wheel here.

When a British study recently showed the average computer keyboard is dirtier than a toilet seat, Jacqueline Miller's worst suspicions were confirmed.

I don't know why it took me so long to make the connection. Even for a political figure, Barack Obama generates an extraordinary level of attention, and probably hundreds of news articles a day. He represents (for many people, at least), hope for an enormous change, almost a transformative revolution. And, like Apple's most famous product, you won't find him in Canada.

Without Tim Berners-Lee, we might all be slaves to Gopher by now.

AMD's decision to move into the business PC market this week reminds me of the first line of Shopgirl, a novella by Steve Martin, which points out that working in the glove department at a large retail store means "you are selling things that nobody buys anymore."

I guess calling them MIDs is better than calling them unlaptops, or smart nonphones, but not by much.