Now, obviously, as many of you will know, DPS Computing has been around in its current form for the past 3 years.  Some of you will also know and remember old incarnations of the DPS Computing website.  DPS Computing was started over 5 years ago way back in 2007.

Unfortunately, a lot of content has been lost over the years which is very sad.  But some good news is that we are currently digging through all the archives available to us and making some of the old DPS content back available online again!

Today, we’ve added a couple of news articles right back from the beginnings of DPS Computing and our (at the time legendary) article on Windows, which gives a brief history of Microsofts groundbreaking and revolutionary operating system.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to locate the detailed articles for each of the operating systems but we haven’t given up the hope of finding them in the many archives of DPS Computing that we have lurking about.

If you know of any archive sites which may have backed up some of the old DPS Computing content then feel free to comment below and we will investigate.  Any old content from DPS Computing that we manage to find we will republish to rekindle fond memories for our long term members and to allow our new members to experience the previous content of DPS Computing.

I hope you enjoy!

DPS David .

Note: This article was originally published on DPS Computing on December 12 2007.  Part of the new DPS Archives feature.

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Ask.com has today reassured its users as well as privacy experts with the announcement of AskEraser – a tool which allows users to keep their searches private and not have them stored or used for statistical purposes. 

The widely popular search engine Ask.com, formally Ask Jeeves, has enjoyed the adulation of privacy experts and Ask.com users alike with the announcement of AskEraser, a tool which is designed to keep users searches private.

The Ask.com website will now include a new privacy option that when applied at the users request will delete all information related to their searches of the Ask.com servers therefore keeping them private and away from prying eyes.

For years users big fear regarding the Internet and its use is the privacy of their online data. Whether it be online shopping, registering for a free e-mail account or simply searching for information or content there has always been the fear that someone somewhere is storing information about your habits and previous actions, sometimes for years.

With this news coming from Ask.com it is widely expected to put pressure on other Internet search engines to follow suit however they may be reluctant to do this. A senior director of a privacy group has told us “As you start giving users more control on certain sites, we hope that sites pressure each other to implement privacy control as a competitive tool”.

Although definitely a step in the right direction the fear is that with Ask.com’s ever decreasing market share in searches the pressure may become less and less for some other giants such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! to change there ways. Also, Ask.com sometimes shares data with Google at the time of searches for the purposes of ads and improving searches and although the user may enable the AskEraser tool Google are under absolutely no obligation to comply with its requests and delete the data that has been sent to it.

Ask.com may well have stumbled across something great with this tool however as the current trend of popular sites and services such as Google Mail and MySpace developing highly intrusive and suspect advertising programs that attempt to link certain ads to the content of your private email or MySpace information is not being recieved well at all from users. Google Mail and MySpace are both reported to have lost many users due to the new advertising systems which many see as glorified forms of spam. This can only spell disaster for both services with Microsofts rival Windows Live Mail (formally Hotmail) offering comparable services to Google Mail and Facebook offering comparable services to MySpace and in some cases outdoing them on features, functionality and extendability.

AskErasers greatest feature has to be though that not only can you delete data of your prior searches but you can also guarentee that no future search data on the Ask.com website is stored.

It is yet to be seen how many users take up the offer of AskEraser but you can be sure it will be followed closely by both the big search engines as well as privacy groups and of course the users themselves.

DPS Computing is proud to announce a new feature on the website designed to ensure that you never miss out on the latest, new and updated content on the site!

A new “Subscribe” area has been added to the right hand side of the website (below the menu links and above the translation links).  By entering your e-mail address there and clicking ‘Subscribe’ you will be notified via e-mail about any new content or updates to content that occur on the website ensuring that you never miss the latest from DPS Computing and remain fully up to date with all things Computing!

If you are already a member, then please log in and your e-mail address will be automatically added to the form.  Then all you have to do is hit subscribe and relax safe in the knowledge that you’ll never miss out on the latest and greatest content ever again!

The server maintenance has now been completed.  We only encountered a few minor problems but they’ve all been solved now.

If you notice anything not working as it should be then be sure to drop us an e-mail, use the contact form or post a message on the forums.

Thank you for your patience .

DPS David.

Hello everybody,

Just to let you know that we are performing some routine server maintenance.  It shouldn’t take more than 30 mins to complete.  During this time there may be one or two side effects with the site but it should stay fully operational for the most part.  The website may go offline for around 5 mins for an important update.

Thank you for your understanding .

DPS David

Now, our new Hall of Shame seems to have been received quite well and there have been the obvious comparisons to the long running, well respected BBC Crimewatch (obviously though, they deal with much more serious crime than we do!).

So we thought it only fair that seen as though there is a Crimewatch Update, that we have a Hall of Shame update!

Now if you cast your mind back to the grand opening of the Hall of Shame you’ll remember this particular individual.  He was of course ‘areyouakeggar’ and we established that he was a bandwidth thief.

Now, we conducted a little bit of research, to see if we were justified in our actions.  Our very own DPS David, after creating the image and substituting it on the DPS Computing server, had second thoughts and wondered if the action was maybe a little too harsh.  Seeking advice, and maybe reassurance, DPS Computing put it out to the very nice folks of the eUKhost community forums to see what they all thought.

Surprisingly, it was unanimous!  Everyone over at eUK thought the action was completely justified and necessary to deter this type of theft.  Therefore all at DPS Computing now felt confident to carry on with the original plan.

As a quick recap we sought to punish him for this crime and swapped the image that he was stealing our bandwidth by using (costing us £££) with a rather more humorous and truthful image:

As I’m sure you’ll agree, this image was much more worth of being displayed in the bandwidth thiefs signature!  For months and months it stayed there untouched but DPS Computing has now received information that he has subsequently removed the image.

His signature now simply reads – “I can’t think of anything worth putting as a signature.”.  Well, at DPS Computing, we can think of something that you could put – “I would like to apologise to all at DPS Computing and it’s loyal visitors and members that I stole bandwidth from them therefore disrupting the normal operations and resources that should be available to it’s members”.

If any of you have got any ideas about any other signature suggestions you would like me to forward to him (see, even after what he’s done, we’re still nice people trying to help him out!) then please feel free to leave them in the comments section.

We hope that this has taught areyouakegger a vital lesson that stealing is bad.  At DPS Computing we believe that we can count this as the first victory for the Hall of Shame and it’s unwavering mission to protect the site that we all love.

That’s all for now.  Until next time on ‘Hall of Shame Update’!  Keep safe.  And remember crime of this type is extremely rare (I wish!).  Sleep well and please, don’t have nightmares  .

DPS Computing is pleased to announce a new reviews category that is due to receive its very first shiny new review in the near future.

Due to the increasing popularity of mobile and tablet technology, DPS Computing thought it only right that to complement the game, software and website reviews currently available on the website, that we should launch a new ‘App Reviews’ section.

If there any any apps on the Android Market or App Store that you would like to see us do a review of, then please leave a comment below.

Happy New Year from DPS Computing to all our members and visitors.  We are hoping for another record breaking year and wish you all the best for 2012.

On behalf of DPS Computing I would like to wish all our members and visitors a safe and happy New Years Eve celebration tonight!  Don’t party too hard!!

DPS David.

Merry Christmas from all at DPS Computing.  We hope all our members and visitors have a great Christmas!