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As a writer whose clients are primarily Internet based, I spend a lot of time using Skype to talk to people and get information, etc. It’s really an integral part of the Internet business lifestyle.

Yesterday morning, Skype wasn’t working. When I could log on, it couldn’t find the other friends on my list. I couldn’t chat, and all my meetings ended up getting canceled. The outage lasted throughout the day and wasn’t resolved until I got online this morning.

This was a universal outage that affected everybody, and for an intrepid writer like me, it put a cramp in my style. The problem was a software issue that hit their supernodes. The supernodes are what the program uses to recognize who of your friends is online.

The problem was mostly mixed by this morning, and more than 10 million people were already signed in, but it may still take a little while for some people to be able to get online. The company didn’t say how long it would take for the program to be 100 percent operational, but given the number of complaints, they it won’t likely be long.

The outage forced me to use that most archaic of human devices, a phone, to talk to people yesterday. I am writer, so typing away on a Skype message is much easier for me than having an actual phone conversation. (I know you can use Skype for a phone, but I don’t use it like that.)

As a former reporter, I always hated the lack of flexibility in courtrooms for members of the media. I remember sitting in the courtroom for hours writing like a mad man to try and get the gist of the testimony, some great direct quotes and more.

It would have been much easier if I had a tape recorder; I could have used it and just went back over the tape later in the office. I understand the need for the unobtrusive nature of justice, and neither the defense nor the prosecution wants to have some stupid reason for a mistrial.

Things have suddenly gotten a little easier for reporters in Wales and England after an official proclamation that they can tweet court reporting live using silent portable devices. Reporters must first formally request the ability to use Twitter in every court case and then only if the device is silent and will not disrupt proceedings.

This is a major coup for reporters who would otherwise have to leave the courtroom periodically to live blog or tweet something outside and potentially miss important proceedings. The law is still rather new, and only time will tell how it will be used and abused. We reporters are fond of breaking or bending the rules as far as we can.

In the U.S., cell phones are not even allowed into courtrooms, at least in the ones I frequented as a reporter, so tweeting and messaging a court case is impossible. It will take sweeping changes in the sensibilities of the U.S. court system to allow such a law here in the states.

I remember the days before Google, when you went to Yahoo! if you wanted to find something on the Internet. Yahoo! was the go-to place for everything. You could get e-mail, news and more, all at a single site, and we loved it.

When Google came along, it became a battle between the two sites for supremacy, and after a few years, Yahoo! settled itself into second place and seemed content. Google came out with all their extras like documents, maps, etc., and Yahoo! tweaked its site, adding music videos and other extras, but it never could overtake Google.

Recently, Yahoo! felt the pinch of the tight economy and released 4 percent of its workforce in addition to dropping Buzz, Delicious and AltaVista. Buzz I can completely understand, because it never did take off and become what the developers wanted it to be. AltaVista, who even remembers AltaVista? The surprising cut was the social bookmarking site Delicious.

Delicious was created in 2003 as its own entity, but was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. While still a favorite among bookmarkers, its traffic has seen a steady decline since 2005, as a number of social bookmarking sites began sprouting up, and the thrill of bookmarking began to wear off.

Scientists have always tried to prove that computers are faster, smarter and better than the very humans that built them. Kasparov defeated Deep Blue in chess, but a revamped program derailed him, and now they are going after the last vestige of human intellectualism on television (besides “NCIS”), “Jeopardy.”

The two biggest winners in “Jeopardy” history are going to go head to head against IBM super computer Watson in two televised matches in February. Ken Jennings won 74 games and more than $2.5 million, and Brad Rutter won more than $3 million in his appearances.

Watson is the culmination of four years of research into allowing a computer to understand a question — or in the “Jeopardy” sense, an answer — and to figure out the answer/question. In human terms, it doesn’t seem like that big of deal. When we hear 2 + 2, our brain formulates the answer using logic, and we realize that the answer = 4. Even if we haven’t heard the question, we can understand the logic.

A computer only understands what it has been told. So if a computer hears 2 + 2, it will only know the answer if someone has written a program that tells it how to answer. Random questions from random categories are difficult for a computer to answer, because it has to use context clues and targeted information gathering.

You’ve all been here: sitting patiently and politely while you slowly teach your parents, grandparents and older aunts and uncles about the ins and outs of technology, namely, computers. Whether they don’t know how to copy and paste, change their screen saver or even search something on the Internet, you’ve been the go-to tech support.

But honestly, it gets tiring. We all know this. While we’re amazed, shocked or even impressed that our parents decided to use the computer in the first place, we’d be more impressed if they could do it by themselves. Without our help. Forever.

That’s why Google employee Jason Toff decided to make his new Web site, TeachParentsTech.org, which is geared toward assisting those who need some help in the tech department. And by some, we mean a lot. According to Toff, he was hard-pressed to find anyone without that same torturous story about bringing Mom and Dad up to speed.

I know I’ve certainly been there. While at the airport with my sister one day, she realized her flight was delayed. Wanting to know more, we called home looking for our brother to check the flight status online. (We are but humble non-cellular-Internet-using folk.) But, unfortunately, brother failed us this day, and was out with some friends. Instead, Dad picked up, and he couldn’t discern a mouse from a Web page if his life depended on it. My sister and I just settled for not knowing.

The popular Web site Gawker was hacked recently in retaliation of the treatment of WikiLeaks. This was no harmless prank, and instead released source code and private e-mail conversations of Gawker employees.

The real danger is that other hackers can use this information to get passwords from Gawker users, and some have already been broken. The hackers released a 500-megabyte file filled with information for the world to see.

Gawker was not the only Web site hacked in the Gawker family, either. Gadget site Gizmodo and pop culture site Jezebel were also hit by these hackers extraordinaire. Files containing passwords of users as well as employees were readily available in the Web space, and people were sharing the files via bit torrent.

Several Web sites have been hacked recently following the release of classified information by WikiLeaks and the treatment of the founder and company. Calling it Operation Payback, hackers are hitting sites that have denied WikiLeaks service and publicity such as Twitter and PayPal and now Gawker.

In the wake of the WikiLeaks scandal with Julian Assange, many military agencies have, under the threat of a court-martial, banned the use of flash drives, CDs and DVDs for data storage.

Called the Cyber Control Order, members of the military are to cease and desist the use of removable data storage devices connected to the secret Department of Defense network SIPRNet. This is after thousands of classified documents were published.

According to reports, a soldier downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified documents onto a CD marked as Lady Gaga. I guess they couldn’t see his poker face, either. He then turned the CD over to the site WikiLeaks.

Although it was instituted under the name of security, this new order will make it difficult for members of the military to do their jobs, as these removable media were the most common way for information to be transferred from one computer to the next. Perhaps they should simply ban Lady Gaga from military media.

Any troops caught using portable drive devices may be court-martialed under Article 92, the failure to obey order or regulation. It seems to me that the military is taking the wrong approach to keeping classified data from getting out.

As if you need any more realization that print media is a dying business, media magnate Rupert Murdoch is developing a newspaper designed specifically for iPads and other tablet reading devices.

The paper, to be known as The Daily, will be “delivered” daily at a cost of $0.99 per week and may be available as early as late December, according to CNN.com. Murdoch has long been a proponent of creating and charging for news content delivered by digital medium, and this digital newspaper is his first major foray into that field.

The question that must weigh heavily on Murdoch’s mind is this: Will people pay for digital content when they get most of their news online for free? Also, newspapers like The New York Times can already be delivered directly to the Kindle and other e-readers for a modest amount.

Murdoch plans to focus on national issues and not local content for the newspaper, so I can’t see it making much of dent in the online information market. Even with some of the top journalists of the day working for him, he is going to be charging for stories that will be readily available via online news sites and other e-papers at the same time.

Apple’s music empire just grew in an important way. Arguably the greatest band of all time, British quartet The Beatles has, for the longest time, been absent from Apple’s online distribution center, the iTunes store. All that came to an end late yesterday, as the complete works of the band finally made its way to the Internet for release. Apple and iTunes commemorated the event with a full-page spread of the band.

The move accompanied a press release from the surviving members of the band, Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney. Due in part to record label constraints as well as personal feelings, the super-group had never made the transition over to Apple’s store. This was, in part, due to concerns about what online distribution was doing to the music industry as a whole. Today, individual songs outsell albums 16:1 through online channels, and companies like Apple keep a tidy overhead thanks to their distribution methods.

It will be interesting to see how this functions with the future of online distribution.

Microsoft’s long line of operating systems defined an era of computing, and with good reason. Beginning with Windows 95, the company’s dedication to a user-friendly interface was remarkable. Early Windows operating systems were an excellent blend of graphical design and power using, with both serious and recreational users able to do what they wanted with the system.

However, later upgrades didn’t always precipitate the market change that Microsoft had wanted. The ill-fated Windows ME saw only a short span before being replaced by Windows XP. Most recently, the new Windows 7 system is having difficulty making its way into the computer market mainstream. Many companies and users initially opted to stay with Windows XP, which had remained a reliable choice even after the release of Windows Vista.

However, it appears that this trend is gradually dying, with more and more users making the switch from XP to Windows 7. The latest system from Microsoft has sold over 250 million copies so far, marking it as a tremendous success and a much-needed breakthrough after customer dissatisfaction with Windows Vista. The last hold-out on older operating systems, however, is only now getting under way.