Posts - Page 2

  • Demystifying the Digital World – Part 6 - For an iPad?

    Jun 9th, 2018 - Category: Miscellaneous

    The previous post in this series provided some compelling reasons to ditch Windows for the Google Chromebook. Chromebooks are inexpensive, easy to switch to (especially if you already use the Chrome browser), secure, and have long battery life. Why even consider an alternative like the Apple iPad?

  • Demystifying the Digital World – Part 5 - For a Chromebook?

    May 14th, 2018 - Category: Miscellaneous

    The last part of this series ended by introducing two of the most popular options for getting rid of Microsoft Windows: the Google Chromebook and the Apple iPad. I hope you had a chance to watch the video “Is this a computer?” because it provides a brief humorous summary from an expert in the field.

  • Demystifying the Digital World - Part 4 - Ditching Windows

    Apr 17th, 2018 - Category: Miscellaneous

    All I am saying is that getting rid of Microsoft Windows is so easy, even a child can do it and if you think about it, they already have! In the past few years people who spend any amount of time around children immediately notice that kids are glued to their phones - traditional computers are nowhere in sight. They do everything online through them. They Snapchat, send text messaging, use Facebook / Instagram, watch YouTube, listen to Spotify, etc. all through that tiny screen. What’s more, they seem to use all these apps and services effortlessly. I wrote about this in detail in the recent post, “Mommy What’s a Computer?”

  • Demystifying the Digital World - Part 3 - Email

    Apr 7th, 2018 - Category: Miscellaneous

    I know I promised a brief guide to getting rid of Microsoft Windows for this post, but I recently had an email epiphany and wanted to share an interesting story. The problem was this, somehow my wife and I have ended up with eight domain names, four websites, and about a dozen email addresses. It crept up on us over the past 20 years. First came the domain name for her business, but it was too long so we registered a shorter one linking to the same website. Next was a domain name for my business, domain names for a personal project (.net and .org too!), another business domain name, and another personal domain name. Each domain name has a couple of email address and … well you see how things got so complicated.

  • Demystifying the Digital World - Part 2 - Background

    Mar 24th, 2018 - Category: Miscellaneous

    The next part is this series was inspired by a recent article from Anil Dash, “12 Things Everyone Should Understand About Tech.” First, who is Mr. Dash? According to his own website, he is “a technology entrepreneur, activist, and writer focused on making the tech world more humane and ethical.” He is also the CEO of Fog Creek Software, a company that has been on the cutting edge of creating humane and ethical tech for almost two decades. I’ve written about Fog Creek’s advanced business practices in this blog.

  • Demystifying the Digital World - Part 1 - Introduction

    Mar 5th, 2018 - Category: Miscellaneous

    In the last few years, our digital lifestyles have become a major part of modern living. For example, getting a message online used to mean email and “Instant Messages” (aka IMs). Now they flood in through email, text messages, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Skype, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, and many other sources. These messages used to be accessed from a desktop computer, but not any more. Today most of us have at least a computer and a smartphone while some are “lucky enough” to have a computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, and maybe even a smart watch.

  • The Firefox Browser, Internet Freedom, Web Literacy, (yawn...)

    Feb 25th, 2018 - Category: Miscellaneous

    But it’s really not a boring story at all. Back in the early days of the Internet, the first browser, called NCSA Mosaic, was born out of the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Mosaic eventually became Netscape Navigator which spawned a not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 called Mozilla. Amazingly, 20 years later, this company is still around  and is one of the leaders in the fight to keep the Internet free and open.

  • A Tiny Bit of Bitcoin

    Dec 17th, 2017 - Category: Miscellaneous

    While there are hundreds of articles about the recent crazy speculation in Bitcoin (over $20,000 per Bitcoin as I write this), this one from Ars Technica, “Bitcoin: Seven questions you were too embarrassed to ask” seems to sum it up best. It has enough technical information to explain the basics accurately while still being readable by the non-techie reader.

  • Equifax Illustrates WHY Certain Information Is Sensitive

    Oct 16th, 2017 - Category: Miscellaneous

    Bruces There have been thousands of articles about the Equifax breach recently, but very few have discussed the deeper reasons why information that used to be common knowledge has become so critical to online safety and security. This blog post from AgileBits, makers of 1Password, is a great primer on why certain information is now considered sensitive. It all boils down to the fact that banks have adopted identifiers (such as Social Security Numbers) as secrets and “identifiers are bad secrets.” To illustrate the point, the author includes a fun clip from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the famous “Bruces Sketch.”

  • Google Requests a Fax of an Online Form?!

    Sep 29th, 2017 - Category: Miscellaneous

    Google Fax Here’s a fun throwback to end the week. Google requested that I send them a fax. Really Google? How about I chisel the information into a clay tablet and send it with a tribute of grain via the next caravan going to Mountain View? Yes, Google really sent me the form below after I closed an old G Suite account.