The last post introduced the idea of smart homes. Smart homes are exciting, but security can be a concern. Today, I’ll guide you through straightforward steps to secure your smart home without overwhelming you with technical details. When you’re done reading this piece, you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of smart devices while keeping your home safe and stress-free. […]
Smart Home Security Simplified: Easy Steps for Non-Techies
Sometimes It’s the Little Things
…or, in this case, the Itty Bitty. I get my news and information from a wide variety of sources: websites, newsletters, YouTube channels, and podcasts, primarily. Today’s media content lends itself well to consumer contribution, and that increases the value of each medium as well as each producer. I currently follow 17 podcasts, and the only reason I can do […]
Do You Use Free Programs and Services?
There have been several incidents in recent memory in which a service provider has stopped providing a free service or stopped providing service altogether. Most recently, the developers of TrueCrypt, a disk encryption product, announced that they were stopping all development and support of their product. They went so far as to alert users that the product should not be […]
What is Do Not Track; Why it Matters
The internet is a cool place, is it not? We now have access to information on a scale not dreamed of by our parents; our grandparents didn’t even know a lot of this information even existed. You can find countless places to pursue any of your interests. Some of the material is provided by subscription, and it’s up to you, […]
The End of Support for XP–All is Not Lost!
Microsoft ended support for Windows XP today. The camps are divided as to whether that was just another ploy to get you to spend more money on another operating system, or whether it was time for XP to go gently into that good night. Keep reading to the end for a bit of a surprise. Let’s face it, XP was […]
You Can’t Just Surf Anymore
It never was really safe to just surf around and clickety-click on interesting-looking stuff, but it just keeps getting truer and truer (is that grammatically correct?) that you have got to pay attention to what you’re doing on the web. You’ve got to pay attention when you get an email with a link or an attachment. (See Cryptolocker) You’ve got […]
What is “The Cloud” and Should I Be Using It?
This is a very simplified network drawing done in Microsoft Visio, using commonly accepted symbols. Something like this, only much more complex, would be used for planning a new network or an upgrade or change, or to identify where the technology components of a network are. In the center of the diagram, you see a Cloud symbol. This symbol has […]
How to Tell Who REALLY Sent That Email
Sometimes I’ll get an email that I KNOW didn’t come from the person shown in the “from” column in my gmail online. Most of those are ending up in my spam filter these days, but every once in a while one will look legit enough that Google lets it through. Only by knowing my friends and relatives do I know […]
When Does One Use a Hashtag? Twitter for Beginners
If you are a Twitter user, you may not find as much value in this post as someone who is not a Twitter user. But if you’re just getting started with it, read on, you might see something useful. Twitter has been described as microblogging. I guess that’s accurate. What you’re reading here is a blog, so the 140 character […]
Please Tell Me Your Wi-Fi Has a Password
Regardless of the method used to connect to the internet, if you use a wireless router or access point, IT NEEDS A PASSWORD–and it needs to NOT be set as “password.” If you use U-VERSE from AT&T, the password is on the bottom of the device, and it’s a good password. I don’t know how much configuration you can do […]