10 July 2016 | Do-It-Yourself, How Does it Work? |
Superglue is awesome.
Originally discovered in 1942 by American scientists who were trying to come up with good transparent gun sights during WWII, superglue is the “sticks to everything” goto adhesive for all your gluey quick-fix needs.
And frankly, until you’ve superglued two fingers together, you really haven’t lived…
Anyway, there’s probably a lot about superglue that you’ve never heard before. So, read on, and then you can go impress your friends with your amazing knowledge of cyanoacrylate adhesives!
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20 March 2016 | Computers, How Does it Work? |
You’ve probably heard of SSDs (solid state drives). These are hard drives that use a type of very fast and very robust flash memory for data storage instead of a spinning magnetic disc.
SSDs are very fast, and until recently, their storage capacity was limited relative to old-fashioned mechanical spinning HDDs. They were also rather pricey.
You probably haven’t heard quite as much about SSHDs: hybrid mechanical hard drives with a small amount of SSD-type storage built-in. The idea here is that the SSD part of the drive can be accessed very quickly, so it acts as a very fast buffer between your puter and the slower mechanical part of the drive.
The result? SSHDs are faster than a mechanical HDD, not as fast as an SSD, but still offer 2TB, 4TB, or even more storage space – all at an affordable price.
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3 January 2016 | Gizmos, How Does it Work? |
For awhile now, the talk of the town has been “4K”. We hear a lot about it, and you can even buy a 4K television.
On the other hand, 4K content hasn’t really hit the mainstream yet. In fact, it hardly exists at all.
We do have plenty of new TVs and Blu-ray players that have “4K” printed on them, though.
So what is this magical new format? What is 4K? What is UHD? More importantly, should you care?
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12 September 2015 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Networking |
I recently read an article about the Ashley Madison hack. For those of you who aren’t into cheating on your spouse, Ashley Madison is a web site where you can sign up and meet up with other lovely people in order to have an affair.
Anyway, they were recently hacked. More than 11 million passwords were obtained, and the reason why made me fall off my chair.
In short, the users’ usernames + passwords were stored in the site’s database in an MD5 hash – along side a BCrypt hash of the user’s password.
Well, what does all this mean to you?
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21 June 2015 | Gizmos, How Does it Work? |
If you’ve got any kind of gizmo – laptop, tablet, e-book reader, cell phone, MP3 player, cordless screwdriver or drill, etc. – then you’re using lithium-ion batteries all the time.
Lithium-ion batteries, often abbreviated as Li-ion, are extremely common these days.
But what about so-called Lithium Polymer batteries, also called LiPo or Li-poly batteries? Are they really better?
If you believe the marketing folks, yes they are. But, as it turns out, you’ve been fooled just like me!
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7 June 2015 | How Does it Work? |
What would you say if I told you that you could become a technical genius in just 3 Easy Steps?
Sound too good to be true?
It does, but this is one goal that you can reach with a minimal amount of time and energy.
There’s no restrictive diet, no toxic chemicals, no heavy investment of money, no hours of hard work, and it’s 100% natural, green, carbon-neutral, and fully biodegradable.
How much would you pay for such a program? $99.95? $49.95?
For a limited time, I’m going to give you THE SECRET absolutely FREE! 😯
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12 April 2015 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Networking |
You may have heard of browser fingerprinting and its security implications. Then again, maybe not.
In either case, you probably haven’t heard the whole story.
A browser fingerprint is when, by visiting a web site, that site can generate an ID (or fingerprint) that is unique to your computer. The fingerprint can then be sent to their server, and you can be tracked.
No cookies required, no security holes required, no “Do not track me” setting can make a difference… Just plain old browsing the web will do it!
Okay, so how does this all work? And what does it mean?
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22 February 2015 | Computers, How Does it Work? |
This one is a lot of fun: You borrow a DVD from a friend, or you buy one online somewhere.
You stick it in your player.
And then, disaster strikes!
You get a message like “Region not allowed”, and the movie won’t play.
WTH?!
Welcome to the glorious world of Region Codes!
Sometimes, it’s possible to bypass this restriction, but it depends on your DVD/Blu-ray player.
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8 February 2015 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Networking |
Everybody uses e-mail. It’s great.
Not everybody understands exactly how e-mail works, and even fewer people have ever tried to set up a mail server. For those of you who have, I can pretty much guarantee you that you’re doing something wrong.
Even if you aren’t setting up your own mail server, you really should understand the limitations of e-mail, especially in terms of security.
So, in this post I’ll try to give a simple and quick intro to e-mail and mail servers
If you are an admin looking for a postfix or exim “quick answer” that you can copy and paste, you must read this more than anyone!
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7 December 2014 | How Does it Work? |
And now for something completely different…
The greatest “technology” you own is one you probably never even think about, although you do think with it: your brain!
Your mind is capable of solving all sorts of problems.
Usually, you use your brain the old fashioned way: you brute force your way through a problem.
This typically requires hours of concentration, struggling, and quite often much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
And let’s face it, if I tell you a fabulous way to make your computer do more for you, you’ll be happy as a clam.
Why not optimize your brain while you’re at it? So, how do you work smarter, and not harder?
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Superglue is awesome.
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