SHOCKER: CrowdStrike global IT outage caused by… CrowdStrike!
In my earlier video, Global IT Outage: What it means for you, I discussed the outage caused by CrowdStrike's wonky update. Since the publication of that video, I've read a fair load of nonsense. It's Microsoft's fault! It's the European Union's fault! It's the fault...
How to turn down your home WiFi’s transmit power
Your average home WiFi router or access point often has a setting so that you can reduce its transmit power level. This is pretty handy to know given what I talked about in my earlier video, Are WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G, and 5G bad for you? The typical range for 2.4GHz...
Run cron jobs in Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you're running Ubuntu or another linux shell in Windows 10 via WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), you've probably wondered about using cron. Cron is super-handy for doing things, like, running a backup. You see, as useful as WSL is, it stores all the linuxy files...
What you can do about 5G, WiFi, etc.
In my last vid, 5G is just the tip of the iceberg, I talked about a bunch of recent studies showing that all this crazy wireless stuff is having negative effects on our health. Naturally, the question on everyone's mind is: What can we do about it?! Well, minimizing...
Help, I can’t delete a file from my Desktop!
So this is a fun one! You have a file on your desktop. It can be anything: PDF, Word Doc, text file, whatever. You try to delete it. Instead of going into the Recycle Bin, you just get the "deleting" dialog box with the progress bar, and then... Nothing happens! YAY!...
Are WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G, and 5G bad for you? Hold on to your hats…
5G is coming, and people are worried. Well, should we be? To answer that question, we need to know what studies have been done on the safety of microwave-frequency digital radio transmissions. We need to look at WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, and 4G studies, as well! After all,...
Reactivating Windows 10 after a second major hardware upgrade
I recently ran into a little problem: I upgraded a puter that had Windows 10 on it, and Win 10 refused to reactivate afterwards! Now, you might have read my guide here: Upgrade your motherboard without reinstalling Windows 10 Well, it works. But... It appears there is...
Left the WiFi on again? Not any more!
I'm not a big fan of WiFi, but I do use it from time to time. It's just convenient to use for some gizmos where an ethernet dongle is not supported. Trouble is, I kept forgetting to turn off my WiFi router when I was done. And then - two days later - I would discover...
How to download videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc.
Everything these days is online. It's all about the streaming, right? Well, what if you want to download a video for offline viewing? Maybe your internet connection isn't quite "fibrous" yet. Or maybe you want to download something to watch on your smartphone or...
Make any LCD computer screen high-end
Much ado has been made about certain brands and types of puter displays and how this kind or that kind looks so much better than the average LCD screen... It turns out that much of this hoopla is quite often mostly just marketing. In fact, some displays from certain...
How to delete a specific cookie in Firefox
The latest versions of Firefox have become increasingly sassy. Whereas older flavors of FF used to be slow and memory-hungry, things got a lot better starting with Firefox 57. You can read a bit more about these changes in my article Fix the tab bar (and other stuff)...
Why “Big Brother” can never win
Well, it's that time again. Some recent news items - and people's reactions to them - have once again compelled me to foam at the mouth about Big Brother. Every time one of these "revelations" like the Facebook data breach occurs, everyone gets all fired up... And...
Windows 10 April 2018 Update 1803: What you need to know
The Windows 10 "April 2018 Update" version 1803 was released a few weeks ago... in May, not April. Go figure. Initially, there were some serious problems with 1803, but those seem to have been ironed out now. Chances are, if you don't have it already, you'll be...
Ferrite: Those magic thingies at the end of your cables
You've probably noticed those strange cylinders at the end of your puter cables. It looks a bit like the cable was slightly overzealous at dinnertime and swallowed something a bit too large... As it happens, those strange meals are actually ferrite cores. Ferrite is a...
Speed up your browsing with CloudFlare’s public DNS
Back on April 1st of this year, CloudFlare announced a new public DNS resolver service. But in this case, it wasn't an April Fool's joke at all: the new 1.1.1.1 DNS service is very real and very fast! Well, that's nice, but what the heck does DNS do? And how is it...
Lightning surge protection that works
Most of us have "surge protector" power strips. They are supposed to protect against power line surges due to lightning and certain power line faults. But do they? Well, yes... To a small degree. But if you want some serious protection, you need a whole-house surge...