Are messaging apps REALLY secure?
Person 1: My messenging app is more secure. Person 2: No, MINE is! Person 3: No way, I ONLY use Signal - it's the most secure! Okay, y'all are fired. What if I told you that NONE of the messaging apps you use are really, truly secure? Sound crazy? Well, it is. The...
HDMI Cables: Which type should I use for 4K?
I recently had some fun with HDMI cables - specifically, how best to connect a 4K UltraHD Blu-ray player to a 4K TV? As a follow-up to my Display Cable Madness vid, I dive a bit deeper into the different flavors of HDMI cable: 1.4, 2.0, and 2.1. Obviously, the latest...
Smart Meters are worse than you think
I recently learned the hard way what's happening with smart meters in Europe. The same type of smart meter they're using here in France has already been deployed in many EU countries. Mostly, we hear only about the negative health effects of wireless smart meters, but...
Why I ditched my smartphone
Smartphones are nice, right? They let you Do Stuff™, and you can even convert your entire social life to be run entirely via Google's servers! WOW! Well, according to a recent investigation by the Tucker Carlson clan, it turns out Google is hoovering up far more data...
Do SSDs make good backup hard drives?
A friend recently asked me about what backup hard drive to buy. He mentioned an external SSD, which made me do a double-take. External SSD?! Well, yeah. Apparently, they've been around for years already, although only recently have prices become a bit more reasonable....
A better Stylish Smartphone Faraday Box
9 months ago, I made this video: Make your own stylish smartphone Faraday Box in 10 minutes Since then, I've learned a ton more about Faraday cages, and experimented a lot to make an even BETTER box. It turns out that my original box was only so-so at blocking...
Time to switch to a HomeGroup on Windows 10
Way back in 2009, I wrote this article: How to Determine the Master Browser in a Windows Workgroup I also released a tool called LAN Scanner that lets you see all the puters on your local network, their IP addies, MAC addresses, and which puter is the Master Browser....
Get your politics out of my tech!
In recent years, we've seen a huge upsurge in "political correctness" and certain "social movements". From James Damore being fired for speaking his mind in a very "leftist" corporate culture, to Amazon's Alexa declaring that she is a feminist, to DNA testing services...
Windows 10 Buffet: Fixing a failed upgrade to the latest version
It's been several months since Windows 10 1709 was released. Even now, not all puters out there have received the update. As with all versions of Win 10, Microsoft rolls them out slowly over time. Sometimes, you might not get the latest version because of some...
Meltdown & Spectre: DO NOT PANIC! Yet.
By popular demand! Meltdown and Spectre are the recently-publicized exploits that take advantage of flaws in modern processors. These flaws are big news, but what's the actual scoop? It turns out that they ARE a big deal, but with a few important caveats... Since the...
How do Christmas Laser Projectors work?
If you're like me, you tend to go a little Clark Griswold every Holiday Season. My current favorite holiday lighting apparatus is those sassy red/green laser projectors! But how do they work? It turns out they're actually pretty simple. Lasers, some funky hair, and...
Is AI really here?
We hear a lot about A.I. - artificial intelligence - these days. But is it really here? Should you be worried about Skynet and terminators and some little punk named John having to grow up and save the world? Not quite. At least not yet, anyway... While so-called...
DuckDuckGo: Uh-oh! Search add-on goes nuts…
Lots of people are using the search engine DuckDuckGo these days. It's a bit more "friendly" than behemoth Google, and it still gives great search results. In fact, you may have read my earlier article Search like a pro with DuckDuckGo: Better privacy + great search...
Why is my USB stick so slow?
A few weeks ago, I published a video on how to get max speed from your USB 3 gizmos, which you can find here: Slow copy speeds with USB 3? No problem! Right, but if what about lowly USB 2 sticks? They're far more prevalent than USB 3 sticks, and many of them are...
Fix the tab bar (and other stuff) in the new Firefox 57
Firefox 57 - also known as Firefox Quantum - was released recently, bringing all the glorious new performance improvements to the world. Well, that's nice, especially if you pronounce "Firefox Quantum" in a Mr. Moviefone voice... BUT... The new version of Firefox also...
How to code smarter – now with 50% less irritation!
Everyone knows that coders are weird people. Interrupt them, and you often encounter a rather strange and "interesting" reaction. Why is that? Well, it's all about what happens in your brain when you're programming something. It's probably one of the hardest things to...