Your WiFi is spying on you – and it’s about to get worse
A company in Taiwan recently presented a developing WiFi tech that can be used to monitor your location, heart rate, breathing patterns, sleep cycles, and much more. The company's techie bossman, Doctor Tzi-cker Chiueh, claimed that, "Channel state in modern Wi-Fi is...
Windows Backup Failed, Part 3: Problem reading file global-messages-db.sqlite
Sweet mother of pearl!! Does Windows Backup ever work?! Well, yes. Sort of... Sometimes... There are many factors to consider, though, such as the phase of the moon, whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow, sunspot activity, and the extent of the "twerking"...
Network icon disappeared: Fix missing and “disconnected” network icons in Windows
One of the most common problems I've seen is missing or "disappeared" network icons in Windows 7. This problem can take a few different forms. For example, you may be able to connect to the internet just fine, but your ethernet/WiFi icon in the system tray always...
SSD: How to upgrade your computer with a Solid State Hard Drive
If you haven't seen Part 1, it's here: SSD: Why you need to upgrade your computer with a Solid State Hard Drive With Part 1 out of the way, you've decided to take the plunge. Great! How do you actually do the upgrade? Well, that can get a bit complicated. There are a...
SSD: Why you need to upgrade your computer with a Solid State Hard Drive
Everyone is always looking to make their computer faster, whether they realize it or not. Usually, it's only after an upgrade that we realize just how pokey our machine was running beforehand. These days, there isn't a huge difference between a 2-year-old computer and...
JavaScript Fun: Looping with a Delay
If you've ever programmed something in JavaScript, you most likely ran into a situation where you needed a delay. Normally, we do this with setTimeout(). For repeatedly calling some function every X milliseconds, one would normally use setInterval(). Well, that's...
Windows Backup Failed, Part 2: The system cannot find the file specified
Dear, sweet Jesus... You'd think that Microsoft's built-in "Backup and Restore" feature in Windows would just kind of work. You'd be wrong. If you haven't seen my earlier post on Windows Backup problems, see here: Fix It: Windows Backup Failed Trying to Read from...
Why HTTPS and SSL are not as secure as you think
In this day and age of well-known NSA spying, everyone keeps saying that the only way to be safe is to use SSL/TLS, commonly known as "browsing with https://". The sad reality is that HTTPS does virtually nothing to protect you from the prying eyes of alphabet soup...
The State of Technology Address at the End of 2013
Oh, 2013, what a high-tech year you were! From the general recognition (finally) that the US government was spying on everyone, everyone's dog, and everyone's dog's lawn presents, to the almighty Mobile Revolution, to the 64-bit iPhone with 2X the awesome, to the...
Green Files in Windows Explorer: What they are, and how to fix them
Every now and then, you might get some files from a friend or family member. Maybe they e-mail them to you, or maybe you copy them over via a USB stick. In any case, the files are often compressed, like in a ZIP file. So, you dutifully double-click the file, extract...
How to Easily Resize Images in Windows
Note: To resize a single image to a particular pixel size, see: How to Easily Resize and Crop a Single Image in Windows There is one little problem I see a lot: How does one resize a bunch of images in order to post them online somewhere, or to send in an e-mail, or...
Windows 8.1: Easily switch to a Local Account from a Microsoft Account
In Windows 8, there was an easy way to switch from using a Microsoft Account to log in back to the "old fashioned" way of using a plain old ordinary Windows local account. With Windows 8.1, Microsoft is trying harder than ever to trick you into signing in with your...
iPhone 5S: 64-bit smartphone processors are 2X the hype
Okay, so I just can't keep quiet about this one. Apple has released their latest iPhones, the 5S and the 5C. While the release of the 5C is particularly hilarious given that it's a "low-end" phone that Jobs said Apple would never release because they're a "premium...
My Desktop Disappeared from Explorer: Quick Fix!
So, one day you're just minding your own business, and all is well.Then, before you know it, your Desktop link under "Favorites" in Explorer has gone bye-bye.It just got up and walked out the door.EEK!Whatever shall you do?Not to worry, it's pretty easy to restore...
Quick Fix: Thunderbird hangs when deleting any message
It's hard to find a good e-mail client these days. Despite it's increasing crappiness, I still use Mozilla Thunderbird, mainly because there just aren't any good alternatives out there. I could use webmail, but I really don't like it. I like to have my e-mail stored...
Fix It: Windows Backup Failed Trying to Read from Shadow Copy
You get Windows Backup all set up, and it's working fine. You are happy. Then one day, you get to your puter and you have a lovely error message that reads, "Windows backup failed while trying to read from shadow copy on one of the volumes being backed up." You try...