Why PayPal is telling you about the DigiCert Global Root G2 Chain
If you have a PayPal account - and especially if you're selling anything and getting paid via PayPal - then you've no doubt received a strange e-mail (or ten) recently. In short, you're supposed to add the DigiCert Global Root G2 Chain to your "trusted store". Bad...
GRUB Reinit: Repair or Replace GRUB in One Easy Step
If you have a dual-boot setup on your computer involving some flavor of linux, at some point you will most likely encounter a problem with GRUB, the linux bootloader. For example, maybe you used a tool like Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite to resize your OS partitions....
Everything on my Computer is Missing and I think it’s a Virus or Trojan
Lucky you! This happened to a friend of mine recently. She was minding her own business, surfing the web. A little box popped up, and it looked just like a Windows dialog box that said something about Microsoft Security Something-or-Other. So, of course, she clicked...
Make Rails 2.3.x happy with Ruby 1.9.3
If you're like me, you still have some Rails 2.3.x apps hanging around. Yeah, Rails 3 is awesome in some respects, but that "2x performance increase" never quite materialized. In fact, for the most part, Rails 3 is still slower than Rails 2.3. SIGH! Nevertheless, Ruby...
Seagate Agrees with Scottie about Green Hard Drives
I hate to say, "I told you so!", but: I told you so! Actually, I don't hate saying it. I'm relishing every second of this glorious moment, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Okay, I was ashamed for the few seconds it took me type the first sentence, but I got over it....
What is an ARM Processor, and What’s the Big Deal?
You've probably heard of ARM processors a lot lately. They are used in all kinds of devices like smartphones, tablets, routers, and so on. I'm sure you've also heard why they are so great: They're powerful, and they're extremely energy efficient! Well, so is my Intel...
Cell Phones: How to Maximize Battery Life and Minimize Radiation Exposure
This article originally appeared in Issue #14 of The Dot Connector Magazine. Cell phones: they’re everywhere. From the “Battlephones” of the olden days, technology has progressed inexorably to today’s Smartphone. Crikey, some people even sleep with their cell phones!...
Musings on the Death of Steve Jobs
Well, heck, everyone else is talking about it incessantly, so why not me, too? Of course, there are much more important topics to be worried about, like the fact that the global economic and political situation seems to be destabilizing in numerous ways. But this is a...
How to Remove SuperGlue from your Fingers and Skin
Everybody loves superglue. It bonds darn near anything to darn near anything else, darn near instantly. There's only one problem: it also bonds skin. Another problem: it's hard to remove from skin once it dries - or even before it dries. Most people will tell you to...
Why the World Will Soon Be Using Only Apple Products
I have to say that I simply can't stand it any more. I'm talking about Apple and their damned lawsuits. They are suing anyone and everyone who makes any product that even remotely resembles an iThing (gosh, I hope they don't sue me for putting that lowercase "i" in...
Dude, Your Web Site’s Been Hacked!
This article originally appeared in Issue #13 of The Dot Connector Magazine. Whether it’s the “Iranian Cyber Army”, those darn “Chinese Hackers”, or just your average script kiddie, everyone is aware that there bad people out there who want to mess with your glorious...
Fixing the Rails 3 Fragment Cache Path
Let's say you were using Rails 2.3.x, and you made the (wise) decision to implement heavy fragment caching. Then let's say that you updated to Rails 3.x. At that point, you probably noticed that Rails 3 does something seriously annoying with the paths where it caches...
Goodbye Google Translate, Hello Bing Translate!
Until recently, I got a lot of use out of Google Translate. It worked great, it was fast, and its web page translations were good enough. But then, something changed. Now when I use Google Translate in Firefox to translate a certain URI, it seems to get stuck in some...
How to “Search in Message” in Thunderbird 3.1
With the advent of Thunderbird 3, searching messages became a bit more sassy in the old bird. There is one little problem: it is not readily apparent how one actually searches for text inside an open e-mail. It used to be that you could just type Ctrl-F and the little...
Severe GRUB Problem in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal
If you're using Ubuntu Server 10.10 and you get the upgrade notice for 11.04 "Natty Narwhal", you might want to hold off a bit before taking the plunge and typing "do-release-upgrade". It seems there is a rather severe problem with GRUB 2. If you have a RAID setup -...
Why You Don’t Want a Green Hard Drive
These days, the fad is GREEN. Everything is "eco-this" or "green that". Of course, we're supposed to be terribly concerned about saving Mother Earth. Well, I've got news for you: Mother Earth is plenty capable of taking care of herself... Whether or not humankind...