In the late 2000s, Microsoft introduced its replacement to Outlook Express 6, Windows Live Mail (at the time known as Windows Live Mail Desktop). This was barely more than OE6 with a different theme, as the menus were all virtually identical. The only real major difference is that WLMail stores mail as separate EML files rather than proprietary DBX files, and...

I live in Tampa Bay Florida and during the summer there are a lot of thunderstorms; it happens so often that a “spat” storm (meaning one that lasts a half-hour or lses) happens pretty much every other day all summer long. That being the case, it’s totally normal in these parts that the power kicks off for anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 minutes...

Making the rounds is a new web site called Terms of Service; Didn’t Read (which is somewhat similar to TOSSOS) that puts a rating from A to E (E being worst) on basically how bad you’re going to get f&#%#d concerning your content and activity on particular web sites. I can save everyone the trouble of reading through any of those sites with a...

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best when it comes to grammar. Some grammar Nazi readers here have pointed that out on more than one occasion. Three free online grammar checkers are Grammarly, SpellChecker.net and GrammarCheck.net. Do they work? Let’s find out. Grammarly didn’t like what I had to check……because...

In the way software is developed these days, a huge effort is being put into the mobile platforms while the desktop side doesn’t have nearly as much innovation as it used to. The reason? Money. A software developer has much more opportunity to make money developing crappy two-dollar apps compared to selling desktop apps. A rather strange turn of events is...

For me, social media started with MySpace. That company was founded in 2003, but I remember in 2005 when everyone started getting in on it. I remember the heyday of MySpace, the heyday of Twitter, the colossal failure of Google Buzz, identi.ca (which still exists), Bebo (which AOL dumped), and of the present social-flavor-of-the-moment, Facebook. The only social...

Back in the old days when computer mice were ball-operated, at best they would last two or three years before the rubber ball started wearing down and you had to replace it. Optical mice – one of the best damn improvements to a hardware computer product ever mind you – cured all that. It is not unlikely that some of you have optical mice that are...

The first question most of you have is, “What’s the difference between a document scanner and a regular scanner?” Answer: A document scanner usually doesn’t have a bed on it; it usually operates in sheet-feed-only mode where you place the paper in the thing, it’s auto-fed through, and the scan is sent out afterward. Think of it...

One of the most popular articles here that I wrote back in very-early 2010 is The Mysterious 1e100.net. You might want to read that before reading this rest of this one for reference. That article has been seen many thousands of times from people wanting to know what the hell [subdomain].1e100.net addresses keep popping up in their network traffic over and over...

In the video below I’m playing Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith to show that when it comes to FPS (first-person-shooter games), older titles from the late 1990s and early 2000s really did a much better job when it comes to maps. A very common complaint these days with FPS games is that way too much emphasis is placed on online team play, and...

As time goes on, the internet isn’t necessarily getting larger, but there are more people connected to it and that number will continue to grow exponentially. This means that it’s going to be tougher as times goes on to get a short, easy-to-remember username. A solution to this issue is to do what the pre-internet BBS guys and gals did back in the...

There are a few web sites out there (Flickr being one of them) where if you wanted to sign up a new account, there is the option to use your existing Facebook account to do it with. I strongly recommend against using a Facebook login to sign up for anything with because at some point you may regret it. The reason why it’s an awful idea to use a Facebook...

Most of you out there have at least two email accounts. You have your primary account for all your important stuff and the “throwaway” account for everything else. It used to be almost a requirement to maintain two email accounts as a spam countermeasure. However these days you’re far better off using email aliases just for the convenience...

And now for another lovely article from the Tin Foil Hat club, of which I am a charter member. (Yes, that’s a joke, but the rest of this article isn’t.) It’s too easy these days for one to get totally freaked out by the sheer amount of surveillance there is out there. On just about any interstate in America, you’re on camera. At every...

Everyone uses an online map from time to time, because every though pretty much everyone has GPS today (be it a standalone unit or in the smartphone), seeing the map on a larger screen, as in your computer monitor, is a lot easier to deal with. I find myself using Bing Maps more these days because there are certain things it just does better. Here are three of...