I have to define a few things for those that have absolutely no clue how to read l33tsp3ak, so here goes: l33t (or 1337 if going for the full monty), is the word elite that’s gone through several transformations to ultimately end up the way it did. First it was elite, and then leet. Lite didn’t work because the pronunciation is different and...

Every time I think I’ve seen it all on the internet, I come across stuff I never thought would exist in cyberspace. One site that will probably be both entertaining and disheartening to you is ObsoleteSkills.com. The A-Z skill list is here, and no matter what your age is, you’re guaranteed to find something in there you know that’s now...

Pretty much any new keyboard today is purposely built to have a quiet typing experience; this is especially true on laptops which all use short-profile keys where you can barely hear the keyboard as you’re typing away. There is something to be said for noisy typing in the respect that in a sonic sense it just feels better. There is a musical quality with...

I was asked (yet again) what wallpaper image I use for my desktop, seen in several of the screencast videos I do, which is this:Originally the image was on DeviantArt, but the user deleted the image. However if you perform a Google Image search for Abstract Light Beam, you can download it that way. Now stop pestering me about my wallpaper. ...

What the heck am I doing writing about shoes? Good question, and I have a good answer. Twenty-two years ago in 1989, the movie Back to the Future Part II was released; this film shows what people thought the future would be like in the very-late 1980s. Over two decades have passed since then, and there have been a ton of articles written specifically about this...

In Florida where PCMech is based, 7-Eleven convenience stores are an institution, meaning they’re a staple of the landscape and are everywhere; the green-and-orange logo is something you don’t have to drive far to see. In several other US states they also have a very dominant presence. In a maneuver that instantly made me think, "Why...

The first not-really-delete I ever encountered was in the MS-DOS operating system, appropriately titled UNDELETE.EXE. I considered it dumb and never used it, because when I instruct my computer to delete a file, I want it gone. My personal preference is to ‘compute dangerous’ when it comes to file management, meaning DELETE should, obviously, DELETE...

On Reddit I saw this thread which may be of interest to some. As far as I’m aware, it lists all the web sites out there that people (meaning anyone) can use to perform background checks. Some don’t mind being listed on sites like these while others really take offense to it. No matter what side of the fence you’re on, it’s good to know...

If there’s one thing a geek loves more than anything else – besides gadgets – it’s information. Information on anything and everything that interests him or her. This is part of the reason geeks love upscale cars so much because those vehicles have gauge clusters that show you a ton of stuff other cars don’t; they also have much...

There is a proposed federal law that would require ISPs to store logs about their customers for 18 months. Should you be concerned about this? No. Before I explain why, the people I feel most badly for are the ISPs themselves should the law pass; this is because the ISPs at present simply do not have the room – and I mean that literally – to store...