Thanks to the popularity of the Internet, having an outlet for your written self expression isn’t a problem. Back in the old days, to be read you’d need a column in the paper or at least a frequent Letter to the Editor campaign. Today, anyone can start up a blog, post something to Facebook, or tweet.
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April 1, 2015Improve Your Writing Skills, Part I
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March 30, 2015Android Navigation Icon HistoryTechnology tends toward improvement. This improvement is positive, based on real life feedback. And overlooking Windows 8, mostly it’s successful. As a case in point, consider the basic navigation icons used in the Android operating system.
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March 27, 2015Deciphering the App Description ScreenThe Google Play Store has come a long way from the old Android Market. The modern version of the Android app store — Oops! I can’t call it that. Thanks, Apple! &mdash has lots of good features and provides excellent information for everything it offers. The key is understanding how that stuff is presented.
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March 25, 2015Vertically Aligning a PageAligning a paragraph of text left-to-right is cinchy in Word. The Center command (shortcut Ctrl+E) shoves an equal amount of space to the left and right of a paragraph or a single line of text. If you want that paragraph to be aligned equal distance from the top and bottom of the page, then more work is required.
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March 23, 2015The Worst Program Name EverWho thinks about program names? No one. Thanks to the proliferation of graphical operating system, you’re no longer required to type a program’s name to run it. No, you can click on an icon and not really care about the name floating below.
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March 20, 2015Website Timeout TroublesI missed a bill payment. It’s my fault: I tried to log into the utility’s website, but it was unreachable. I figured it was a hiccup and I’d check back later. The problem: The website hasn’t been available for weeks. Is it me?
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March 18, 2015“Why don’t you write a book about…”The other day I got a phone call from my mum. She wanted to get rid of this nasty program on her computer and it just wouldn’t uninstall. March 16, 2015Setting the ClockYour computer, your phone, your tablet, and pretty much all wireless electronic gizmos keep good and accurate track of the time. That’s thanks to something called NTP. It’s the Network Time Protocol. The NTP has been in the news recently because it might suddenly disappear.
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March 13, 2015Screen Saver HistoryIt’s 1985. You have an IBM PC with a monochrome monitor; the color, or CGA, monitor is just too expensive. You work on VisiCalc. It’s up there, on the screen for about 8 hours a day. It even shows up when you turn off the monitor.
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March 11, 2015The Saga of Pre-Installed SoftwareSome call it crapware. I prefer bloatware. Whatever you call it, the name applies to software pre-installed on a computer. Sometimes the software consists of useful tools, such as anti-virus, the Acrobat Reader, or even a productivity suite. Recently the trend has been for actual malware to be pre-installed, which I find a bit unsettling. |
