Dear Sony, why are you so bad at this
What should have been a simple transaction on my PS4 instead turns out to be an hour+-long debacle of things going wrong.
Category Archives: Computers
Why you should not use RegScale
Companies that engage in slimy marketing practices tend to be slimy companies. RegScale fits that description, so you should avoid doing business with them.
How to protect your anonymity online when the services you use could be breached
Twitter is in the news again with another security breach in which 235 million users’ email addresses, phone numbers, and Twitter handles were exposed. These seems like a good opportunity to talk about what you can / should do to protect yourself if you need to maintain anonymity online. The basic rule is this: if… Read More »
Your data is yours: backing up your Mastodon data to protect against server failures and account suspensions
Long-time readers of my blog will know that I am obsessed with backups and with keeping control over data that belongs to me. For example, in additional to a comprehensive backup system I built myself, I have an archive of (legally obtained) music files and movies because I don’t trust any of the cloud music… Read More »
Comics: Funky Winkerbean ceased publication, Crankshaft; Mother Goose & Grimm moved from Comics Kingdom to GoComics
Regarding my comics aggregator, three updates effective January 1, 2023: For those who don’t know what I’m talking about…
“Archiving Your Tweets at Archive.Org” for Dummies
I’m all done with Twitter, but I also didn’t want to just delete my account and remove over a decade of content that I created from the internet. I’m not so arrogant as to believe that anyone’s ever going to want to look at my tweets again, but (a) maybe I will want to link… Read More »
Elan Financial Services: why are you so bad at this?
I had a Visa card issued by Elan Financial Services branded through my bank (Eastern Bank). Elan is consistently mediocre. Their web site looks and works like it was built 20 years ago. Their monthly statements tell you how much “bonus” cash back you earned but don’t tell you which transactions fall into which bonus… Read More »
Scripts for using Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme securely
The open-source package Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme, or “ssss” for short, allows a relatively short secret, for example, a password or passphrase, to be split into a specified number of shares in a way that allows the entire secret to be reconstructed from only a subset of the shares. For example, you can split a… Read More »
Recent addition and changes in the comics aggregator
Several comics have been added, changed, and removed recently in my comics aggregator. Here’s a round-up: Also, I’ve fixed the aggregator so that if a comic is removed in the future, the link you’ve saved to your comics in the aggregator will keep working and just display a warning about the missing comic that’s in… Read More »
Taking your contacts with you when you switch jobs, without stealing from your former employer
I’ve worked almost entirely for startups for the past 30+ years. It’s what I love, but switching jobs a lot comes with the territory. One of the problems I face with each switch is how to take with me outside contacts I’ve made, without compromising my soon-to-be-ex-employer’s intellectual property. Sure, I’ve added some of them… Read More »