My letter to the FCC about the open internet proposal

To: openinternet@fcc.gov Subject: Internet must remain open To the commissioners: Those who object to regulating internet service providers to ensure an open internet, as the FCC is currently proposing to do, adhere to the rigid political philosophy that regulation, by definition, stifles competition, innovation, growth, etc. However, this philosophy is only even theoretically true when… Read More: My letter to the FCC about the open internet proposal »

“Beantown AutoMobile Detailing” vandalizes my car, refuses to clean it up

On Wednesday night, April 16, 2014, after our minivan sat idle for two days while we celebrated the beginning of the holiday of Passover, I went out to run an errand and found a sodden, disintegrating advertisement from “Beantown AutoMobile [sic] Detailing” stuck between the driver’s side window and its lower rubber gasket. When I… Read More: “Beantown AutoMobile Detailing” vandalizes my car, refuses to clean it… »

Using Selenium to monitor Phone Power international call usage

Back when I was using Vonage, I wrote and shared a Selenium script to alert me automatically if I was approaching my monthly usage limits. Then I kicked Vonage to the curb and switched to using Google Voice plus an OBi202 box for my home phone service, lowering my monthly bill from around $14 for… Read More: Using Selenium to monitor Phone Power international call usage »

We need a “/heartbleed.txt” standard, and we need it ASAP

Those of us who help create and maintain “the internet” that everyone benefits from are now tasked with helping the world recover with one of the biggest, if not the biggest, security holes in the history of the internet. To be certain they aren’t vulnerable, users need to change their passwords at every site that… Read More: We need a “/heartbleed.txt” standard, and we need it ASAP »

An open letter to the owner of The Chubby Chickpea Food Truck

Dear Avi, “You know what the great thing is about owning your own business? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” That’s what you told me this morning when your food truck arrived 10 minutes past its scheduled opening time and still hadn’t opened 10 minutes after that. That’s what you told… Read More: An open letter to the owner of The Chubby Chickpea… »

TURN OFF two-factor authentication before restoring an Android phone

Android phones have this awesome feature whereby your list of installed applications, your application settings, your Wi-Fi settings, etc., are backed up automatically inside your Google account, such that when you set up a new phone and link it to your Google account during the initial setup, all that stuff gets restored automatically, making for… Read More: TURN OFF two-factor authentication before restoring an Android phone »