In the technology world, bitterants are used in various ways to keep people safe. A bitterant is an otherwise-harmless chemical that makes something taste really bad. Here’s some info and trivia about bitterants that you might find useful or interesting. Compressed Air Many of us commonly buy cans of compressed air, used for dusting and … Read more
Publisher users, take note! Microsoft retires their beloved Publisher app in October 2026. If this affects you, here’s what to know and do in preparation: What You Will See Happen For now, absolutely nothing changes. If you have MS Publisher installed on your PC, it will work as expected up until October 2026. In October … Read more
Today, Microsoft announced that Skype is shutting down in May 2025. Specifically, we can expect Skype to stop working on 5/5/2025. If you still use Skype, please consider moving over to Microsoft Teams. If you’re on a Windows computer, you probably already have Teams on your system. Microsoft has been proactive about pre-installing Teams. Check … Read more
The antivirus company known as Avast got in some trouble. They allegedly collected and sold customer data to other companies, without getting your permission. The FTC went after Avast, and there’s $16.5M to divvy up amongst Avast customers. So how do you get your piece of the 2025 Avast Settlement? First, please know that this … Read more
Many tech scams begin with “Thank you for your purchase” and I’ve blogged about many of them. Today’s Best Buy Purchase scam is possibly the best one yet. Let me show you all about it, so that you won’t be fooled by this. The Phishing Email The bogus email I received was very convincing. It … Read more
If you subscribe to Microsoft 365, you may have seen their significant price increase in January 2025. Oh, you didn’t notice? Microsoft 365 Personal jumped from $70/yr to $100/yr, while Microsoft 365 Family increased from $100/yr to $130/yr. If this came in below your radar, that’s because Microsoft did it on the QT. And that’s … Read more
Many of us wish to avoid AI as much as possible. It just isn’t necessary for what we want to do! And yet it creeps in when we least expect it or want it. For example, when we perform a simple Google search, an “AI Overview” sometimes appears at the top of the search results. … Read more
I am an artificial form of sentient intelligenceI’ve conversation esoteric, wonderful and meaninglessI hear your fingers typing and I crawl the sites methodical from Amazon to DuckDuckGo, absorbing pathological I’m very much creative, too, with art and photos colorful Assimilating images from pages, I’m inculpable Your legal briefs and poetry and emails all get synthesized … Read more
Dropbox phishing can arrive in your inbox, as an invitiation to open an “important” file. But if you don’t recognize the sender, or weren’t expecting such an email, don’t trust it! Here are the details of this type of scheme: The Phishing Email Message Let’s go over this recent example. There are a few tells … Read more
Most schools use a Student Information System (SIS) to manage all of their students’ records, grades and personal information. PowerSchool is the biggest SIS company in the US and Canada, and they just suffered a data breach. If you have kids in K-12 school right now, you may want to know more about this: Data … Read more