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{ Author Archives }

iPhone 6s battery refurb is only $49 until the end of June

If you are still enjoying an iPhone 6s, be advised…. it becomes a “vintage” product on June 30th, 2022; so get it in for repairs/refurbishment before then if you want to keep using this fabulous model.

Oh joy, a more sophisticated spam/extortion racket

My spam filters caught an interesting message recently, an email from myself (from field forged) claiming that my account was hacked and correctly naming my email address (account name) and a legit past password… hmm, I am paying more attention now… The would be extortionist is asking for bitcoin worth about $837 presently, and threatens […]

The quest for lower cost internet service

In my ongoing quest for lower cost internet service to the house I switched from Comcast/Xfinity to Verizon/FIOS today. It turned out to be relatively quick install of FIOS internet-only service, which works fine with my own router (you only need a Verizon router if you don’t already have a router or if you need […]

Cable Modem problems resolved, I hope

I have been having a problem with my cable modem losing signal strength and then either regaining it, or being unable to establish connection and rebooting automatically for a while now. It has been very frustrating. I could see errors like these in the Cable Modem’s logs at http://192.168.100.1 (most Cable Modems have a local-only […]

Leave Facebook Now

Facebook (specifically Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg) knew that Russians were manipulating American voters in June of 2016, and not only did they abstain from trying to stop the blatant manipulation, they denied it was happening at all. They lied. The entire platform is designed for exactly this sort of manipulation. Leave now. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex-stamos.html […]

Outer Banks

Apologies to those of you whom I scoffed at when you told me you could surf North Carolina’s outer banks. I was wrong, you most certainly can! I recently visited Kill Devil Hills, NC with some buddies from high school and enjoyed some damned good food and good beaches and wind and waves. I watched […]

Still happy with my 2006 Prius

My trusty 2006 Prius is still going strong. On a back from North Carolina’s Outer Banks I managed to average 54.2MPG over 336 miles (admittedly mostly highway miles and it was nice enough to need neither AC nor heat). Changing the HID Zenon D4R bulbs was much easier than I expected as well. $28 for […]

Veterans get some military exchange benefits

Nice news for veterans: DoD will allow all honorably discharged veterans to shop at the online military exchange stores starting this Veterans’ Day… PX/BX/NEX pricing may have a tough time comparing to online internet pricing these days – but the tax-free aspect may appeal in some states. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1049503/department-of-defense-extends-online-military-exchange-shopping-privileges-to-v/ AAFES: https://www.shopmyexchange.com/ NavyExchange: https://www.mynavyexchange.com/ Coast Guard Exchange: […]

Protecting yourself after the Equifax personal information leaks

The Equifax leak of our personal information is particularly harmful; it makes identity theft of most credit holding Americans trivially easy for the rest of their lives. Not for just one year, but until we pass away. The problem is that the information leaked is all the personal details that do not change. Steve Rubin […]

Freedom of speech and public access

I had to stop and think about the possibility of my own hypocrisy today… I have been casually following the story of Dreamhost (full disclosure, I’ve been a happy Dreamhost webhosting customer for many years) fighting attempts by the US government to collect detailed information on visitors to sites organizing protests against Trump. http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/15/politics/dreamhost-department-of-justice-trump-opponents/index.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/justice-department-trump-dreamhost-protests.html […]