Who owns google.com? Well, the answer to that second one is easy: Google does! But when you go to your favorite domain registrar looking to purchase the perfect new domain for your England-based, Tapas-inspired spinach pie business, spanishkopita.uk (obviously), how does the registrar know if it’s available? Is there some kind of list somewhere? Yes, in fact, there is!
If you’re an Apple (not the fruit) addict like me, you probably have a dozen USB-A charging cubes and 4-5 different charging cables. You might also have AirPods, iPhone, an Apple Watch, and other various Apple products.
Well, that is also me. While I’ve always carried an iPhone, I acquired a set of AirPods a few years ago. And a few months ago, I got an Apple watch to replace my Fitbit. All three devices require a USB-C port, but I only have one charging cube, so I use my laptop to charge all this junk. As you can imagine, I am changing the cables around for the devices that need charging. What a very dumb, minute issue!
It’s coming, and it can’t come soon enough.
I’m rockin’ the iPhone 11, which I seemed to have stopped caring for approximately four months ago. That timing coincides with its first detrimental drop, the drop that created a hairline crack in my display. “No biggie, I can manage until September,” I told myself. I had been planning on a new mobile this year anyway, and the crack only accelerated that want.
A client recently brought in a laptop that had stopped booting into Windows. A common occurrence; computer parts are fallible and will always give across a long enough timescale. I immediately noticed pressure on the bottom of the keyboard and trackpad. I popped the bottom cover off the laptop and found the battery had doubled in thickness, putting so much pressure on the hard drive that it was unseated from its plug. While those two together are an unprecedented scenario for me, laptop battery swelling is common enough to deserve its own write-up. It indicates imminent or immediate battery failure and, more importantly, is a hazard that can catch fire or explode.
Warning: this is more technical than my usual blogs, but I found a Windows feature that the nerd in me finds very cool. Let’s talk about it. It’s called Windows Sandbox, a special feature in Windows 10/11 that lets you run suspicious or risky software in a safe and separate environment. It’s like having a virtual computer inside your computer.
When you open Sandbox, it creates a little virtual version of Windows where you can do things without worrying about any harm to your real computer. Anything you do inside Windows Sandbox, like opening files or running programs, stays inside that virtual environment. It doesn’t affect your actual computer. When you’re done using Windows Sandbox, you can close it, and everything you did inside it disappears, like erasing a chalkboard.
After lazily troubleshooting for months, R.I.P., FitBit. Apparently, FitBits don’t last very long, and I didn’t find it economical to continue purchasing a mediocre piece of tech every 1.5-2 years. Enter the Apple Watch SE.
Most people are familiar with the Windows task manager at this point, given how often Outlook decides to stop responding. However, Windows has another task-related application that can be effectively leveraged to automate functions within Windows. Enter the Windows Task Scheduler.
After lazily troubleshooting for months, R.I.P., FitBit. Apparently, FitBits don’t last very long, and I didn’t find it economical to continue purchasing a mediocre piece of tech every 1.5-2 years. Enter the Apple Watch SE.
In addition to relieving boredom, listening to music has been shown to improve cognitive performance by boosting your stamina and elevating your mood. It goes beyond just background noise (though that can also be beneficial for focus). Music is being used increasingly in the medical field as well, providing stress relief and promoting healing. A study from 2019 revealed what anyone who’s ever watched a film scored by John Williams already knows to be true: music can have a profound effect on our emotions. Music therapists often use a technique called the Iso Principle as a method of intervention in mood management. The idea is to start off by matching the music to the patient’s current mood and then gradually, alter the songs to achieve the desired mood state.
In today’s digital age, our lives revolve around the vast world of the internet. From social media to online banking and everything in between, our digital footprint continues to expand. And protecting our personal information has never been more critical. Enter passwords – the unsung heroes of online security. In this blog, we will shed light on the power of passwords and provide practical tips to create strong and secure passwords that will help safeguard your valuable online accounts.
