Birds on a Cable | Blog

If you’re a user of Microsoft Office 365 or Google’s mail (whether Gmail or their paid Google Workspaces), you may not be aware of a feature you’ve had access to for years: subaddressing.

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You’re likely aware of what an email address looks like, for instance, food@spanishkopita.uk, but do you know why? It’s because email started as a way to address users on specific computer networks and was designated as a “destination mailbox” AT “the computer network.” This continued throughout the expansion of the internet, eventually leading to services for people who didn’t want to deal with setting up email on their computers.

If you’re the type of person who hated grammar in English class or you’re infamous for typos, Grammarly might be for you. I really liked grammar in school, and in 8^th grade, I was the spelling bee champion for my region (I live by this flex). Of course, I thought I was better than this app. But now that I’m in grad school, I had to up my game because prior to 2022, I had not written a paper since 2003.

I have a soft spot for AI services that generate art. Do I think any of the art is good or has value? Absolutely no. It’s taking other’s work on the internet and creating an aggregation based on what it finds. What does have value is its ability to make me laugh and smile. Suno.ai is the latest one I found — a service that will generate a song either based on a style with a short prompt or (more importantly) based on style with lyrics you input yourself. Here, I’ve chosen to feed in a wikiHow article about how to boil water and have it generate a kid’s song. Of course, credit where credit is due, I wrote the chorus myself. As a bonus, I’ve also included the mumble rap version.

Embark on a tech-filled quest to explore AI wonders, learn new skills, and make 2024 your year of continuous growth!

In a world where technology is evolving faster than we can say “self-driving cars,” it’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed, right? But fear not! Today, I want to chat with you about something that’s not just buzzwords and sci-fi dreams anymore. Yep, you guessed it – Artificial Intelligence (AI).

So, what’s the deal with AI, and how can do we actually use it in our everyday lives? Let’s break it down in a way that doesn’t require a degree in computer science.

In the last few years, we have seen automation take hold in all aspects of our lives, from driver-assisted autopilot in our cars to AI research assistance. But now automation has come to the burger business. The world’s first purchase-to-plate burger restaurant has opened in Southern California. The Cali Express by Flippy™ will open its doors sometime in 2024.

Flippy is an AI-powered fry robot developed by Miso Robotics. It will freshly grind a Wagyu blend of beef into a patty and fry it up AFTER you order, making this one of the freshest and fastest burgers you can eat! It will also turn out a basket of perfectly cooked french fries made from premium potatoes. With all this high-end food, you would think the burger prices would be outrageous, but they are competitively priced with human-run chains like In-n-Out.

Updates, updates, updates! Do they ever stop? Do I need to install them? Don’t they always pop up during the most annoying times? These are some questions I commonly hear from clients about firmware updates. Here’s a little more insight into what is happening and why they are important.

Before we get into the importance of firmware upgrades, we need to understand what firmware is and its role in overall device functionality. Firmware is a sort of software that is integrated within the hardware of electrical devices. Firmware, as opposed to standard software that runs on an operating system, is intended to operate the device’s specialized hardware components. It connects a device’s hardware and software, allowing them to function together. Think of it as getting maintenance on your car, like an oil change.

We’ve been keeping up with new iPhones and software updates for decades now. Though it feels never-ending, each update becomes more and more innovative and customizable. Here are some features from the new iOS 17.x update:

If you have an email address, at some point, you’re bound to have an occurrence that will make you do a double-take: you’ll receive an email that has your email as the sender, only you didn’t send it. Naturally, alarm bells begin ringing (not a bad thing) because you’re worried your account has been compromised. But after forwarding it to your trusty IT team (please don’t click the link, I beg you), you’re reassured it didn’t actually come from you.

I decided to move away from Dashlane to 1Password for my personal password management recently. For those not in the know, a password manager effectively acts similar to how a web browser will remember your username/password for websites you’ve logged into previously. Still, it allows you to access those usernames/passwords from a secure vault in the cloud whenever you need them. From a security standpoint, I put it up there with antivirus in terms of its ability to mitigate everyday security vulnerabilities.

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