Category: Tech
-
One Word: Tier
“Tier” is my kind of word. It’s short. It has a neat sound. It’s familiar without being overused. Best of all, it’s useful. Physically, a tier is one of a series of stacked rows or levels. Rungs of a ladder, for instance, or the third row of seats in a stadium. Figuratively, a tier is…
-
How to Verify Suspicious Email Offers
Kudos to readers who wrote me yesterday to make sure I was the sender of an email they found suspicious. (I was.) Here’s hoping that didn’t stop anyone from claiming two gigs of free cloud storage. In case it did, here’s the link again. Turns out you’ve still got time, if you act today: https://security.google.com/settings/security/secureaccount…
-
Jonah Miller’s “Shrill, Empathic Joys”
You do know I’m a science geek, right? The only problem being, I know very little about actual science! It’s a field – or rather, a collection of fields – for which I have no formal training, no math foundation, no research experience. What I do instead is read obsessively – books, magazines, blogs, and…
-
Fabiola Gianotti’s Baffling Anagrams
CERN, the world’s top particle physics facility, has a new director-general, the fabulous Fabiola Gianotti. She took the reins this month, having been democratically chosen by colleagues. The soft-spoken, hard-driving, serenely brilliant Italian scientist will need every atom of her legendary stamina for the coming ordeal. That’s not only because she’s the first woman to…
-
One Word: Worth a Thousand Pictures
Does anyone else feel oppressed by the “tyranny of pictures”? I do, and I’m fighting back with a new series of posts about words I love. Words that interest, fascinate, and delight me; words that (for me) carry depths of meaning mere pictures can’t duplicate. One article per word — posted ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴘɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇs. Here’s why…
-
Lubuntu: Linux Even Leaner!
Recently I wrote that desktop Linux is now a practical alternative to Windows. Especially Windows XP, for which Microsoft has discontinued support and security updates. I based this suggestion on my delightful experience with Ubuntu Linux — the most popular of many Linux variants. (It has so many because it’s open-source freeware. Anyone can customize…
-
Desktop Linux: Ready for Prime Time!
Linux, the free, open-source operating computer operating system, is ready for everyday desktop computing. Desktop Linux has been a long time coming. But at last, you can ditch Microsoft Windows. Or you can run it side by side with Linux, if you aren’t ready to cut the cord. Either way, you no longer are a…
-
Real Names Are Highly Overrated!
Google recently reversed its “real names” requirement for members of its Google Plus social network. Good call, Google — and good riddance. It’s about time! In the Internet’s early days, being online was all about anonymity. You could create a mask. You could hide behind it in cyberspace. You could be — or appear to…
-
Format Text on tsū? Here’s How!
Text formatting on tsū, the new social network that pays for submissions, may at first seem impossible. It isn’t! Oh, tsū still doesn’t have the rich formatting options of Google Plus. (No bold or italic for example.) You can’t even divide your text into paragraphs, as you can on Facebook. Yet. I say “still” and “yet” because tsū is…
-
See Me on tsū!
See Me on Tsu! Let’s connect on the network that pays us for what we post. Seriously, Tsu — pronounced “Sue”, as in — is a new social platform. It’s barely a week old. It’s hot. Need an invite? Use mine: http://www.tsu.co/GaryMatthewsWhen you sign up, Tsu will ask you to “enter a member’s shortcode”.…
-
A Place With Four Suns!
“There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue and yellow; two of them are so close together that they touch, and starstuff flows between them. I know of a world with a million moons. I know of a sun the size of the Earth — and made of diamond…