The Tech Boy's Blog

You know you’re supposed to be doing it, but it’s just such a bother, isn’t it? All that typing and the memorizing and the keeping it all straight…it’s such a hassle. Unfortunately, that’s the all-too-common sentiment behind most internet users and their reluctance to create strong, unique passwords. Heck, if “password” was good enough for the folks at Sony Pictures, it’s good enough for me, right Oh wait…they got hacked. Never mind. In all seriousness, username and password combinations are no laughing matter. With even just your email address and password, an identity thief can ruin your life. Once he’s got that combination, it’s nothing to go to all of your online accounts (a quick search through your old emails will tell him where you bank, where you shop, and more), click “forgot my password,” and then change all of them to whatever he wants, after changing your email password and locking you out, that is. Fortunately, LastPass makes it possible to have lengthy, multicha...

Social media photo and video site Snapchat has had its share of headline-grabbing, embarrassing security issues over the years, some intentional and some due to its own inability to plan. When a hacker warned and then exposed nearly  5 million users’  accounts because of a bug that left the info vulnerable, that was bad enough. But when 100,000 or so shared  videos and photos  were accessed and released online (despite the company insisting that it doesn’t store the messages its users send, while forgetting that the cellular providers’ servers do store that information) some experts wondered if that might have been enough to seal Snapchat’s fate as an untrustworthy platform. But the news last week that Snapchat has experienced a whole new data breach only highlights what too many companies refuse to accept: your biggest security threat may very well be someone on your payroll. In an  apology post on February 28 , Snapchat admitted that an employee had wi...

“Your Browser, Your way.”  (Allegedly.) I’ve used a lot of different browsers over the years and I remember writing about the Linux based Pale Moon browser back in 2014, and I liked it. But now Moonchild Productions has released Pale Moon 26.0, the browser’s first big update in two years, and the new build has some really nice new things going for it. Looks Good And Simple To Use I like the way Pale Moon looks. It’s colourful, and the home splash screen can be customised to carry whatever news, link buttons, or feeds you want it too. In some ways it’s like having a second desktop, and I found it easy to navigate and work my way round quickly.  The new graphics and presentation update have also worked wonders and it’s fast. I also liked the dropdown history button, and the way it’s positioned next to the history bar, so there’s very little fiddling to be done. Security Pale Moon has also updated a lot of its internal security features, including adding s...

Meet Project Natick. Microsoft have u nveiled  their latest research project, and it could be a major game changer in how large companies increase the way they think about cloud computing, by submerging a 38,000-pound container a thousand meters out into the Pacific Ocean. According to Microsoft,  50%  of us live close to a coast, so while dropping data centers under the ocean might sound a bit nuts to start with, it actually makes a lot of sense. With the ever faster expansion of the cloud and the ever increasing need for more internet, large technology firms have been keen to find energy efficient ways to store their increasing amounts of data. Data centers consume up to 3%  of the world’s electricity, and are essential for modern everyday computing. One of the major power draws on these data centers is heat, or rather the cooling of it.  As a result in a bid to lower power costs, tech firms are routinely considering new options and ideas for housi...

I do love me some Pie, particularly Apple Pie. But I’m also a really big fan of  Raspberry Pi . I think everyone should be. And now it seems Microsoft thinks it as well having just announced that they’re currently working on a Windows 10 Internet of Things (IoT) Core for the new Raspberry Pi 3. The new Windows IoT update also just happened to arrive the same day the Raspberry  Pi  Foundation released its new version of the Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi 3.  The date was significant since it was also the 4 th  anniversary that marked the launch of the original Raspberry Pi. The new Raspberry Pi 3 “ Optimized for connected things and smaller devices with or without a display,  Windows 10 IoT Core  brings the power of Windows, including enterprise grade security and servicing, automatic updates through Windows Update when connected to the Internet and the rich Universal Windows Platform (UWP) APIs that give apps easy control over system m...

Microsoft has announced its launch of a new fund with the intention of helping startups and commercial companies to offer access to affordable Internet in “under served markets.” Microsoft’s new  Affordable Access Initiative  will offer grants to commercial enterprises that that can prove demonstrable scalable solutions, which can facilitate access to the Internet in the parts of the globe that have little to no access. According to the company, there are still more people in the world who do not have access to the Internet than those who do. That’s a massive 57 percent of the world’s global population. “Today there are approximately 4 billion people globally without Internet access,”  said  Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business development at Microsoft.   “The ability to close that gap is more achievable than ever with technology that is readily available and affordable in many parts of the world. Through this fund, we hope to kic...

Near the end of the horror-comedy  The Campaign , the underdog candidate played by Zach Galifianakis woefully mourns his loss by asking how he could have lost since all the polls showed him the lead. The camera switches to a polling place where the voting machines are being closed up and put away, but not before they zoom in on the corporate logo of the manufacturer, the same mega-corporation who’d pushed through his opponent’s campaign and ultimate victory. It’s bone chilling, to be sure, but one polling place in the US has already faced a software issue that led to a major discrepancy in a hotly contested local elected position. Candidates for the Republican County Judge spot in Craighead County, Arkansas, waited until late into the night for any word on the results of the elections, only to find out that a software glitch had miscounted the votes. While the software said there was only a 19-vote discrepancy between the two candidates, an alternate method of counting the ba...