In This Article TLDR Macs are a pleasant place to spend 40+ hours in your work week, and totally workable for those with Microsoft-centric jobs. Let me give you a jump start on how to make it work. The Background I'm weird. This is a known fact that I've embraced. My family has two minivans... Continue Reading →
My Work From Home Tips
We live in an interesting time where businesses have suddenly been forced into a remote work model in order to stay profitable during the COVID-19 crisis. Because of this, many people have now been thrown into a work from home situation (whether it's something they wanted or not). I've worked from home on and off... Continue Reading →
My Journey to Better Privacy (Part 6: Conclusions)
Introduction Over the last few months I have been on a journey to better privacy. During that time I've gone over search, browsers, social networks/messaging, digital assistants, and email. This is not an exhaustive list of all the areas where online privacy is concerned, but it's the primary ones that had not yet been addressed... Continue Reading →
My Journey to Better Privacy (Part 5: Email)
Updated 02/28/2020 Introduction If you've been following along, then you know I'm on a quest to increase privacy across my digital life. The next stop on that journey is email. This system of communication has become so ubiquitous that we hardly give it much thought. We communicate over it with service providers, friends/family, random blogs,... Continue Reading →
My Journey to Better Privacy (Part 4: Digital Assistants)
Intro Since the time I was a child the idea of robotics and automation has appealed to me. When digital assistants started to hit the scene I was stoked. I imagined myself controlling my home like Tony Stark with Jarvis. I tried to hold out for a good Siri solution, knowing that Apple makes quality... Continue Reading →
My Journey to Better Privacy (Part 3: Social Networks and Messaging)
Intro I'm on a journey to improve my online privacy. Search engines and web browsers have already been covered in previous posts. What discussion on this topic would be complete without Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc)? I'm also going to include messaging along with them because they often go hand in hand (ie Facebook... Continue Reading →
My Journey to Better Privacy (Part 2: Browsers)
TLDR My Recommendation: Firefox, with the extensions HTTPS Everywhere, uBlock Origin, Firefox Multi-Account Containers, and Cookie AutoDeletePrivacy Simplified: If you just want privacy out-of-the-box and don't care that it's based on Chromium, go with Brave.(Update 04/07/2020: I've been using Brave a lot and see great promise in it. I might do a full post about... Continue Reading →
My Journey to Better Privacy (Part 1: Search)
Introduction The subject of privacy, for me, is one I've been more or less dodging for a long time. It's something I feel strongly about. I make half-hearted attempts at improving it now and then. But overall I've mostly let it go by the wayside. It's really easy to retweet statements by privacy-focused groups or... Continue Reading →
Life in the Key of E
Many years ago, sometime during high school, I set out to learn guitar. This was in the days before YouTube, so all I had to work with was an antique book of my dad's. Utilizing that, and eventually the internet, I picked up four or five chords and was feeling pretty good about myself. E... Continue Reading →
Kindle Fire HD8 Review
Background: I recently found myself wanting to replace my iPad Mini 2. It's around four years old and starting to become sluggish enough to be frustrating. Given the incredibly low price of Amazon tablets on Prime Day, I decided to take a risk and try out the Kindle Fire HD 8. Below are my impressions... Continue Reading →