Yesterday, I received an e-mail notice of yet another change to Facebook’s privacy policy and finally decided to pull the trigger on something I’d been itching to do for a little while. Around mid-day, I posted the following status update… Once again, I’m reducing my presence on Facebook and trimming the Friends List. If you find…
8 Questions to Ask When Starting Your Meetup Group
Updated July 29, 2019 Introduction Unlike much of social media, sites such as Meetup.com and EventBrite actually focus on bringing people together in person and helping them find other like-minded people they might never have met otherwise. These sites provide a set of tools that make it easy for you to bring a group of…
HDMI to VGA: Using your VGA monitor on your HDMI laptop
Looks like the trusty old VGA interface is on its way out and while you’ll still see legacy systems and devices using this 25 year old standard for monitor connections, the newer laptops and computers are starting to pass on VGA connectors in favor of HDMI which, among its other benefits, allows for thinner devices. When I bought…
Finally! Stop Facebook Videos from Playing Automatically …
A few months ago, Facebook introduced that “cool” new feature where videos your friends posted would automatically start playing as soon as you scrolled to them on your newsfeed. I don’t know why they thought this was a good idea or if it was part of their philosophy that people are incapable of choosing what…
Tech humor can be really hit and miss …
… but this made my day. OH: QA Engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a sfdeljkn — Edial Dekker (@edial) September 23, 2014
StarTech USB to VGA Review / Windows 8.1 Display Issue
A few months ago, I purchased the StarTech USB to VGA adapter for my system. I got tired of the single display and going with a USB adapter was a lot easier than modifying the computer itself to support two displays. Going by the reviews on Amazon, I decided on the USB32VGAEH model which supports USB 3.0,…
Learning a New Language Online
Learning a new language has always been a challenging task whether you’re satisfying a class requirement in school, moving to a new country or adding a new language for work or recreation. The fact is that we take years to become proficient with our first languages from the time we’re learning to recognize language as…
Favorite Android Apps – Hi-Q MP3 Recorder
One of the many advantages of carrying an all-in-one device like a smartphone is the ability to record notes to myself, whether it’s short reminders or dictation of study notes. A device with some storage space can even store longer recordings including lectures and meetings. The old micro-cassette recorders and other voice recording technologies have…
Covert Redirect bug (OAuth / OpenID) – What you need to know …
“… it’s not easy to fix, and any effective remedies would negatively impact the user experience. Just another example that Web security is fundamentally broken and the powers that be have little incentive to address the inherent flaws.” – Jeremiah Grossman, founder and interim CEO at WhiteHat Security If you visit a lot of different websites, you’ve…
Getting Started in Software Development: Part IV – Long Term Strategy
In the last chapter, I talked about some of the current options when it comes to getting started in the programming field. I mentioned several development tools that you can get familiar with to decide what path you want to take as a software developer but getting started is only half the battle. As I…