Posted on July 27th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
Have you heard of Linux? It’s a version of Unix developed by a Finn, Linus Torvalds. But what is Unix? It’s a computer operating system developed by Bell Labs in the 1960s. What was Bell Labs? It was the research arm of Bell Telephone. Bob’s been to the original one in New Jersey. All this is gone now. But we still have Unix. Unix lives on and we all use it just about every day. Every time we put a dot (a period) inside something we type on the computer, like a .com, .org, or .gov, it is a Unix command to go to that location in its memory banks and find what came before the dot. Unix ran the […]
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Filed under: art, free stuff, kids, troubleshooting, video | Comments Off on BACK TO THE PAST
Posted on July 20th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
Until recently, we thought that the only time you need a Virtual Private Network or VPN is when you are using a Wi-Fi connection away from home. The idea is to prevent hackers from breaking in. But you might want that protection at home too. Though hackers likely can’t get in when you’re on your home Wi-Fi, a VPN prevents anyone from seeing the data you transmit over the Internet. That includes your Internet Service Provider, which most likely sells your information to advertisers. When we searched on the phrase: “Does AT&T sell my info?” we got an AT&T form titled “Do Not Sell My Information.” Filling it out would stop the practice. They say they sell it so we […]
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Filed under: email, free stuff, Internuts, security, spam | Comments Off on GOING PRIVATE
Posted on July 13th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
Sometimes we forget to write about programs we’ve known about forever. Here they are now. Our friend Olga is using a notebook to keep track of her day trading. Now she’s more organized than we are. Which isn’t hard to do. But there are programs that make organization easier. Our favorite is Evernote, a free app for your computer, phone, or tablet. It’s been around for 20 years, but gets easier and easier to use. It gives you as many notebooks as you have ideas. They’re displayed in a master index. Joy has an Evernote notebook called “Favorite Recipes.” Though she could use Microsoft Word, Evernote makes it easy to flip through her whole collection, as though it were a […]
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Filed under: apps, business, notes | Comments Off on KEEPING TRACK
Posted on July 6th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
One of the most annoying features of Windows is the sign-in. This is the so-called “default” setting, which is to protect you from someone else using your computer. Of course, you may know that you’re the only person using that computer. But what if someone sneaks into your home in the middle of the night, just so they can watch movie trailers from Netflix? Ah ha! Fortunately, we can save you. To remove the sign-in, go to the search bar in the lower left of your Windows screen, and type the letters “netplwiz” without the quotes. We know that doesn’t make sense but just do it. When it comes up, uncheck the box next to “Users must enter a username […]
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Filed under: Internuts, kids, programming, Windows | Comments Off on DROPPING THE PASSWORD
