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MOVE OVER DOT COM, MAKE ROOM FOR DOT FAMILY
There were 900 unique websites in 1995, 20 million in 2000 and now there are more than 120 million. You may have noticed that they’re not all “dot com.” Common endings include “.org,” “.net,” and...
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COUNTING THE WAZE
We were in a Lyft taxi the other day when the driver voiced a familiar complaint: Mapping apps rarely give you a straight shot to your destination. Both Google Maps and “Waze,” which is free for...
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I DREAM OF GENIE IN A HOCKEY PUCK
Amazon Echo Dot The “Amazon Echo Dot” is a small $50 box with a genie named Alexa. You ask her to play music, and she plays music. You ask about the weather, she tells you the weather. She even tells...
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A WORD TO THE FRUGAL
A reader wrote to say his copy of Microsoft Office failed and the Microsoft Help Desk suggested he buy a new copy for $150. Of course they would, but …. no need to do that; freebies abound....
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THE RIGHT BROWSER
Which is the safest way to browse the web: Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox? According to the blog “How to Geek,” Edge has a slight edge. Many say Firefox has the last word on privacy...
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SLOW WEB
Recently, we wrote about websites that hog your computer’s resources and slow down your world. We dug in and found that our own chief culprit was one of our favorite sites, Techlicious.com. Later we...
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WI-FI BLUES
A reader wrote us to say he’s barely able to connect to the Internet wirelessly, even though his phone is just 20 feet away from his AT&T router. Two bars is the best he gets. We told him to call...
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THE REAL MCCOY
We have a reader named McCoy, and he maintains that he is “The Real McCoy” (accept no substitutes). Well, we believe him and he has some good tips, which we will pass along a little further down the...
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FUN WITH WEBSITE NAMES
We learned some interesting things about websites. For example, the minimum length for a website ending, which refers to the site’s “domain,” is two letters. There are more than one billion web sites...
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SEE IT LATER
Pressed for time or feeling sleepy? “Pocket” is a free app for saving articles and pictures to look at later. The app is available for Windows, Macs, phones and tablets. That’s everything but...
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AT THE OPERA
A reader told us she’s tired of being tracked. We suggest using the new Opera web browser. It’s free and you can get it from Opera.com. Once on board you will have a built-in “Virtual Private Network,”...
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STAY CALM AND SNUGGLE DOWN
Cozy up and get under the covers. “Calm,” is an app for your computer or phone and helps you fall asleep by telling you bedtime stories or providing music, nature sounds, and meditation lessons. We...
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REMOTE CONTROL
EAST NARRAGANSETT BAY, Courtesy of National Geographic Sometimes you need to access your computer from a galaxy far, far away. Or at least from the beach. We used to like TeamViewer, but it got too...
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THE WEB
What’s on the web? Everything. Without buying an antenna or paying for a subscription to Netflix, Hulu or Sling TV, all you need is an Internet connection. Out there on the cosmic web are tons of...
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BUILD YOUR OWN
We remember when personal computers first came out. You could build them yourself if you were savvy. That’s what Michael Dell did way back when. He sold them to other college students and the business...
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THEIR ART ON YOUR TV
We downloaded our favorite paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, which just made over 52,000 works from its collection available in high resolution. Then we put them on our TV and cycled through...
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WHO’S ANONYMOUS?
Many readers have written to rave about the search engine “DuckDuckGo,” because it promises privacy as you search the web. But we learned that it’s only partially private. DuckDuckGo itself doesn’t...
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DOWNWARD-FACING DOGPILE
A reader says he’s used the “Dogpile” search engine instead of Google for many years, but now it’s not working. We say drop it. Our research shows there’s a Dogpile hijacker that looks like the real...
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BEST SLIDESHOW MAKER
Slideshows are one of those things that can drive us nuts.We’re always forgetting how we did it last time. When we look up instructions, we often get something that is no longer available in Windows....
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SEEING ALL
Every time Joy tests a product on Bob’s computer, something goes out of whack. Recently, she used Windows “recovery options” to restore it. Uh oh. Suddenly, the bookmarks bar in Chrome was too tiny to...
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