Two days wasted thanks to Asus ROG Armoury Crate

I’m recording this in case it happens to others. Yesterday, Windows 11 began to hang. Not in the traditional sense where everything froze. I had about a minute where things worked. I could open Vivaldi and Eudora, and within those I could still do some things. Eudora was pretty stable, which is a sign of […]

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Farewell to Universal Media Server, hello Plex Media Server

After many years, I’ve had to remove Universal Media Server. I used v. 6.3.1 for many years and I see that was launched in 2016. I know that wasn’t the first year I began using the program, so I could well have had some form installed for the last decade. I stuck with v. 6.3.1 […]

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Panos: My Life, My Odyssey wins commendation at Business Book Awards 2023

I might not have made it to London for the Business Book Awards 2023, but my mug did, as Panos: My Life, My Odyssey won a Highly Commended in the Business Journey category. The organizers were kind enough to include me on the screen as Panos picked up the prize for his autobiography. It was […]

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Bing Chat doesn’t pull from web page content—according to Bing Chat

I had a bit of fun with Bing Chat last week, during which I got it to admit that when it searches the Bing index, it does not look at the content of the web pages. Bing Chat says it only has access to the snippet, URL and date.     Of course, it lies, […]

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Generation Z has the right idea with flip phones and digital cameras

  This may be a source of comedy on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but to me it’s obvious why young people are opting for flip phones and digital cameras. They’re smart enough to think: why should I have a device that’s addictive and wastes my time? Why should I spend time on websites […]

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Latest podcast; and both Twitter and Facebook appear to be down on IFTTT

I had recorded an earlier podcast but deemed it too controversial; instead, here’s something I uploaded to Anchor last week on the day Paul O’Grady passed away. It’s a little tribute to him (and Lily Veronica Mae Savage). There’s a little bit about a racist builder, and I conclude with the Business Book Awards. No, […]

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Your preferences mean nothing to Google or Microsoft

I could just repeat my post from January 26. Let’s face it, Google is a notorious spammer, with a failing search engine, and an advertising business that’s a decent negligence lawsuit away from collapsing. It was 2011 when I showed everyone that your opt-out settings in Google Ads Preferences Manager were meaningless. Today, your email […]

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Why we’ve dropped Disqus, and the shenanigans of the online ad world

When I first signed up to Disqus, there was the option to have no ads. But with Lucire we allowed them, because I figured, why not? Disqus’s rules were pretty clear: you’d earn money on the ads shown, and once you got to US$100, they’d pay out. The trouble is those ads made so little […]

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Here’s hoping Yuzo Related Posts v. 6 does the trick

When we put our sites on a new server last year, one Wordpress plug-in we retained, despite a known exploit, was Yuzo Related Posts. Basically, nothing else could do related posts as well. It just worked. Everything else, inexplicably, either did not do post relationships terribly well, was too resource-heavy, or was too ugly, Fortunately, […]

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An introduction to smart TVs for a complete novice

Earlier in December, we decided to put a TV into our guest room. One catch: there is no aerial there, so initially we thought, ‘We have some great DVDs, let’s plug in the DVD player.’ But it didn’t quite feel right. We’ve stayed at enough places with smart TVs, including some running the Android TV […]

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