Add Google Maps Driving Directions to Your Website

A free -- and difficult -- New Year's resolution

"Imagine that after a routine medical exam your doctor delivers some devastating news: Since your last checkup your cognitive performance has plummeted. Your ability to connect with others has eroded. And your memory for everyday events is no longer operating as it once did. But as it turns out, there is a cure and it won't cost you a penny. The treatment is simple. Would you follow the doctor's advice? All that's required is that you put away your smartphone."

Eliminate unwanted email subscriptions

How to Find Your Lost Windows or Office Product Keys

"If you’re planning on doing a reinstall of Windows but can’t find your product key, you’re in luck because it’s stored in the Windows Registry… it’s just not easy to find, and it’s impossible to read without some help. Luckily, we’re here to help."

20 Creative Alarm Clocks Guaranteed To Help You Rise And Shine In The New Year

"If your New Years resolutions include trying to be earlier to bed and earlier to rise, these alarm clocks might finally be the key to getting you out of bed to face 2015."

Why You Should Friend Your Child on Facebook

"For parents who already email, text, and call their children frequently, the occasional Facebook message might only serve to improve communication."

How Laws Restricting Tech Actually Expose Us to Greater Harm

"As things stand, the law requires that computing devices be designed to sometimes disobey their owners, so that their owners won't do something undesirable. To make this work, we also have to criminalize anything that might help owners change their computers to let the machines do that supposedly undesirable thing."

Seven Alternatives to Google Image Search - Comparison Chart

"This chart is designed to provide a quick overview and comparison of good sources of images for students' slideshows and other multimedia projects."

10 Diseases That Might Afflict Us In The Future

"It's impossible to know which pathogens will afflict us in the future, but by looking at technological and social trends, we can make some educated guesses about the kinds of diseases and disorders that are likely to emerge."

How to be a moral internet citizen on the often-immoral internet

"From stolen celebrity photos to leaked domestic-violence videos, we are more tempted than ever to sneak glimpses of others' private lives. When is it okay to look?"

Video Usability article for web developers

"Summary: Video content is helpful only if users have control over it, understand what’s contained within it, and have an alternate way to access it."

Algorithms Are Great and All, But They Can Also Ruin Lives

"A single human showing explicit bias can only ever affect a finite number of people. An algorithm, on the other hand, has the potential to impact the lives of exponentially more."

Hacker Lexicon: What Is the Dark Web? | WIRED

"The Dark Web isn’t particularly vast, it’s not 90% percent of the Internet, and it’s not even particularly secret. "

How to Use OpenDNS on Your Router (entire network), PC, Tablet, or Smartphone

How to Upgrade to a New Android Phone and Take Everything with You

Wi-fi adapters that work with Linux

I rehab old computers that have XP/Vista on them and could still be useful. For some reason the Dell wireless cards found in many laptops do not work well with Linux, so I've been on the lookout for a USB wi-fi adapter that works well. The TP-Link TL-WN722N works flawlessly, installs without any comment in Zorin, Mint, etc.
That one sticks out a fair bit, so I use a short USB extension cable and tape it to the back of the laptop's lid.
I also discovered that the TP-LINK TL-WN725N  works just as well, and because its nano size will work better for laptops because it doesn't stick out so far. Not only did it install without an issue, but from two rooms away from the 802.11G router it got maximum download speeds as tested by http://speedof.me .

This Is Why Your Wi-Fi Is Always Slow

"It’s one of the most common complaints to internet service providers and the scourge of people in both rural and urban areas."

SpeedOf.Me, HTML5 Speed Test

"SpeedOf.Me is an HTML5 Internet speed test. No Flash or Java needed! It is the smartest and most accurate online bandwidth test. It works well on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows 8 and other mobile devices, as well as desktop computers."

Google Launches Software Removal and Browser Reset Tool for Chrome

"Google recently launched a new tool in the fight against crapware and spyware, and it’s an excellent start to helping clean up a computer that has been infected with nonsense like the Ask Toolbar."

Us vs. Them: What’s Wrong With You People?

"Internet, we need to talk. In a nuanced, thoughtful, intelligent way. I don’t want this to turn into some kind of knee-jerk confrontation. But it will, won’t it? "

Put Down Your Phone Before Your Life Passes You By

"We are so consumed by our phones and social networks we are losing out on actual life. Put down your phone. Log off. And go live your life!"

8 Tips to Improve Your WiFi Network Performance

"But if you want faster speeds, more reliable performance, or to just get more use out of your network, try the following eight tips."

Goodbye home address

"What3Words (W3W) believes it has found a solution. The start-up, co-founded last year by Sheldrick, divides the entire world into a grid of three meter by three meter squares -- 57 trillion of them in total. Each square has been labeled with a three word sequence."

Three Essential Steps to Make Yourself More Hack-Proof

"These three simple tips will go a long way toward helping you avoid having a hacker rifling through your files."

10 Horrifying Technologies That Should Never Be Allowed To Exist

"As we head deeper into the 21st century, we're starting to catch a glimpse of the fantastic technological possibilities that await. But we're also starting to get a grim sense of the potential horrors. Here are 10 frightening technologies that should never, ever, come into existence."

Big Telecom vs. The World | Stop the Internet Slow Down

 "Big Telecom conglomerates are about to force many of your favourite websites into an Internet slow lane, making them buffer sporadically, and return errors."

Don’t Look: Beheadings, Stolen Nudes and Choosing to Be Decent

"It’s about something less grandiose than evil, less widely discussed–but at least as important: decency. Decency, at least a very big part of it, is knowing that you are permitted to do a thing–it’s physically possible, it’s not illegal, no one can stop you–yet you shouldn’t anyway."

The Metro hater's guide to Windows 8.1

"If you've got no use for the Start screen and Metro-style apps, I have some good news for you. Windows 8.1 has a handful of interface tweaks you can make that will put the Windows desktop back in charge. "

Also: Classic Shell

Mom Creates App That Prevents Her Teens from Using Their Phones Until They Call Her

“War and Peace” tortured me: Facebook, email and the neuroscience of always being distracted

"I can tell you absolutely that everyone who thinks they’re good at multitasking is wrong. We know that in fact it’s those who think they’re good at multitasking who are the least productive when they multitask."

Tech maintenance tasks everyone forgets about, but really shouldn't

"With so many tech devices in our lives these days, it's important to stay on top of maintenance that needs to be done periodically on your Windows computer and other devices to keep things running smoothly."

Being a Better Online Reader

"What was going on with these students and professionals? Was the digital format to blame for their superficial approaches, or was something else at work?"

Web Design: Icon Usability

"A user’s understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. Due to the absence of a standard usage for most icons, text labels are necessary to communicate the meaning and reduce ambiguity."

Fixing a sticky-sided Microsoft mouse

I like Microsoft mice. My current one is part of the Microsoft Wireless Desktop 2000 which is an inexpensive wireless mouse and keyboard. However, it is getting sticky, as in tacky, on the sides, where I hold it. I had thought it was just dirty, but in looking around on the internet I see that many others have this issue (also with products from other manufacturers), and that it's really the breakdown of the rubberized paint used on the devices. 

I had a Lenovo keyboard at work that had this rubber surface on the wrist rest, and it was just becoming uncomfortable to use because it felt icky.  I tried cleaning it with strong (91%) rubbing alcohol, but that made it way worse, so much so that I threw the keyboard away.

There are many pieces of advice out there to sand such surfaces, or use Goo-Gone, or melamine sponges etc. to remove the rubberized surface. Then I read, in a couple of places, the recommendation to use Armor All (the car stuff) on the surfaces. I decided to do that because it was non-destructive: I sprayed some Armor All on a microfiber cloth and polished the mouse with it, twice, and it has helped a lot. If it doesn't last long I'll probably try the Goo-Gone to strip away the rubber coating, take it down to plain smooth plastic.

bad design of web form

I just had to check if a couple of Lenovo Thinkpad batteries qualified for replacement under the recent recall. I couldn't use the automatic software scan, so had to go to https://lenovobattery2014.orderz.com/ and enter the info.
Issues:

• after entering the long (and hard to read) battery serial number, 22 characters of some squished-down sans-serif font where the C was almost identical to these old eyes as an O, I also had to enter the machine type and serial number. Why, because the battery might work okay in a different machine? Even if they did need the machine info, wouldn't the serial number suffice (because it would indicate the machine type as well)? 
• I kept getting messages that the serial number and  product number were invalid. Finally figure it out after looking stupid in front of a coworker: even though the label on the computer and the help page for the form both have dashes in the values (such as a machine type of AB-1234), the form won't accept that data unless you leave out the dash. !!! The easiest thing, requiring maybe 2 lines of code, would be to strip dashes out of the input; but the *least* they could have done was provide instructions to leave those out.
• After successfully removing the dashes myself, I get: "Invalid Barcode: A valid barcode has 22 characters, begins with ‘11s’. The letters "I", "O", and "Q" are invalid. Please check the battery label and try again.". A properly-designed serial/product number would not even have confusable numbers in the first place. And indeed, the problem was an O that should be an 0, and that zero was in the middle of letters.

I wonder how many people had trouble with, or couldn't even use this form, because of these issues.

Windows 8.1 Guide: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

WiFi - Neatorama

 "Julian Smith brings us a sketch about what happens when the WiFi goes out."

How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

How to Disappear (almost) Completely: a practical guide

How to Disappear (almost) Completely: a practical guide: "... let's take a (tongue-in-cheek) look at how you can take some first steps toward undoing the digital ties that bind, and get a little closer to the exit door."

Crappy Netflix Playback? Here’s How to Test Your Streaming Speed | Gadget Lab | WIRED

Crappy Netflix Playback? Here’s How to Test Your Streaming Speed

Minecraft Guide: Getting Started with Minecraft

Minecraft Guide: Getting Started with Minecraft

You're Worrying About GMOs For the Wrong Reasons

You're Worrying About GMOs For the Wrong Reasons: "Scientists have demonstrated that genetically modified organisms have no measurable negative impacts on human health. Indeed, they may hold the key to feeding a world impacted by climate change. But does this mean GMOs are completely without risk? Nope. Here are some good reasons to be concerned."

Solar FREAKIN' Roadways! - YouTube

Solar FREAKIN' Roadways! - YouTube:

We need to get the price down and the tech in place to make this happen.

How do You Find the Original Source of an Image?

How do You Find the Original Source of an Image?: "What do you do when you have an awesome image that you downloaded long ago, but are unable to remember the website you found it on? "

Use Google Scholar to search for answers from published science

The internet is a vast and wonderful place, and although everyone has the freedom to say whatever they want there, this is also something that should make us cautious. For example: I remember hearing that sourdough bread is better for diabetics than regular bread or even 100% whole wheat bread, because the fermentation process of "proofing" the bread changes the starches so that they take longer to be digested, resulting in less of a spike to blood sugar (which diabetics are forever trying to manage).

I found lots of info on the topic, alongside claims that it also helps with the gut biome (because the probiotics survive the baking process? I think not), so I was hoping to find a trustworthy, rigorously tested affirmation.

Then I remembered Google Scholar, a subset of the Google search engine that only provides results from published scientific/scholarly studies, books, etc. The resulting search did indeed validate what I had heard.

• specific help for effective searches
• you can't always get to the full article of an item, but in many cases the abstract presented provides a nice overview of the information that will be enough
• can sometimes be hard to read, because many studies are written by scientists for scientists

A note on sourdough bread: it is difficult to find true sourdough bread, the sourdough bread sold in most stores and even bakeries is instead just soured bread: regular bread with acids and other flavoring agents added to give the taste of a sourdough without the other benefits. The only place I have found locally that produces real sourdough bread is The Old World Bakery in Bay City. They use a starter that they've proudly kept going for over 9 years. Update: Panera Bread also make a real sourdough bread , a nice regular-sized loaf, and you can order it online and choose your slicing width and just go pick it up at the local store.

The secret eyes watching you shop

The secret eyes watching you shop: "Most Americans don't even know that data brokers exist, let alone that they collect and trade a staggering amount of our personal data. Brokers operate invisibly, buying and selling data about us without interacting directly with us."

Audio/video web content manifesto

"Brothers and sisters, we deserve better than this, and those whom we write for deserve better. This is not what we built the web for! For the first time in human history, you can have anything you write read by millions of people, whether within days or within hours, and all it takes is talent, imagination and the discipline to put up something worth reading. There are no obstacles anymore - so why must we create new ones?" Link

How to Tell if An Android App is Potentially Dangerous

How to Tell if An Android App is Potentially Dangerous: "Google doesn’t manually approve apps like Apple does, but they do scan apps in the Google Play Store for malware. Permissions, reviews, and other reputation information can also tell us a lot."

use multiple cell phones via single (multi-handset) home phone system

This phone system [link] lets you use cell phones with a multi-handset cordless home phone system. As described by someone I work with:

"At our house we dropped the home phone because already had 2 different cells in the house.

But, for convenience, got a combo cordless phone/answering machine with cell phone integration.  For example, Panasonic makes a base station with 3, 4, or 5 cordless handsets – that gets a cordless phone in each major room…. Plus an answering machine.  The Panasonic also integrates up to 3 cell phones with Bluetooth.

So you come home, put your cell phone near the base station for charging.  It ties in via bluetooth.   If a phone call comes in, all the cordless phones ring.  And it is a distinctive ring to differentiate one cell from another.  So dad’s ringtone in the house is different than the ringtone for mom.  Placing a phone call is easy too, when you pick up a cordless, it will go out on cell #1.  If you hit Flash 2, then it goes out on cell #2 and so on."

Internet Citizens: DEFEND NET NEUTRALITY

Internet Citizens: DEFEND NET NEUTRALITY [Video]: "Listen as CGP Grey gives a simple explanation on what net neutrality is and tells us why we all need to defend it."

What Can Men Do?

What Can Men Do?: "There is no mythical men's club where it is OK to be a jerk to women. If you see any behavior that gives you pause, behavior that makes you wonder "is that OK?", behavior that you'd be uncomfortable with directed toward your sister, your wife, your daughter – speak up. "

Acceledent Frequently Asked Questions

This device can cut your braces/Invisalign treatment time in half, by just vibrating your teeth 20 minutes a day. Many people also report it helps lessen pain after a braces adjustment or new Invisalign tray.

Seven new rules for interacting with technology.

Seven new rules for interacting with technology.: "I propose that we adhere to the following seven theses as a guide to our interactions with technology."

Windows XP Support Ends Today: Here’s How to Switch to Linux

Windows XP Support Ends Today: Here’s How to Switch to Linux: "Not only is desktop Linux more powerful and feature-complete than ever, the operating system you use matters less than ever. With more software becoming web-based, Linux is on a more even footing with Windows and Mac OS X."

How to Download Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 Installation Media — Legally

How to Download Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 Installation Media — Legally: "You can reinstall Windows from scratch using the product key that came with your PC, but you’ll have to find installation media yourself. Microsoft offers free Windows ISO files — if you know where to look."

Windows 7 does not go to sleep

Windows 7 does not go to sleep: Microsoft's suggestions for what to do if your computer won't go to sleep, or wakes up unexpectedly while asleep.

What’s Draining Your Android Battery?

What’s Draining Your Android Battery? "Once you've identified the culprits, chances are you can extend your phone's battery life by changing some settings and taking a couple of steps to conserve battery power. "

Software engineer starts two-factor authentication directory

Software engineer starts two-factor authentication directory: "A quick and easy way to see which companies support it and which don't."

Is Facebook going to hit its 'breakpoint'?

Is Facebook going to hit its 'breakpoint'?: "In any system continuous growth is impossible. Everything reaches a breakpoint. The real question is how the system responds to this breakpoint."

5 Free Ways to Identify that Song Stuck in Your Head

5 Free Ways to Identify that Song Stuck in Your Head: "Getting a tune stuck in your head and not being able to identify it, or hearing the best song ever and not knowing who it is by, are two of the most annoying things that plague human kind. To help you out of such musical dilemmas, we've pulled together a handy list of resources that can help you out, and all for gratis."

What You Need to Know About iPhone and iPad Backups

What You Need to Know About iPhone and iPad Backups: "Your iPhone or iPad automatically backs up to your iCloud account by default, but you can also create more comprehensive, local backups from iTunes. Apple only offers 5 GB of iCloud space for free, so you may need to manage your iCloud backups."

Choosing a Secure Password

Choosing a Secure Password - Boing Boing: "As insecure as passwords generally are, they're not going away anytime soon. Every year you have more and more passwords to deal with, and every year they get easier and easier to break. You need a strategy."

To which I propose a modest change: have one good password be your LastPass password, and let LastPass take care of providing the rest of your accounts with very long complex passwords.

App-pocalypse Now

App-pocalypse Now: "... it's amazing how quickly we went from "Cool! Phone apps that finally don't suck!" to this sad, eye rolling, oh-great-of-course-you-have-an-app-too state of affairs."

My recommended Google Chrome extensions

If you use Google Chrome, or are thinking of trying it, be aware of these extensions, which I have found useful:

• Adblock Plus:
  Removes annoying, obtrusive advertising from web pages, but allows unobtrusive advertising. I know, I know, advertising is what keeps the web mostly free, but sometimes it gets to be too much. You can choose to unblock advertising on specific sites, which I have chosen to do on many sites that I like and visit regularly; you can also choose to block specific ad elements.
• Antisocial:
  "This extension blocks social plugins and widgets from loading, as they can (and do) slow down the loading of sites that they are used on. Antisocial was born out of my annoyance at visiting sites and trying to scroll, click a link, etc., only to find that the Chrome was either locked up or slowed to a crawl as these social widgets were loading."
•  BlogThis:
  "Adds a BlogThis! button to the browser toolbar, which lets you post to your Blogger blog from any webpage with just one click."
• And I'm using the following start page/new tab page on different computers:
  Bookmark Home Page:
  "a starting page displaying all your bookmarks in a two list tree view."
  Minimal New Tab:
  "... displays bookmarks from Bookmarks Bar and number of new messages in Gmail (including Google Apps)" and does so without favicons; nice simple start/new tabpage.
• Checker Plus for GMail:
  "Get desktop notifications [even when the Chrome browser isn't open], read, listen, archive or delete emails without opening a Gmail tab & easily manage multiple accounts"
• Email This Page (by Google)
  "...adds an email button to the toolbar which allows you to email the page link using your default mail client or Gmail."
• Extensions Update Notifier
  "Google Chrome Extensions are auto-updated. This is cool, no doubt about it, but how do you know when an extension is updated? You don't until you install this extension." This is important, given the recent revelations that extensions may be purchased by the bad people that want to use them to spread adware/malware.
• Gestures for Google Chrome:
  Mouse gestures are great for surfing with more efficiency. I use this to basically open links in new tabs by dragging and dropping them, and closing pages by drawing a simple two-line shape with my mouse. This extension is one of the few I could find that hasn't converted over to doing bad things (as of this writing)
• LastPass
  The best and most secure password manager out there. Now it *is* possible to have good an unique passwords for all web sites, and this will manage them for you. You only have to remember the one master password. It also supports a fingerprint reader that my work laptop uses.
• Magic Actions for YouTube
  Automatically makes YouTube videos larger and in HD, and cuts ads; many other options
• Neat Bookmarks
  Easy access to bookmarks: search them, open whole bunches of them at a time (for example, I have morning and evening folders with many bookmarks that I open with just a few clicks). Note: this one is clean, I switched to it when the other one, with I think the same name, started injecting it's own advertising all over web pages.
• Personal Blocklist (by Google)
  "Blocks domains/hosts from appearing in your Google search results." For example: I use it to block tech support sites that show the question but hide the answers until you sign up/pay.
• Remove Google Redirects
  "Google adds redirection to all shared links to learn what links you click. This extension removes Google's redirection from all products of Google to protect your privacy & to prevent click tracking. The advantage is, shared links will load faster as they are no longer passed to Google for redirection."
• To Be Read Pro
  If you land on a web page that is too long to read now, or has a recipe you want to save for later, this extension will save it in a list for later perusal.

Why You Could Have To Pay More For Online Gaming Soon

Why You Could Have To Pay More For Online Gaming Soon: "Thanks to a D.C. court ruling earlier this week, we could be facing a future of selective data capping and Internet price gouging, and that's scarier than any other trend in gaming today. This could be the most important issue of this console generation for American gamers (and, really, anyone who uses the Internet)."

10 Things You Need to Know About Windows 8.1

10 Things You Need to Know About Windows 8.1: "This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it will help you get to grips with Windows 8.1 and locate the settings you may be looking for — especially if they’ve moved since Windows 7 or 8."

The End of Ownership: Why You Need to Fight America's Copyright Laws

The End of Ownership: Why You Need to Fight America's Copyright Laws: "Welcome to the brave new world of copyright. If you want to truly own what you buy, you’ll have to fight for those rights — because they are disappearing."

Google Image Search makes it easier to sort results by licensing rights

Google Image Search makes it easier to sort results by licensing rights: "Perfect for bloggers in a hurry (cough) or anyone looking to whip up an image for a new meme, it can pick out images labeled for reuse, reuse with modification, or commercial variants of either."

Microsoft Safety Scanner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Microsoft Safety Scanner: "Microsoft Safety Scanner is a free disposable virus scanner similar to Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool that can be used to scan a system for computer viruses and other forms of malware."

Web Pages: Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability

Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability | Nielsen Norman Group: "Summary: The total cognitive load, or amount of mental processing power needed to use your site, affects how easily users find content and complete tasks"

Should You Buy a Chromebook?

HTG Explains: Should You Buy a Chromebook?: "Chromebooks are becoming more and more popular, with recent reports indicating that Chromebooks captured about 10% of all desktop, notebook, and tablet sales in the US in 2013. But how good are Chromebooks, really? Should you buy one, too?"