So Your Home Printer Just Ran Out of Ink . . .

Home printing and printers are the bane of my existence.  I’m very spoiled.  My employer is a large law firm.  Law firms excel at killing trees (i.e. printing reams and reams and reams of paper).  I’ve had access to exceptional printers (actually the modern-day term is ‘multi-function device’ or MFD for short) for decades.  Of course, the flip side to this is I hate printed materials.  I don’t want to store them, file them, fold them, dust them, move them, etc.  You can’t search for a printed item like you can an electronic copy.  So a piece of paper is of no use to me whatsoever.  My husband, however, is not so enlightened.  Neither are most of my relatives, none of whom have followed me into the realm of paperless nirvana.

Continue reading “So Your Home Printer Just Ran Out of Ink . . .”

Windows 10? Here are privacy issues you should consider

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/07/29/wind-nos/

More and more reasons to try or switch to Linux.  Beware of Windows 10 “Free” upgrade … it will only cost your privacy.

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Article: Google executives explain why the MBA approach to building things is ‘stupid’

Google executives explain why the MBA approach to building things is ‘stupid’

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/06/google-executives-explain-why-the-mba-approach-to-building-things-is-stupid/

Expect the unexpected.

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Article: Virtual desktops don’t replace EMM

Virtual desktops don’t replace EMM

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/18/virtual-desktops-dont-replace-emm/

The firm I work for does both MDM and VDI. That’s the nature of IT support in legal firms. Access whenever wherever and however but still securely.

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Internet traffic jams are widespread in the US, and are probably about to get a lot worse | The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/31/7138449/m-lab-netflix-comcast-verizon-isp-business-dispute-congestion-traffic-interconnection

ISP interconnection has a substantial impact on consumer internet performance –sometimes a severely negative impact — and that business relationships between ISPs, and not major technical problems, are at the root of the problems we observed.

An interesting study with an intriguing conclusion.

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Article: Windows 10 Technical Preview Gives Microsoft New Shocking Spying Privileges

Windows 10 Technical Preview Gives Microsoft New Shocking Spying Privileges

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/10/06/windows-10-spying/

Wow!  Yet another reason I prefer open source operating systems.

Be very wary of M$ OS 10 and read your EULAs and Privacy Agreements very carefully.

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NPR: Forgotten Female Programmers Who Created Modern Tech

 But every time you write on a computer, play a music file or add up a number with your phone’s calculator, you are using tools that might not exist without the work of these women.

— Laura Sydell, The Forgotten Female Programmers Who Created Modern Tech, NPR, October 6, 2014

Article: How to protect yourself against hackers (or at least make it difficult for them)

How to protect yourself against hackers (or at least make it difficult for them)

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/03/protect-hackers-least-make-difficult/

My good deed for the day: providing the link above to you and asking you to take note.

Better safe than sorry.

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Why the federal court record system PACER is so broken, and how to fix it — Tech News and Analysis

http://gigaom.com/2014/08/27/why-the-federal-court-record-system-pacer-is-so-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/

So what happened? Why has the federal courts’ IT system stagnated despite more money? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that the money has gone elsewhere.

Bureaucracies and budgets … if there is money unspent in one at the end of the year …

The bottom line is that fixing PACER is not a technological challenge, but a political one, and technology has yet to solve the problem of getting the politically powerful to focus on the right things at the same time.

I admin a lot of weird one-off applications where I work.  Last week, PACER dropped into my lap as a direct result of the upgrade mentioned in the article above. I can attest to the very dated interface. In fact I probably hadn’t seen PACER in over a decade and it looked and acted just as it did back then. I have never understood how this system is allowed to charge anyone fees because all the information it contains is public information. Compare to NASA which makes an incredible amount of information available for everyone – researchers and citizens – easily accessible and free.

Article: Women In Tech: It’s Not Just A Pipeline Problem

Women In Tech: It’s Not Just A Pipeline Problem

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/23/just-another-white-dude-writing-about-diversity/

Maybe, just maybe, a perception of the tech industry as a toxic environment for women has had something to do with that decline. Maybe the pipeline problem is not independent of the trapdoor problem.

Just what I needed to read before I subject myself back into my own work environment after a four day weekend.

My trapdoor is just a trap.  The door part appears to be jammed.

And on that cheery note … Happy Monday morning!

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