Life as a young man in college can be wild sometimes but one of my greatest memories of peace and tranquility was watching Bob Ross paint on the PBS program, The Joy of Painting. I don't know how I got hooked, but I loved The Joy of Painting from the first time I saw it — Continue reading »
Yahoo Mail Down Again
📆 September 24, 2015
It is hard to say anything positive about Yahoo since Marissa Mayer took over the helm. Useful services (e.g. Pipes) have either been eliminated or are just languishing (e.g. Mail). Today Yahoo Mail is down again. Alibaba's stake hasn't turned out to be the savior it was once deemed. At this point the stakeholders are — Continue reading »
Greece in Turkey
📆 September 4, 2015
On a recent trip to Turkey I was astounded to find amazing Greek ruins in the Pamukkale area. That area is famous for its lime-deposited white hills and travertines, but what I found even more interesting were the Greek ruins beyond the hills and the spring-heads. We sometimes forget how vast the Greek empire was — Continue reading »
Can Jet Beat Amazon?
📆 July 26, 2015
The idea behind Jet, a new online marketplace site, is simple. Borrowing from Costco's concept, Jet charges its clients an annual fee and in return ships products to customers with no mark-ups and in many cases with substantial savings over other shops, including Amazon. Being a Costco fan, I like Jet's model. Add to that — Continue reading »
The Dawn of AWS Zombies
📆 July 22, 2015
One of the less enviable tasks in a techie's life is identifying bogus robot traffic on their networks. Robots suck up bandwidth without giving anything in return and in most cases try to brute-force their way into systems and steal information and then assimilate their target hosts into new recruits in their army of zombie — Continue reading »
Remote Desktop Keyboard Malfunction Solution
📆 July 19, 2015
I connect to the office often via Remote Desktop (RDP) from my Windows 7 machine at home. Most of the time this works fine but sometimes the keyboard goes insane when on the remote machine. A few keys work, some don't work at all, others cause strange behavior like closing windows or randomly opening new — Continue reading »
Craigslist eBay Motors Car Scam
📆 June 27, 2015
I'd been in the market for a used car when a too good price on Craigslist caught my attention. I'd sold a street bike on Craigslist a few years ago and had a good experience so figured to go into this but with raised antennas. An email later, the seller reveals a sob story about the — Continue reading »
Amazon's Windfall of ID Theft and Tax Fraud
📆 June 2, 2015
Seems unbelievable but I never knew some states actually issue tax refunds in the form of Amazon gift cards. Read article. With a long list of companies benefiting from tax refunds including Amazon, debit card issuers, tax software companies and financial institutions that collect transaction fees, one wonders if there is a real concerted effort — Continue reading »
Give a few Sats