Why I hate emojis

:: rant, computers

I have often voiced disdain for emojis, and my unhappiness that they are taking an ever-growing section of the Unicode space. Let me tell you why.

configuration tips

:: introductory, technical, computers

As an avid computer configurator, I want to share some tips about how to effectively customize and keep track of your configuration. I want to highlight the different types of configuration needs that exist, and suggest some good ways of managing them.

pc bios or why smartphones are lame

:: introductory, computers, bios, smart-devices

Today, let me tell you a story about the PC BIOS. Or, why smartphones are lame. I will explain to you why the PC BIOS (and its successor, EFI or UEFI, which I will treat as equivalent for this post) is awesome, and why systems lacking something like a BIOS are lame (generally so-called “smart” devices).

what are package managers

:: introductory, computers, package-management

What are package managers? It is very important for sane, safe, and reliable computing. Yet most computer users don’t know what package managers are. Windows doesn’t have one (well, there are some third party ones that nobody knows about or uses), and this may be one of the biggest reasons people I know still get malware. In this post I hope to explain what they are, what they accomplish, and why you should use one.

So here are some common scenarios I see:

1 - Suzy has installed some programs such as anything from Adobe (particularly Flash), something that required the Java runtime, and various other third party programs for Windows. Every time she boots her computer, it slows down so each of these can phone home, check for and maybe download updates, and pester her with notifications that each of these things needs to be updated. What a pain! Package managers fix this.

new year

::

So I’m going to actually start my blog this year. Here’s the first post.