When Free Public WiFi Really Isn’t Free

How do you feel when you’re at a public place, like a Starbucks, and you search for a wireless network and you are given a few options, leading you to choose the one that you get as a benefit of being a subscriber.

At this Starbucks in Troy, MI, for instance, I was given the option to choose AT&T’s wireless network that is part of the Starbucks or the XFinity WiFi that must be at a nearby business. For the first time in my life, I chose the XFinity network because I felt it would be more reliable than AT&T’s and I’d be getting some use out of my XFinity account. You have to log into the XFinity network with your XFinity credentials to use the wireless network.

Anyway, long story getting long, I’ll make it short. The network just dropped me after a few minutes. I was in the middle of sending a few emails and an error popped up in Postbox (I still love using that for my Windows e-mail client of choice) saying that the SMTP connection couldn’t be made.

So AT&T, thanks for being more reliable. XFinity, I’m disappointed.

Dropbox adds convenience for business users

We use Dropbox at work and I also use Dropbox personally. Prior to just recently, to use both of my Dropbox accounts, I had to use DropboxPortableAHK alongside the standard Dropbox client (for Windows). It worked about 99.8% as well as I wanted it to. Every now and again, the portable version would get stuck updating itself. I’d have to kill the process and relaunch it.

Now, Dropbox lets business users link their personal account… this makes things much easier. I always like to use the official software with the various services I use in my internet/cloud living.

So if you’ve been wondering about how to use both business and personal accounts, your answer is now officially supported by Dropbox.

Windows XP still at 29% market share

So I’m reading this article over at Ars Technica that talks about how Windows XP is near its end of life for support from Microsoft (April 8). It has all kinds of graphs and charts that say one thing: Microsoft is still winning the OS and browser war. What else it shows is that with only a few weeks left for Windows XP to stop being supported, Microsoft isn’t listening to its customer base. The proof is in the numbers.

Microsoft can’t keep a skeleton crew of engineers and developers together to keep supporting it? I guess that begs the question: When is “enough”, enough?

Side note: In reading another article at Ars Technica, I came across this site that tells the user whether or not they are running Windows XP. I guess I never consider that the MAJORITY of people out there probably don’t know what OS they are running. Am I running XP?

Me, I’m a fairly early-adopter. I’ve slowed down a bit as my having time to fix computer grief is waning as my kids get older and more involved in what used to be “my” free time. Being this early-adopter, however, really didn’t cause me any issues with Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 for my home PC.

So what does that mean? I guess MSFT should kill XP… it’s old. Tired. Or is it?

Tethering the Nexus 5

I recently made the switch from an HTC One that I got back in May, my first Android phone, to the Google Nexus 5.

Why did I do this? There are a few reasons, but one of them was that I wanted to have a phone that ran Google’s most current version of Android without having to go through hoops, like having to unlock my bootloader and install an alternate ROM, like Cyanogenmod 10, and then 11 for KitKat.

I also wanted to be able to use my phone as a hotspot without having to do the activity above, as Cyanogenmod allowed me to tether my phone, as it bypassed any lock my carrier had on this. I have unlimited data and do not want to switch my plan by enabling a shared data plan on my account.

I was looking around the ‘net to see if I could find out how to enable USB Tethering with Windows 7 and ran into this article, which explains how to use your Nexus 5 as a Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot. Rather than writing the article myself, I’ll just share it. 🙂

 

Buried Treasure!

Seriously…the family dog helps you find buried treasure on a walk. Unbelievable. 10M dollars. That’s way cooler than winning the lottery!

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Buried treasure, $10M in gold coins!

What would you do with that kind off treasure? Do you get taxed on something like that?

Me, I’d get out of Dodge and take my family on a cruise around the world and come back and chill out, building an even larger evil empire!

Article at sfgate.com

Interesting to see Ars Technica talk about Blizzard’s Instant 90 coming in WoD

I don’t usually see Ars Technica talking about World of Warcraft. Maybe I’m not looking for it, either. As a person who has 2 level 90s and a handful of toons in the 70s, I find the option to purchase 90s appealing. What I really want Blizzard to do is allow for users to purchase a prorated option for leveling toons to 90. What if I want my level 71 Monk to be 90? Can’t I pay a fraction of that cost?

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