The Texas Rangers win the 2023 World Series in 5 games

| November 2, 2023

Both Brenda and I enjoyed the World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks this year. I really didn’t think I was going to get so emotionally involved considering the teams were not ones that I followed through the season … BUT, as with previous October playoff baseball, I did get fired up … […]

Tech Friday: Losing my long time Miami University email, a Google Workspace account and cloud backup storage

| September 29, 2023

Decades ago when I was in graduate school, I taught classes at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio as a GT, I continued to stay connected to the university. As a student I was given an alumni email address (an alias at the time forwarded to another email address) and as part time faculty was granted […]

Google advertising and Gmail, if you believe it (+AI voice)

| April 28, 2023

Do you trust that Google isn’t using your emails to push advertising to you? Personally I’m thinking this might be a “sleight of hand” considering the cookies and the fact you are signed into your Google account and search are used in advertising. Perhaps they aren’t using the content of Gmail to generate advertising, but […]

A Tesla $TSLA mistake: “Don’t try to catch a falling knife”

| December 27, 2022

How many of us who have been trading stocks and investing for decades have ignored the wise advice about buying a stock as it drops? Chart watchers, and maybe investors who have favorite companies, often listen to the conflicting thought from brokers, financial advisors and TV talking heads. We ignore the lessons from our past […]

What to do with an old Amazon Echo Dot? Tear it down.

| December 16, 2022

What “should” a person do when an older piece of tech stops working? Give up? Buy new? Well we have an older first generation Amazon Echo Dot continued to be unreliable in maintaining a WiFi connection to our mesh home network. After several restarts over the last couple of months, full reboots and re-setups, I’ve […]

Tech Friday: Campaign to fix the Apple iMessaging problem

| August 19, 2022

Google and their Android mobile OS platform has a social media campaign running to hopefully get Apple to fix their widely used text messaging app called iMessage. For years now, sending messages between Apple iPhones and other iDevices has frustrated many a users trying to communicate with friends and family. Google would like Apple to […]

Tech Friday: A delay for Google phasing out invasive cookies

| July 29, 2022

A couple of years ago, Google announced that its Chrome Browser would start phasing out their support for “third party tracking cookies.” Users concerned about privacy and data tracking from their web browsing have tried over the years to use add-ons and extensions to block or prevent Chrome from using them. Some of us switch […]

Simple TableSaw or Bandsaw miter jig idea for #Woodworking

| December 28, 2021

As usual, I was late in coming across a simple workshop miter guide for my table saw, although more recently something I needed for my small bandsaw. While working on a Christmas project for my granddaughter, I needed to cut a bunch of small pieces where I didn’t lose so much wood to the table […]

Tech Friday: Surprised at the recent increase in blog traffic

| December 10, 2021

The surprise increase in blog traffic corresponded to my taking a few more security measures such as locking down more of the personal content to only logged in readers … but I’m not sure that had anything to do with increasing earnings? Still, I noticed upward change (more than doubling) of Google Adsense earnings and […]

Tech Friday: Apple Magic Mouse scrolling extension ScrollMaps

| August 13, 2021

Years ago (2015) it was a struggle to get Apple’s Magic Mouse to play nice with Google’s Calendar app. Since I was not the only one who had this problem, I shared a browser extension fix for Chrome that at one time I thought might be just temporarily needed (but it is still needed). It […]

Tech Friday: Switched to "Google Drive for Desktop" on my iMac

| July 9, 2021

For the last few years, I’ve been using Google’s Backup and Sync software on my iMac to back up mostly archival data to my free Google Drive space that was part of my legacy Miami University EDU teaching account. I haven’t taught in Oxford, Ohio for decades, but did spend a few dollars for Taylor’s […]

Tech Friday: How to “shift-click” select multiple emails in Gmail

| July 31, 2020

It has been a while since reviewing the stats of My Desultory Blog, but realized that one Tech Friday post in particular was getting quite a few looks. It is obvious that I’m not the only Apple Macintosh Magic Mouse user to have scrolling issue when using the popular Google Calendar and stopping the infuriating […]

TechFriday: Dropbox paid cloud storage is tough to justify

| June 26, 2020

Besides Google’s less intuitive cloud storage, Dropbox was the first cloud service that I gravitated to “back in the day.”  I’ve posted about them before on TechFriday (2015 comparison) and they are still one of the best cloud storage services for the way I work on computers and devices. Unfortunately over the last few years […]

Tech Friday: Google making its clout felt even on my blog

| June 12, 2020

Regular readers have likely noticed a few “hopefully” discrete ads running on My Desultory Blog. It is a way for me to experiment with ways to help my customers choose or forgo the use advertising services like Google Ads on their sites. For the most part it has been relatively painless (although nothing to retire […]

TechFriday: When shopping online isn’t quite right #humor

| November 15, 2019

  While looking to purchase a can of the highly regarded CRC Heavy Duty Corrosion Inhibitor, the shipping can sometimes become an eye opener. Perhaps Amazon Prime shipping is a good thing? (let’s hope this is an Ace Hardware – Google Shopping glitch?)

Politics and Google – Dr Robert Epstein and Mark Levin #video

| September 12, 2019

No matter your political ideology, everyone who values integrity in our elections and in political campaigns, should be concerned with how information is disseminated and prioritized. Nowadays we depend no a very few sources that we hope are unbiasedly sifting through and helping us search information and news. For the past decade or so we […]

Our new home Internet Mesh network is up and running

| August 14, 2019

Our current NetGear Nighthawk R7000 router has been exceptionally stable considering the issues I’ve had with cheaper routers and networked devices in the past. I’m pretty happy with it, but in order to get solid coverage, had to add a WiFi Range Extender to cover the detached garage and poolhouse (and yet still have weak […]

Tech Friday: How safe is data with cloud storage services?

| August 2, 2019

Even if you don’t regularly using cloud storage services (likely your smartphone is), most of us are at some point backing up data from our computers or using services online that store our data on major cloud storage companies.  I’ve personally had a growing concern over the race for quantum computing which eventually will make […]

Tech Friday: The challenges of policing speech on social media

| July 12, 2019

There are challenges from users and governments facing several of the companies who make money advertising to the millions of eyeballs and the marketing of users personal data. We all want “free services,” but most people dislike the collection and selling of their personal data or having to sift through advertising … especially when it […]

Tech Friday: There is a problem with live GPS rerouting

| June 7, 2019

A pitfall in real-time GPS mapping services is that, although they “can” highlight road construction and closures, they are not always accurate or give appropriate advice for detours or “route arounds.” This was apparent on a 16 hour drive back from Florida (see comment) and more recently for a road closing leading to our development […]

Tech Friday: Your photo apps are making a lot of “facetile” images

| May 31, 2019

If you are using Apple’s Photos app, you’ve probably noticed the software attempts to identify faces of people (not just Apple either). This can be helpful for “you” to sift through photos, but also seems a bit nosy when the app also builds a pile of “facetile” photos on its own. Most people likely will […]

Tech Friday: Simple advice IF you must use a virtual assistant

| February 22, 2019

TechFriday advice for those of us who enjoy using virtual assistants like those from Google, Apple or Amazon: 1. Change the Default Password on Your Wi-Fi Router 2. Set the Voice Lock 3. Decide Whether You Want to Shop By Voice 4. Understand that Privacy Rights in the US Are on the Way – but […]

Tech Friday: A virtual assistant showing a little humor

| January 25, 2019

It won’t be long before virtual assistants end up in our car … question is, which one will it be? (from what I’m seeing as of 2019, it would be Amazon’s Alexa). Currently Amazon has definitely taken the lead in our home as the affordable Echo Dots are now throughout our house. I … well […]

Granddaughter pleasure and driving with Waze GPS Navigation

| November 21, 2018

This content is restricted.

Google is doing their part to remind citizens to vote

| September 26, 2018

Although I suspect Google management and most of their Silicon Valley  employees are of a left-leaning tilt, there reminder and LINK to "register to vote" is a great universally welcomed message. Hopefully ALL U.S. citizens will exercise the privilege to vote come this November … although personally disagree with non-citizens and illegal aliens voting in […]

Preparing HTTPS server and site security for the eventually day

| July 25, 2018

While doing a bit of server housekeeping on the CPP servers and preparing for the eventual push to make all websites secure for users, I ran across a helpful Qualys SSL Labs site to check on certificates, etc. If you are working to get websites updated and compliant for the day ALL site will need […]

Tech Friday: Google changes their paid Drive cloud storage plans

| May 18, 2018

Like most longtime savvy Internet users, I use Google more than I would like to admit. I try not to depend on them for everything, but just like with online shopping using Amazon … Google is simply the best at what they do: Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Drive/Cloud Storage. The latter has been a […]

Tech Friday: Chrome desktop browser welcomed change

| April 20, 2018

Google today launched Chrome 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. The desktop release includes autoplaying content muted by default, security improvements, and new developer features. You can update to the latest version now using the browser’s built-in updater or download it directly from google.com/chrome.With over 1 billion users, Chrome is both a browser […]

Doppelgänger time with Google Arts and Culture app

| January 16, 2018

Ok … this Google app is a bit personal … but curiosity and some appreciation for art has me interested enough to forgo my privacy concerns. Google updated their Art and Culture app that compares a persons selfie with their huge archive of art from museums and other institutions. The computer-vision technology compares points on […]

TechFriday: Yahoo and Google adopt new look to ire of users

| July 7, 2017

Complaining is getting me nowhere … but those of us old school users of Yahoo and Google continue to be frustrated to see both companies going down the "design for smartphone – card look format" to their pages, even for large display computers. YAHOO A few weeks ago Yahoo Finance forced all users to give […]

Matched content ads by Google Adsense

| May 21, 2017

For those of you who are regular visitors to MyDesultoryBlog and are not running an ad blocker plugin on your browser, you may have noticed a small snippet of new  ad content in the sidebar. Last month, GoogleAdsense offered an upgrade to this blog’s minimal advertising experiment. The new ad content promotes “matched” internal content from similar previous posts […]

Tips on making Gmail easier to use by Joanna Stern, WSJ.com

| May 18, 2017

Great tips from tech writer Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal on dealing with a few Gmail nits most of us using Google’s free services have. See her article at WSJ.com. 1. Priorities, Priorities You may not know it, but Google’s email bots have not one but two ways of automatically organizing your messages: […]

TechFriday: A simple thing – Google Calendar Scroll Disabler

| April 7, 2017

At one time or the other, we have all started to pull our hair out while on the computer and  said, “this is ridiculous, why doesn’t someone fix this!” Well after literally years of waiting for Google to do something about the “sensitive scroll feature” (or curse) when moving through the months in Google Calendar, […]

Pop up reminder on my calendar that today was a birthday

| October 5, 2016

Google calendar has automatically added a few important annual events to my calendar (my settings), but unfortunately it is not artificially intelligent enough to remove or delete. Today I was sent a reminder that we normally celebrate our late dog Tootie’s birthday on October 5th. She is missed and I often catch what I thought […]

Safeguarding Chrome from quantum computers

| July 8, 2016

Will Internet transactions be secure when relatively affordable quantum computers show up? Google is not taking chances and is working on their Chrome browser now (according to The Verge). Google is working on safeguarding Chrome against the potential threat of quantum computers, the company announced today. It’s doing so by implementing post-quantum cryptography in an […]

Quantum computer is 100 million times faster than normal PC

| December 28, 2015

Google and NASA engineers announced that tests with the D-WAVE 2X, the quantum computer developed by them, showed that it’s 100 million times faster than an ordinary computer. The impressive record was achieved in a test in which the D-WAVE 2X ran an optimization problem and found a solution much faster than a conventional computer, […]

TechFriday: iCloud apps are not just for Apple users

| March 20, 2015

Although cloud based apps aren’t for everyone, they have made inroads over the past few years. Googles’ online Docs, Sheets and Slides have been slowly improving and many other players have entered the foray including Microsoft with their Office Online.   Apple has improve their iWorks online apps and offers their Pages, Numbers and Keynote […]

TechFriday: Magic Mouse Mac users and Google Calendar

| February 13, 2015

Judging from the suggestions complaints to Google from users making an accidental “mouse swipe” through their online Calendar app, it looks like I’m not the only one frustrated. The problem of scrolling to the wrong month has existed for years and is most noticeable when using the Apple OS and their Magic Mouse. The sensitivity […]

Nearly 8 years and 10,000 tweets as @richc on Twitter

| November 25, 2014

Twitter has been my preferred social networking connection since February 2007 as @richc (and as a blog announcement @mydesultoryblog) and tweets are nearly 10,000.  Hmm, I wonder what it should be … maybe this post? As for social networking, I prefer Twitter for immediate news, customer service issues and a quick exchange of ideas or […]

TechFriday: Google Sync workaround for the iPhone and iOS

| August 8, 2014

I am late to the game in addressing a workaround for a newer Apple iOS devices (recently updated my iPhone 5 to a “secondhand” 5s) and the changed Google Sync services. The changes happened in 2013, but since my old devices were still working it wasn’t a big deal … now it is! Initially, iOS […]

Tech Friday: Checking for Heartbleed safe sites

| April 18, 2014

No doubt you’ve heard about the latest vulnerability on the Internet known as the Heartbleed bug, but like most web users are pretty much helpless to do anything about it. You can change your passwords, run protection and antivirus software, but until the HTTPS sites correct their SSL sites … you’re spinning your wheels. For […]

Video: Girls having fun doing a 4 person chair trick

| April 12, 2014

It’s about time to include a “just for fun” video from the female perspective, rather than YouTube clips from guys (1, 2, 3). Might be worth trying at a teen sleepover or birthday party?

Tech Friday: Adding Undo Send to your Gmail

| February 21, 2014

Have you ever clicked the “send” button after typing a Gmail and realized you forgot to include something or made a mistake? Maybe addressed the email wrong … or written something that you regret saying? Well Google Labs has a simple, but limited way, to “unSend” that email IF you enable the Undo Send Lab […]

Adsense update with disappointing results

| January 22, 2014

This past weekend was “blog cleanup” as I am in the process of optimizing WordPress on my site and updating the plugin that manages Google’s Adsense — at one time I thought they were non-intrusive, but recently have become obnoxious. Unfortunately after tweaking the size and types of ads they seem even worse that before. […]

Staying in touch with family by video calling

| November 2, 2013

Although video chatting isn’t for everybody, I do appreciate seeing a face and a smile when catching up with my son in North Dakota and daughter in Columbus. Skype was once my preferred method (when “Skype to phone” was free), but now between iPads, iPhones and iMacs it is easier to jump on Facetime. Katelyn […]

TechFriday: Get your Personal Google+ URLs now

| November 1, 2013

There are 3rd party options which redirect long strings for URLs, but most users prefer grabbing the official personalized ones when they are available. Facebook offered user names a couple years ago and Google is slowly getting it together by including real names. You should probably claim your name now if you want a custom […]

Google continues to flex muscle to bolster its G+ social network

| January 3, 2013

I’m not a big social networking guy, but I do send tweets to Twitter, post a newsy story or two to Google+ and send a photo or two to Facebook once a month for family (and to a lessor extent use a few other social networks) … but Google is using its behemoth size to […]

Google phone calls from Gmail for another year (2013)

| December 27, 2012

Good news from Google if you’ve been using the Gmail web interface to make calls to phones. I’ve found call clarity to be top notch and a perfect replacement for what was once a free service from Skype. I still would mind having both services offering free calls in North America, but glad Google will […]

Tech Friday: A test drive of Google Drive

| April 27, 2012

Against my TOS reservations, I installed the PC version of Google Drive on my notebook computer. So far from what I can see – for storage — it’s not all that different from Sugarsync that I used for a couple years and my regularly used Dropbox installation (still preferred at this time). I had thought […]

CNET: Who owns your files on Google Drive?

| April 25, 2012

Before jumping ship from Dropbox, Skydrive or Sugarsync for Google Drive, the new lower price cloud storage solution, be sure to read the TOS agreement. A quick analysis of Google’s terms of service shows how the search company owns the files you upload the minute they are submitted, and can in effect do anything it […]

Gideon Sundback the zipper inventor celebrated on Google

| April 24, 2012

Google’s latest doodle is a zipper down the center of the search engine’s homepage marking the birthday of Gideon Sundback, the Swedish-American electrical engineer creating the “zipper” which revolutionized the clothing industry.  How many times have you “zipped” without thinking that some inventor created this. Before Sundback’s intervention, the idea for a fastener based on […]

Tech Friday: A couple Gmail tricks and a Thunderbird update

| February 3, 2012

I’ve been using Gmail for years and recently found a hidden gem for filtering email. It works particularly well for me while using the Mozilla client Thunderbird, although is equally useful with any other client or the Google’s web client (BTW the upgrade to 10.0 was pushed out this past week).  Without getting overly detailed […]

President Obama connects on a hangout with Google+users

| January 30, 2012

YouTube live at 5:30PM EST on January 30, 2012 Great use of technology, although it certainly does require respectful users … unfortunately a little too much “respect” ends up with friendly to President Obama questioners. The hangout is interesting as I’m only 15 minutes in, but its beginning to sound a little like a campaign […]

Archive: According to Google, winter is here … and cookies!

| December 19, 2011

Fun new winter Google Easter Egg similar to the partial archived list from an earlier post … “Let it snow.” Also thought I’d include the tasty looking Christmas cookies my daughter made … unfortunately she is taking them to work and not bring them too me!

Looks like Google’s Flights search could be helpful

| November 16, 2011

I’m anxious to try Google.com/flights for my next trip planning although I’m not sure it adds much besides the interface over competitive flight planning websites. The search giant has created a convenient way to compare the pricing and scheduled flight times, but in testing a few closer airports and flights it didn’t turn up any […]

Archive: This Google meme has been around …

| November 16, 2011

…but it is still worth sharing and archiving on my blog. Do a barrel roll – http://bit.ly/uT7a9E Google Sphere – http://bit.ly/uXfgyO Epic Google – http://bit.ly/uGANwB Google Gravity – http://bit.ly/nLGzd1 *Tilt/Askew* – http://bit.ly/vNtlSn Google Loco – http://bit.ly/urU8vW Google Gothic – http://bit.ly/v2VhZm Google Pacman – http://bit.ly/s1nNin Google Guitar – http://bit.ly/uiJKH1 Google Pirate – http://bit.ly/tNQmEa Google Rainbow – […]

Trying out Google’s latest music beta. So far, so good.

| November 15, 2011

Thanks to Google+ friend Paul Young, I had a chance to play with Google’s new Music beta on Monday. I can’t say that I’m a must have music listener (I’m not), but I do enjoy listening to tunes once in a while. I’m partial to Pandora but have enjoyed Spotify and do listen to several […]

Google blows the lid of earning and rockets in afterhours trading

| October 13, 2011

I’m watching Google shares after the close (GOOG 558.99 ) jump $40.00 a share  reporting earnings of $8.74 a share, up from from $7.64 per share a year ago. Revenue also increased to $7.51 billion from $5.48 billion last year. According to reports, “analysts had expected Google to post earnings of $8.74 per share and […]

Read only Google Docs and Calendar content available off line

| September 2, 2011

Google web-based products such a docs and calendar were once upon a time available for off line use; thankfully they are now being re-launched. Things are slowly coming back to a more useful state with the new off line viewing (read only) extension for the Chrome browser. I’m looking forward to hopefully once again being able […]

Shifting from Google for web searching

| August 3, 2011

I’ve recently made a switch to a new search engine after reading Google’s Terms of Service Agreement a little more closely. The wording of the TOS along with my security conscious friend’s regular reminders regarding web privacy and information security triggered a search for a better search engine. DuckDuckGo.com offers a free, lean webpage search […]

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
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