Brian is writing this one

By BD Bondy

It was pointed out that I haven’t written a tech tip in a few weeks. There are all kinds of plausible reasons for that; I was injured in a terrible accident, I got lost in the woods, I forgot. All very possible if you know me. In this case, I just got behind and didn’t make Carol’s deadline so she went and got some tech tips from her ‘tech tip work husband’ Rick Rouse.

We’re in Chicago, in a hotel on a rainy day, and I am neither in an accident, or lost. And she’s right there, so I can’t forget. But what do I write about?

I should ask, are you backing stuff up? Cloud storage is an easy way to do it and you probably even get bugged by some company to buy more storage. It’s a good idea.

Do you have a decent surge protector? I use them but I’m not a believer. I think you should unplug stuff during a thunderstorm, still, it can’t hurt. I have UPS’s, Uninterruptible Power Supplies. They are also surge protectors. They will carry you through the annoying blips in our electric service. Every couple of years or so they will also annoyingly beep at you so you can buy a new battery for them.

How about Social Media? Don’t believe ANYTHING. You should get the news from trustworthy News sites that have paid journalists. Lou Reed said: “Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.”  In these days of fake news and AI generated video, it may be impossible to believe any of what you see. It’s best to think for yourself, and question everything.

I was reading a tech article, looking for what to talk about here, and it was suggesting using some of these AI programs, trying them out, testing what you can do with them. I’m afraid that I have been remiss in that area. I have not tried any of them. I will, I promise. Just like the Waymo self driving taxi, I will try out an AI program in some way, and I will report back to you all.

Just not today.
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