Web/Tech

Having fast internet no longer is a luxury, if it ever was. A year into the Covid crisis, it's clear that access to genuine broadband -- defined by the FCC as at least 25 megabits per second download (25 Mbps) and three megabits per second (3 Mbps) upload -- is a necessity.  Distance learning can't happen without it. Working from home can't happen without it. Keeping in touch with friends and family can't happen without it. Streaming entertainment can't happen without it. OK, I've exaggerated a bit.  Those things can happen with slower internet. However, I speak from experience when…

Yesterday the long-awaited box from Starlink arrived after I'd been notified that I was able to be part of the public beta test for this groundbreaking effort to bring broadband to underserved areas via thousands of low-altitude satellites. I happily paid for the equipment. Naturally I was eager to open it up. At first glance, I wondered if somehow they'd forgotten to put the equipment inside. But no, the goodies were under the cleverly fashioned plastic cover: satellite dish, tripod, router,, and cables. Showing how old I am (72), I looked around for an installation manual. Then I realized that…

I live in a rural area near Salem with crappy CenturyLink DSL the only broadband option -- if you can call about 7 mbps download and 1 mbps upload "broadband." CenturyLink has told me that they are going to bring fiber optic broadband to our neighborhood exactly never.  And fast 5G wireless likely will be available in our area in the wilds of Oregon (six miles from the Salem city limits, the state capital, but it might as well be six hundred miles) at about the same time -- almost never. So Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network is my best…

OK, of all the problems in the world right now -- which includes the coronavirus pandemic -- having the Touch Bar stop working on my almost brand-new 16 inch MacBook Pro ranks fairly low. But it's still irritating. That black strip at the top of my keyboard is where the Touch Bar is supposed to light up. offering all kinds of nifty shortcuts, along with basic controls like changing the volume and brightness. For three years the Touch Bar on my 13 inch MacBook Pro that I bought in 2016 worked perfectly. However, the keyboard had the dreaded problem where…

I can't remember how many 13 inch MacBook Pro laptops I've owned. Five, maybe? I've used this marvelous computer for so long, they all blur together in a blend of great design, excellent software, and pleasing ergonomics. Well, my late 2016 13-incher, shown on the right, is a notable exception in one regard: the keyboard. Along with countless (more or less) other MacBook Pro users, I encountered the dreaded repeating keystroke problem about six months ago.  This common problem was caused by Apple inexplicably changing from a scissors-style keyboard that worked well to a butterfly-style keyboard that didn't -- apparently…

I love my MacBook Pro. Like most Apple products, almost all of the time it works great. I no longer fear major operating system upgrades, like I did when I was a Windows user many years ago.  The "blue screen of death" is an almost forgotten memory. I trust Apple software to do its thing without fuss or bother, and usually that trust is rewarded. But Apple stopped making its own printers decades ago. The apparent reason is that no one makes much money selling printers. The big bucks is in selling the cartridges needed to keep the printer functioning. Which…

It's always scary for me to switch to a new iPhone. I think I've got post-traumatic Windows disorder, given my memories of encountering the "blue screen of death" when I tried to install a new version of that operating system during a time of my life I'm now ashamed of -- a few years when I stopped using an Apple computer because I (wrongly) thought it would be better to be part of the much wider Windows world than the much smaller Cult of Apple. Actually, almost always the changeover to a new iPhone has gone glitch-free for me. But…

I was a Kickstarter supporter of the Pictar camera grip for the iPhone, which isn't really an accurate name for the gadget, since in addition to being a grip it also offers an easy way to control the basic iPhone photo features while adding new ones through some software magic. Having recently gotten my Kickstarter reward, I tested it out on a dog walk here in rural south Salem, Oregon. Before sharing some of the photos I took and my first-impression review of the device, here's what the Pictar grip offers: Well, you don't get an iPhone with it, obviously.…