A new year, A new DNS provider: A review of DNS Made Easy

As mentioned previously, on December 31, 2013 my previous DNS provider (Zerigo) decided to change their entire business model and create price increases for myself and many (probably all) of their customers, which they try to defend with this cute little note: http://www.zerigo.com/news/notice-zerigo-dns-change-of-plans As I had not been sleeping very much that day I was […]

This blog is a mess

This blog has been a lot of things over time. It started as my public-facing journal and in many ways still reflects that role, but as discussed in previous posts, the need for that role is narrowing. In August this blog will be 10 years old. I have documented my experiments in ceramic arts and […]

DNS Problems Again!

A few months ago (May 2013) I had problems with Zerigo, their servers were being constantly threatened by denial of service attacks. They overcame those issues by partnering with network infrastructure companies to provide a more distributed system. This solution has worked well, but apparently it wasn’t the end of the changes for Zerigo. I […]

Fall 2013 Paper Available

Normally at the conclusion of a semester I have multiple academic papers to release, but for this semester there is only one. This is as a result of only one of my courses having a major written component that would be appropriate for publication. This paper is now available for download.   Commodified Gender Performance […]

What might a user want to put on ice?

To follow up on my previous post, what sort of applications might a user find to be unnecessary of unwanted? Below is a list of things that I have frozen currently. These apps have not been uninstalled, just prohibited from running without first being thawed and authorized. This list obviously does not include some applications […]

The Root of Android

Lately a lot of phone and tablet manufacturers have become more determined at preventing users from accessing some of the lower level functions of their devices. Things like Samsung KNOX or the overly protective Amazon Kindle Fire OS really irritate me. First of all, the device belongs to the user, not the manufacturer or carrier […]

Comma Separated Volumes

In my professional work I have had to do a lot of custom coding for things, just because people I work with are “special” and generally don’t do things in a standard way. I’m fine with that, actually, I love that. There are some things that I feel as though I shouldn’t have to “custom […]

Selling False Security

For the past two weeks the above ad has been appearing on my Facebook timeline. I would like to air my concerns regarding this ad. There are some problems with the claims on this ad that I find to be very obvious. There is a flat assumption that storing your passwords in the cloud is […]

PDF for Academics

I have made numerous negative critiques of the things I see that are done badly in academia regarding the use of PDF scans. Perhaps its time that I document those critiques more seriously and provide a few suggestions on how to have a happy PDF experience. First of all, avoid scanning if you can. If […]