Author Archives: technologybloopers

Fake Products on Amazon

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We have used a Philips Norelco electric shaver that we had bought at Costco off and on for years. (When we didn’t use it, we shaved with various one/two/three/four-blade models, which gave closer shaves. But the convenience and absence of cuts of an electric razor, especially when traveling, makes it practical.) Like any cutting tool, it needs to be sharpened or have its cutting surfaces replaced. Philips Norelco recommends that the shaving heads be replaced every year at the cost of $30. If you search Amazon with a “Norelco-replacement-heads” phrase, you get a plethora of products with a wide range of prices ($14-70), many of them without packaging. The same situation exists for a wide range of products sold by Amazon. Fortunately, there are some companies that are fighting back.

Liars Damn Liars and Statisticians

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We keep seeing reports these days showing that the United States has more deaths from the CoronaVirus than any other country. We wondered if this is correct. The USA does not have the largest population; both China and India have 4-6 times as many people.

And the USA prides itself on the quality of health care. One part of the answer is that the data collection—both methodology and accuracy–varies from country to country. Another part is that the predicting models differ from country to country. And, of course, there are always political issues that could affect the answers.

Broadband Infrastructure Upgrade Needed

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The need for sheltering at home has forced people to do their jobs as well as other activities (e.g., shopping) from home. And even the people living in sparsely-populated areas need the speed and volume of broadband. We were aghast not long ago when the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Ajit Pai initially voted against upgrading to broadband. He has now changed his mind, saying “Broadband is critical in modern American life. Especially when it comes to innovation, the Internet has leveled the playing field.” Not surprisingly, the bureaucracy of the federal government is the villain.

Can Facebook or Other Social Media Reduce Your Productivity?

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We have never had a Facebook account, because we perceived it as a time-waster, fun for people who didn’t have day jobs and accepted the occasional scandals and the fact that their memberships had made Mark Zuckerberg outrageously wealthy. But more recently people have realized not only how much time they had wasted but also how depressed they were and how many impulse purchases it had caused. Although some people want to make sure they don’t miss out of what’s happening, and others actually use Facebook as part of their job, on balance people agree that Facebook does reduce their productivity. And a 2015 survey of people who have to make decisions found that 86% of them believe that social media are not useful. Social media companies like Facebook are a poor substitute for personal meetings.  Zoom and similar alternatives are better for taking care of people that are not present.

Old Misleading Facebook Posts Replaced by New Ones about the Coronavirus

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This isn’t the first time that Facebook has been involved in important political machinations. But this time the people were deathly sick, and were being misled as to the nature of the cause of it and guided to take useless medications. Fortunately, guardian NewsGuardTech detected this misinformation and publicized it. Curiously, this situation has provided Mark Zuckerberg an opportunity to be the good guy because he took thoughtful actions early.

Secure vs. Unsecure Websites

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Most people likely ignore the “Http” or “Https” prefix to a website’s name. But if the information they are entering or working with is confidential, they want to avoid websites with the “Http” prefix. In 2017 Google started pressuring website owners to encrypt communication between the user and the website. The Chrome browser is making it increasingly obvious whether or not a site is secure.

The Apple Watch Is Cool But It May Not Be Productive for You

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As Apple introduces new models of its Watch, it adds new features. If one or more of the new features are especially important to you, that’s OK. Ditto if your goal is to impress your friends. On the other hand, those features take some time to learn. Do you really need a blood-oxygen sensor? But its compactness was important during President Trump’s impeachment trial. 

Microsoft Needs to Fix Outlook

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Microsoft dominates the market for productivity software, with its suite that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. We have been using these tools for many years, and have found them to be well-crafted and free from errors … except Outlook. The following three examples have caused us considerable pain.

First is the matter of duplicate emails. We frequently receive two identical emails, sent a few minutes apart. This is better than receiving none at all, but it wastes our time, and makes a mockery of its putative “productivity” positioning.

Second is its “Quick Print” feature, which simply doesn’t work. Again, it is not the end of the world, but is inexcusable from a company with massive resources and hundreds of software engineers.

Third is its unilaterally creating of new-and-unwanted mailboxes. This caused us considerable pain, because an incoming email from an important new client was incorrectly stuck in this new mailbox that was out of sight because it was below the normal viewing range.

Microsoft Goof of the Month: NSA Discovers Major Security Flaw in Windows 10

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In our earlier days we wrote the software. We, or one or more colleagues, tested it in a variety of ways to make sure that it did what we thought it should do. As time passed the software became more complicated, and the penalties of mistakes increased, so the testing had to become more complicated. In addition, an increasing number of malevolent hackers emerged, necessitating increasingly draconian measures to key them at bay. Even then, the size and complexity of code these days make it very difficult to cover all the possibilities. Fortunately there is a government body, the US National Security Agency, that was doing its mission appropriately.