Columns

An upcoming event to watch for this new year of 2015 is the debut of Microsoft’s newest Operating System, Windows 10.  Some people aware of Windows 7 and Windows 8 may be asking “What happened to Windows 9?”

Once I received a call from a woman quite agitated that her computer had inexplicably lost its connection to the internet two days earlier.  When I arrived she showed me her wireless access point with its little antennas sitting in the front room of the house.  I went to work testing it using my own laptop and quickly ascertained that her internet connection was working very well; there was a good strong wireless signal with the identifier (SSID) named “Motorola” or something like that.

Regular readers of this column are well aware of my incessant reminders to use a cryptographically-strong password for your email account.  For years I have been urging, nay proselytizing, that everyone should use a password at least a dozen characters in length with a mix of upper and lower case, letters and numbers, with a few symbols thrown in.  Today is the day I am going to backtrack just a little bit on this recommendation because of an experience I recently had.

Online security is a subject about which many more people are now aware even though most internet users lack much understanding in this area. That is not a criticism; after all, one does not have to understand computerized electronic fuel-injection systems in order to drive an automobile. There are a couple of changes coming to online security in 2015, and I hope that everyone reading this will benefit from a little more understanding of what these changes really mean.

Happy New Year 2015 is not starting out as such a Feliz Año Nuevo for many Spanish speakers around the world.  Two weeks ago Google announced the shutdown of news reporting in Spain due to a new law that went into into effect January 1 in the Iberian nation.  Google now omits news reports originating from Spanish publishers from appearing in more than 70 Google News international editions due to the new law requiring aggregators to pay if they link content.

The column appearing here a few weeks ago brought several email responses to my inbox.  I hesitate to refer to them as hostile, but it is clear to see that some readers of the Reporter do not agree with my assessment of the quality of computer hardware being sold today.  Obviously there are some people who are kidding themselves into believing they can pay as little as US$300 for a new laptop computer and that it will be equal in quality to one costing US$5,000.  In the real world that kind of wishful thinking only leads to disappointment.  Since one reader went so far as to question my sources I would like to take this opportunity to provide some specific attribution.