Ramblings of a Luddite Geek

Several weeks ago I took the plunge and bought myself a cell phone.  This leaves my brother as possibly the only person in the USA who doesn...

A coworker had just bought a refurbished computer with Windows 7 OS and was dutifully applying updates.  He noticed a new icon in the taskba...

As of Wednesday Microsoft started giving away Windows 10.  What would you be giving away if you upgrade?  Privacy?  Security?  Performance? ...

Here's the scenario....  Your Android device presents you with a choice of apps to complete an action with.  You're supposed to sele...

Yesterday, my laptop wouldn't charge when I plugged it in.  The battery had drained overnight, so the laptop was unusable.  I quickly fi...

I'm still using Excel 2003 at work.  It does all we need it to do. And at home, Open Office's Calc is so compatible that I can for...

Today I found myself wanting to reverse the order of sheet tabs in an Excel file.  The VBA code snippet below does just that. Sub Workshe...

Fluorescent lights produce a lot of light for little power.  My kitchen lights, which use two T9 bulbs, are rated at 32 W , 2400 lm and 22 ...

About six years ago, I mused about what to do with an old computer , a 500MHz Pentium III.  My idea was to reformat the hard drive (20GB) an...

The back door of our home never quite opened and closed smoothly. It was necessary to lift the doorknob while closing it in order to prevent...

I was writing a tutorial in Microsoft Word that describes commands that the reader is supposed to enter at the command prompt.  I thought it...

Friday on NRP, Morning Edition featured the Blackphone, a smart phone with privacy as its number one priority.  Also mentioned were Black, B...

After upgrading to Outlook 2010 over a year ago, it became apparent that its junk email filter continued to work even after we disabled it. ...

I rarely insert hyperlinks into an Excel spreadsheet.  So every time I do, I get burned by Excel's predilection for turning Absolute pat...

What kind of Geek could resist an opportunity to improve his or her mind?  If there is such a geek, I am not that kind. So when I heard th...

In a post that included Outlook VBA code , I mentioned that I stopped using the macro because of Outlook's tougher security. Today, I ...

So far my tablet is leading me to the conclusion that it's not worth buying one.  While the portability of it is really neat, it's s...

The IRS recently was criticized for scrutinizing certain organizations applying for tax free status.  It seems that organizations that had ...

It all started with a blog post by Sacha Chua that made me think, "I bet there's an app for that."  She described how she set...

I concede that I was exaggerating a bit when I referred to my new tablet as "a GPS device, RF scanner, MP3 player, eReader, camera, dig...