Here we are at the tail-end of 2025. First time I have had to be able to sit down and review the state of this blog. I was surprised to see there were two posts this year which is double of that from the year before. The last time the blog was really active was back in 2023. This makes sense given it was towards the end of 2023 when thing changed for me and not in a good way (and this really goes back to this time in 2019) . However, even then it appears it was mostly Twitter/X…
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Once again Microsoft is changing the (not so) beloved Blue Screen of Death (officially know as Stop Error). Back in the Widows 8 days (August 2012) was when Microsoft made the last significant (color) change to Blue Screen of Death. It was changed to a lighter shade of blue and added a frowny face 🙁 plus did away with hexadecimal code. Then with the release of the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition Update in August 2016, they added a scannable QR code making it easier to diagnose and troubleshoot the issue(s). Current Windows 11 BSoD: via Forbes The new (and not…
I have a large collection of images on a thumb drive and been working on renaming many of the older ones into a more standardized naming scheme. I am doing this to better organize the collection (and make the file name easier to read/understand) which involves having the first letter of each word capitalized. However, some files are all lower case while others are all upper case (or even a mixture of cases). When I try to ‘rename’ them within my scheme the changes do not take effect and the file name revers back to the original format. The workaround…
In a way I kind of find this ironic as back around this time in 2015 Microsoft had started their ‘Nag Campaign‘ to get users of Windows 7 and 8.1 devices to take advantage of the ‘free upgrade’ to Windows 10. As the year progressed Microsoft got more and more aggressive with the Get Windows 10 (GWX) campaign even as going as far as to install malware via KB3035583 a (recommended) Windows Update and changing the behavior of the red X on the upgrade screen in late 2016 (something Microsoft sort of apologized for doing). Word comes now that Microsoft…
A quick follow-up on the How To Uninstall/Downgrade Thunderbird 115 (Supernova) post. Since removing Thunderbird 115 aka Super Nova, I have not experienced any other freezes/crashes on my main machine. Again, that issue appeared to be caused by having repeating events in the calendar.
Normally I do not experience issues with Mozilla and their redesigns. Of course, I haven’t used Firefox in years as it became too bloated. I had a family member who ran Pale Moon for that exact reason. I have stuck with Mozilla Thunderbird throughout the years as it has been a good desktop email client. However, this morning I booted up and noticed my Thunderbird icon on the taskbar was different and then when it launched it was way different. My use of Mozilla Thunderbird is to be able to have four Gmail accounts accessible in one centralized location and…
Guessing the post read throttling implemented back at the end of June didn’t help with the ‘bot issue’. So now Elon Musk’s next idea is to charge everyone a small monthly subscription fee. Somehow his logic is this will stop bots in their tracks. Elon Musk has indicated that X, formerly known as Twitter, is considering charging all users for accessing the platform. The X owner said erecting a paywall around the business would ward off the bots, or automated accounts, that have become a bugbear for Musk. That is the lamest excuse I’ve seen. Couldn’t he come up with…
Yet another reason I really don’t want anything to do with Inkjet Printers (regardless if it is an HP or another brand). Back in 2017 I bought what I believe was a Brother wireless color inkjet printer. Thought it would be good for everyone in the household to have easy access to a printer. Turns out, we never used the printer that much and the ink would dry out (especially in our super dry Arizona climate). I think I took it with me when I left and then ended up donating it a couple months later since I had no…
…in the timeline of the final change that kills off Twitter? After 17-years Twitter owner Elon Musk wants to ditch the ‘bird’ logo and instead use his favorite letter ‘X’. Elon Musk said Sunday that he plans to change the logo of Twitter to an “X” from the famous blue bird, marking what would be the latest big change since he bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year. In a series of posts on his Twitter account starting just after 12 a.m. ET, Twitter’s owner said that he’s looking to make the change worldwide as soon as Monday….
On Friday, it became apparent to many Internet users Twitter had walled itself off. No more anonymously reading Tweets on Twitter. Users discovered if they wanted to view Tweets on Twitter they would need a Twitter account and must be logged in. Musk claims this is only temporary due to ‘data scraping’ issues. Several hundred organizations (maybe more) were scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience. What should we do to stop that? I’m open to ideas. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 30, 2023 “Temporary emergency measure,” he claimed in a tweet….