Tag: Technology

And I’m really trying not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but has anyone else noticed a significant slowdown of SPAM in their email?

I mean really noticeable!

Whereas, in recent months my email had been inundated with all kinds of crap, now, quite suddenly, it’s eerily quiet. 

Again, not complaining, just fascinated and curious about what’s happening.

It’s been so slow that I actually wondered if my email was broken. 

I could understand one account being quiet, I’m trying to phase out accounts that I don’t use anymore. But this is a marked reduction in junkmail across several accounts. 

I was hoping that my stellar programming of junk filters had been responsible. Then I checked the servers and found that, alas, my junk filters were as inefficient as always, and there was nothing being caught by the built in server filters either.

For a moment I was excited though.

Could it be that people aren’t falling for the scams in the junkmail anymore, so the spammers aren’t sending email?

Nah, unlikely there are way too many morons out there.

As PT Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”.

I just had a dark thought. Suppose the SPAM / Phishing emails are slowing because they’re no longer necessary?

What if due to the breaches at the OPM, IRS, and various Health care companies the SPAMMERS have all the information that they need? 

That would truly suck. 

I’m hoping it’s just that I’ve gotten lucky and various ISPs handling my email have installed some killer filters.

I’m not holding my breath… I think I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The new battery from newer technology that’s in my computer is working out very nicely.

As they said on their web site, it took several charge / recharge cycles to get the full runtime out of the battery.

Not that there wasn’t immediate improvement after the replacement. Initially my runtime went to 5 hours, now we’re at about 7. Obviously that depends on what I’m doing.

The time will vary. But I’ve noticed a couple of other interesting things.  Microsoft Word is pretty energy efficient. BBEdit is also very frugal on its power usage. With a little experimentation I’ve found that I can stay on battery easily most of a standard workday, all I have to do is choose which apps I’m running carefully. For example, do I need to have Safari opening to an automatically refreshing news page while I’m working on other things? Nope! Do I need the full power of Word, when all I’m doing is scribbling down some notes that I’ll later fold into a larger document? Nope!

In spite of the frustrations and challenges, I’d call the battery fiasco, a win. I’ve learned some things and am more active in my power management.

I’d love to test the claims of OtherWorld Computing regarding their 1 Terabyte solid state drive. They claim that the drive uses less power and is faster than the drive that came with my computer. I’m just not ready to pony up $450 to put their claims to the test.

The funniest thing about my desire for a bigger drive, is the staggering capacity that still remains on my current drive.

I clearly recall when I got appreciative “Ooos and ahhs” because I had a 486 Class PC with 80 MB of hard drive storage.

Now I’m looking at my remaining hard drive space, 150 GB and thinking, “Wow, I don’t have much space left.”

For that matter, I remember my first laptop got an astounding 2 hours of runtime on a charge. Now a two hour runtime signals the need for battery replacement.

It’s interesting, how our perceptions change.